Dell Precision 5530 heats up and fans work very frequently

Hi, i have the same problem

I’m using this laptop for solidworks but in small assemblies, the processor thermal throttle while being use at 15 to 20 % and solidwoks become rely chopi. 

I noticed it is thermal throttling as soon as the cpu hit 3.8Ghz or above. I tried undervolting the cpu but it makes the laptop unstable even if the undervolt is very very small.

The dell diagnostic does not reveal any hardware problem. So i have no idea what’s causing the problem. 

When a first got it, this problem did not exist. 

Dell told me they have to replace the motherboard and the cooling system. The laptop is only 2 month old..... A bit disappointed for such an expensive machine. 

Can someone help me understand how this could be a hardware problem because everything is working just a bit too hot ? 

Thanks in advance 

Ivan,

Help or hinder here's my 2 Cents as I do strongly suspect cooling issue design for the laptop. Here's why.

Our company got 12 of the Precision 5530 laptops about 3 months ago and I've been seeing windows 10 blue screens and one had the motherboard and m.2 SSD both fail.

 They are using autocad packages for modeling and drafting between client locations and the office and do get heavy fan speeds, which is expected. Please note we are using the laptops with K16A docking stations with dual monitors in the office, meaning the laptops "can" be ran with the display closed.

So after dealing with warranty (they replaced both, even though the SSD drive is blank) and the trouble shooting I started to notice the placement of the cool air intake on the bottom. They put exhaust between the LCD hinge and the main body, which with the lid closed ( when all the users do when docked) it really restricts the air flow.

Now I can't blame heat for all the blue screens we have seen on the 5530's (I'd say average 3 a month for the group that are reported to me) but as they got the i.t department Precision 3520's which we have yet to see a single bluescreen. Keep in mind there are just 2 versus 12 and only I am using autocad/Navisworks to do light work and Database administration. 

  Take it for what it is.

I found this thread while searching for a resolution for this exact same issue. 

Got this machine in July 19. I have 2 DELL monitors,  a DELL USB mouse and DELL USB keyboard that I connect to it using a DELL docking station, so I would expect them to just work together.

Initially, thought the issues were being caused by the docking station. So tried different models of it.

1. DELL WD15

2. DELL TB16 240W (thinking a bit of power boost would help alleviate the problem)

3. DELL WD19 (thinking the latest and greatest would finally fix it)

Now DELL says they need to replace the motherboard. This is supposed to be a premium business laptop, turns out it is a lemon. Very Disappointed !

I too have the same problem with my brand new precision 5530. The noise of the laptop fan is really irritating. I tried several things but couldn't get this problem addressed. What I observed is, I keep the laptop charger connected all the time while using. I removed the charger and surprisingly, the noise is now gone. I have been working in a silent room for about 30 minutes now and don't hear the fan noise any more. Its worth a shot. Good luck.

I am in the process of creating a document with pictures to send our Dell representative to show them how poorly designed this particular model is. This is the second or third cleaning I have performed on the machine since June 2019. There should obviously be a mesh between the CPU/GPU fans and the bottom case cover, but since there isn't the machine doubles as a desktop vacuum cleaner (value-adding at its finest). I can't upload pics to this forum, but our rep will get a copy. Also, none of the BIOS updates have fixed the thermal issue either, so this thing is a walking time bomb. The user stated that it was so hot when she took it out of her bag at the end of December that she thought it was capable of starting a fire and at 94 C while idling I wouldn't be surprised if some of her components are slowing cooking themselves into a quick hardware death.

We have some Precisions 5530 in company and personally I use mine for around 5-4 months. Couple of days ago it started heating and fans were very loud. I did troubleshoot and then restart today but it went silent after 4 hours so I don't know if this was thanks to that. My temporary solution was to put a book underneath so the air would flow. Without it the laptop was very hot, no surprise of course. I will open the lid later today to check the state of paste.

Pictures added.

I have the same problem with fun constantly running. I have already put an aluminium extruded profile underneath. But fun is constantly running when plugged to my TB16 240w. Due to high quality of this product, I have already 3rd motherboard exchanged so a believe it is engineering fail. The problem is in thunderbolt and docking station. I have been trying different power management settings.

Hey engineers from DELL! My wife has very poor laptop, when she is scrolling facebook I never noticed her fun was running, why my laptop needs so much cooling for the same thing even though I have aluminium body????When I was buying this laptop, in material was written: Engineered to excel? WHAT IS THAT MEAN EXACTLY.

Note: I have 3rd motherboard, replaced fun, clean reinstall of windows, Drivers and BIOS up to date. If I would counting the time (money) I spent with servicing this laptop since I bought it (january 2019), you would give me another one for free!

Same issue here. Disabling Turbo Boost in BIOS brought the fan down to an acceptable level for me. Not ideal but I think speed is still acceptable for me. The Dell Power Manager has a Quiet mode which was quiet, but it had too much of an impact on performance. I also tried disabling Hyper Threading and reducing the Core count, but Turbo Boost seemed to have the most effect. I didn't seem to find a way to reliably disable the GPU, even when disabled Task Manager still reported application using it, maybe because I'm using the Type-C DisplayPort?

As you have mentioned above the BIOS is updated to latest? Can you confirm what is the version used in the system? Have you tried checking if the issue persists in safe mode with networking. While the fan noise issue mentioned above is it rattling noise or mechanical noise? When does the noise occur, during any particular update or usage of program?^P

I have this same issue. However, I'm unwilling to sacrifice performance for noise reduction. 

The interesting thing is that when I initially started using the laptop, I didn't have any issues. The noise seemed to happen some time after March of last year and I have since begun to think it was due to one of the driver or bios updates that occurred since March. Though I honestly don't know which one would have been responsible. 

I've also noticed that the more tabs I have going in Edge (the chromium version) or in Chrome, the more it seems to trigger the fans. This is probably only semi-related though. 

I'm having the same problem with my (comany issue) laptop. The docking station does not support twin monitors without plugging the external power supply into the laptop, and this seems to contribute to overheating thus making the fans run almost constantly.

The motherboard and SSD has already been replaced under warranty after they got fried a couple of months ago and it seems likely this will happen again as the underlying probem is still there.

Raising the laptop off the desk or propping hte lid slightly open sems to reduce the symptoms a bit.

I agree with the previous comments about the Precision 5530 poor hardware quality. I took delivery of mine in April 2019 and had the motherboard replaced less than a month later when it wouldn't boot (not an SSD problem). At first, the mated TB16 was not much better, constantly connecting and disconnecting its devices. That docking station was also replaced by Dell within a month of purchase.

Thankfully, the last ~10 months have been stable. Like other posters to this thread, I have been experiencing a lot of fan noise when the CPU isn't really doing much. To combat this, I use a free utility called RealTemp https://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/ that allows disabling of Turbo. Unfortunately, the setting is not "sticky" -- putting the computer in hibernate and then restoring will default Turbo to turn on again.

RealTemp from https://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/