Dell Precision 5540 heat management and fan problems

I have the same problem, I tried to uninstall all DELL application (except DELL assistant) and found no difference, the CPU usage is really low but the temperature is always 60 Celsius which is hot when I touches my hand on it.

I'm having the same issue with my Precision 5540. Fan runs all the time, laptop is too hot to even sit on my lap, and battery goes from full to empty in about an hour, when the only things open are Outlook, and Chrome.

on Windows 10 | hit Start | type "Graphic settings" and open | Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling
switch ON this property seems to have fixed the issue heat up issue on Precision 5540

I did have heat problems with my Precision 5540 and the 1 TB SSD (Micron)

Either during heavy network traffic by cable, but also when idle I did get unexpected OS reboots.

Before the Severe Event 6801 occurs Windows Event Manager writes that the core dump cannot been written

After the enforced reboot I did get error 2000.0155 boot device not installed.

After a second reboot the machine boots and works well.

This occurs just once or twice a month.

Dell customer support wants to force me to reinstall the machine, which is quite a lot of work.

For me this looks clear for a hardware problem.

I did read somewhere in the forums that the combinded USB/3  Thunderbolt chip is not cooled enough and causes that problems.

Should by a symptom of all XPS and Precisions

What do you think?

Based on my experience with 1.9.1 EFI BIOS release updating EFI / BIOS is not enough and W10 need to reinstalled (after this thermal management (fan behaviour) was OK). After clean reinstall I suggest enable System Restore point on system partion C:. Then install Dell Command Update to find only missing drivers. Then check if thermal management is satisfying. Then optionally install Dell Power Manager (enable  and check thermals again.

The thermal design on this laptop clearly has stepped backward compared to its older 5520 cousin but the solution that has worked so far for me is to stop dumping so much heat in to the inadequately designed exhaust system. The easiest way to stop dumping so much heat in is to leave some performance on the table.

In Windows:

1. Search for "Edit Power Plan" to bring up "Edit Plan Settings".
2. Select "Change advanced power settings"
3. Click the [+] next to "Processor power management"
4. Click the [+] next to "Maximum processor state"
5. Set "Plugged in" to 90%.
6. (Optional) Set the "On Battery" to 50% for a large boost in battery life

After doing this, average temperatures dropped from 100C at idle to 52C at idle in an ambient room temperature of about 25C (77F). Fans stopped spinning audibly at idle and spin up as necessary now. By reducing the max processor state on battery to 50%, I have easily doubled battery life and the fans rarely have to turn on at all. This does slow things down a little bit, but the performance tradeoff is necessary to make this laptop useful again.

Turn off Turbo Boost when using a Precision 5540 with one of Intel's more powerful SoCs.

I too endured overheating and excess fan noise issues with a recently acquired Dell Precision 5540 / UEFI 1.21.0 / Intel Core Processor i7-9850H / Wi-Fi 6 AX200 / nVidia Quadro T2000 / 32GB / UltraSharp FHD IGZO4, 1920x1080, AG, NT, w/Prem Panel Guar, 100% sRGB color gamut, Platinum Silver notebook computer.

Being a Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon user who also came to the conclusion that reducing the SoC's thermal output was key to taming system temps and fan noise, I entered the laptop's UEFI Utility and then disabled Turbo Boost. Doing so worked, is easy to do and is reversible.

All turbo Boost does is to selectively boost the operating frequency of a subset of the SoC's cores to an unsustainable level for the purpose of countering sudden demands for more processing power, thus the skyrocketing SoC temperatures.

In this regard, Turbo Boost amounts to an Intel-sanctioned & promoted, automated OC'ing process which generates residual heat beyond what the Precision 5540's thinner case and cooling system can dissipate when Turbo Boost is enabled on more powerful Intel SoCs.

Note:

Consumer demand for ever-thinner notebook computers sporting ever-more powerful SoCs is largely to blame for this issue. As gaming laptops show, a big case and larger fans are needed to tame temps effectively.

As fans of tools, not toys computers understand, an over-heating PC is a malfunctioning PC whose unchecked excessive heat increases the prospect of system destabilization and accelerated component wear.

Turn off Turbo Boost when using a Precision 5540 with one of Intel's more powerful SoCs.

It's a five year old machine.   Take the back off and clean the fans.   I had a machine going high velocity and the fans were absolutely caked and I pulled massive amounts of crud out from under the top of the fans.   Unit has been silent since.

@t3hbeowulf​ This is actually the most useful tip from here, fans stopped just about 2 minutes after making this changes.