XPS M1530 : Temperature problem

;^) There is an application called FanGUI.  It's shareware, and it allows one to control the laptop's cooling fans.  One can set the temperature threshold at which the fans will be switched on, and how fast the fans should go at each temperature.  So, they could kick in at half speed at first to save power, then kick in to high gear when/if the temperature hits a higher threshold.

It's difficult to describe every detail, but the application is a real Godsend.  Just run an Internet search for it, and you'll agree that it's the bee's knees.

Hey there mate,

I have the same problem with my XPS M1530. I've managed to get a screenshot showing MAX temps of 96C, but I'm sure it's gotten hotter during some of those really hot days in summer. I've been in contact with Dell, they told me to update to the latest BIOS and nVidia drivers also. I don't think it's done much at all.

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to buy an external laptop cooler and see what happens. Firstly, it'll raise the back of the laptop on my desk which is more comfortable for viewing and typing. Secondly, I'm hoping it will allow me to put the laptop on my 'lap' (notice how the word lap is part of laptop Dell??) without burning me. This is a post I've put elsewhere, but since it's related I'll put it in here as well in case people see this and not the other.

Is there anyone that already owns a Dell XPS M1530, got absolutely sick of the ridiculous operating temperatures, and bought a laptop cooler? If so, what did you buy and are you happy with it? For those people who don't have an M1530, could you please recommend the cooler that will give me the greatest cooling, but I also want (if possible) the ergonomic design that lifts the back of the laptop to rise the screen height and make typing more comfortable. I also want to be able to use the laptop on my lap.

My M1530 gets very very hot. In fact, here is a screenshot of the temps it reached when I was playing Crysis. Take note of the MAX temps, as these are the temps that were experienced while I was playing the game. The current temps are more-or-less idling in windows afterwards (still cooling down).



Not pretty, and not comfortable for my hands sweating on the aluminium finish on top. I had the laptop flat on a hard surface (my desk) with these temps. I've lifted the back of it to try and get more airflow underneath, and I get a drop in temperatures of about 3-5C. Still not enough in my opinion.

If I can get something decent, cost doesn't particularly worry me. I would prefer silver in colour, but if the best is black, I'll have black. I want something that isn't too noisy generally (as I will use it all the time to raise the back of the laptop) but I don't care if it's noisy when I ramp the fan speed up for gaming. The design of the M1530 underneath looks like:





So you can see that the fan is situated up the back of the laptop. I noticed a few of the coolers had the fans/holes located towards the front, which I don't think would suit the M1530.

I've been looking for a few days now, but a lot of coolers just don't seem to cut it. I want the best, with a few things as I said above.

Your help would really be appreciated!

Thanks guys for the replies!

As I know, there's no way to control the fans with the XPS M1530, because the bios block it. So , software as SpeedFan or fanGUI, won't work.

This weekend I called to DELL. The technical support guy was so friendly. Btw, He replied me that DELL is not noticed about this problem. I hope someone from DELL will read his own forum to detect this problem, and see that I'm not the first , neither the last, with this issue. So, I guess the only hope is wait for a new bios release.

I will post some links I found, just to store in one post all the info. One of them is a new post in the dell forums. So, we're not alone! People with new computer is in trouble too! Come on DELL!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=209251

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=231936

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21587

http://www.nordichardware.com/forum/dell-xps-m1530-fan-control-vt10416.html?sid=b5a95f96fdacf0c437c06166e52635c1

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=49861

http://www.nordichardware.com/forum/-vp26478.html?sid=588380b3be64983757a581fd4d41d39a

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19257627.aspx

Hope this will be helpfully!

No, there's no news related to this issue.

I have to send my laptop to Dell, and they will repair it. Now, I'm extremely busy to do it, so I will wait a month and a half or something like this, to finish my current projects. Then I will send it, for sure.

I hope your laptop is still in warrany.

I got the same problem, even worse... my M1530 shuts off when I play games such Half Life 2 and the temperature raises. Do you have something new from the dell support?

Thanks

Thanks for the fast response!

Yes is still under warranty but I'm very busy too.

But if I am able to arrange my time to send the laptop before you, I will post the results.

Greetings

Hey, ive also got an XPS M1530 and yeah ive got the same problem with it. Ive had many problems with it right from when I pulled it out of the box. Ive already sent it in once on another issue and had the motherboard replaced. Now theyve said that theyre gonna send someone over to replace the fans and the heatsink... I did already purchase a zalman tech ZM-NC1000 notebook cooler and yeah it did help, with the cooler the laptop will run for a good 30 mins before shutting itself down where as before it would shut itself down in only about 10 mins into a game =/

Seems like a common problem.

I purchased my M1530 around last Christmas, and haven't noticed much problems with overheating until recently (and I used to put it through slavery such as dual-boxing gaming etc). For the past few months, however, I've been noticing that my keyboard is almost burning to the touch (thanks to the metal casing), and the laptop's suffered through a few shutdowns. Some of my friends with Lenovo see their CPUs at 40-50 degrees normally, but the only time I ever see my CPU at 40-50 degrees is after I have turned it off for a number of hours, and even while idling the temp will climb up to 65-70 in about five minutes. My idling temperature right now is around 70 degrees. Opening several applications will bring the temperature up to about 75 degrees. Mind you this is if I elevate the laptop to help air circulation - otherwise even playing flash tetris easily brings the temperature to 80+. However even with elevation running a game client will make the CPU temperature climb to astronomical highs. My highest registered was 94 degrees, at which I had to resort to using compressed air on the vents. The bottom of my computer is so hot it can probably cook something... And as we have discovered fan control software are quite useless with our BIOS.

Since I haven't had this problem since the beginning like some, I wonder if this is a case of dust build-up on the fans. It's a pain to have to constantly monitor the temperature and restrict computing power usage, and I'm not about to void my warranty and open up the casing to clean it myself. I suppose I'll call up DELL and ask them to do something about this soon. If by some miracle they suggest something useful I will definitely update here. 

Firstly is that just sitting flat on the desk? Also, I have 3 year premium warranty on my XPS. Do you think doing something like this would void the warranty?

I'm idling right now; I only have Firefox and the hardware monitor app open. The laptop is sitting flat on the desk. My GPU is 67C, and my CPU is 54C. The HDD is 43C. It's ridiculous.

Replacing the thermal paste sounds promising, but all depends on warranty for me.

sitting flat, using the small battery... I recently did the thermal paste swap, so it's still curing... but yeah I am idling at around 38 celsius... I too have the 4+1 extended warranty, in addition I also have the accidental coverage for 4 years.... if you are comfortable working on computers then this should be something you can handle, otherwise maybe it be best if you take it to a mom and pop computer repair shop... it's on my lap right now and it's nice and cool, have been using it for about an hour now...

the heat is all the heat that builds up.... heat kills pc components, so that's why I decided to go through with the thermal paste replacement...

Ahh cool then (pun intended). Yeh I'm certainly comfortable doing it as I repair/build PC's as a side job. It was just the warranty issue. I've upgraded RAM and the HDD in this already, but I kept the original parts so I could swap them back in the event of a warranty claim. This is just more of a permanent thing which was my concern.

With the thermal paste, how do you put it on? I've seen some use the "put a blob and push down the sink" technique, whilst others spread it out nice and thin first then place the sink on top. What method did you use?

I have always used a smaller than a grain of rice technique, usually it's a bit bigger than that and then just press down on the heat sink and allow it to spread on its own...

The problem is not the heat sink, it's the cheap stuff that is used as thermal paste, I replaced my thermal paste on my CPU and GPU with Arctic Silver 5 and temps have been reasonably lower.... right now it's running at 39 celsius, under load peak has been 70 celsius...

C2D T9500 2.6

Geforce 8600M GT

3 days since replacing paste, I have gotten temps down to 32 celsius.... fan cycles on and off...

Take a look here.

Hi,

I'm having overheating problems too with my XPS M1530.

I cleaned my fan with compressed air, blew out an awful lot of dust from it that was blocking the fan like a hairball. Pretty amazed at how much dust came out of the thing!

However, I turn my laptop on and the fan no longer works :emotion-12: I don't know what to do now. I can't even run the Dell diagnostic tool as that turns off my laptop.

The only thing keeping my laptop barely cool  now is a cooling pad (it's normal operating range now for just one firefox tab is 75-80 degrees celcius).