Bought Second Hand 5150 - Problems

Question

I bought this second hand through a third party. Straight away I noticed it was over heating and causing the screen to go weird. It gets lots of little lines and when I try and play The Sims the characters get surrounded by little squares until the screen is full of them. I contacted Dell and although I didn't have the previous owners details they took it in to fix it. It came back and still the fan was not kicking in and the lines and squares still were there. Is there a manual way to make the fan go off as it never seems to ? Also I managed to email the guy whose laptop it was to ask him to change the service tag details to me as now Dell is refusing to do anything else, and the guy hasn't got back to me. I'm a bit gutted as I paid £350 for a laptop that I wanted to replace my old pc, and now am finding I can't do anything I really wanted to on it.

rwm32 · Answer

Unless the 5150 is still under Dell's warranty, if there is any way at all of returning the laptop and getting your money back, do it.   If it is still under warranty, Dell should be able to transfer support to you if you can fax them a receipt.   Assuming no warranty and no refund, search these forums for '5150 overheating' and find instructions on cleaning out the heatsink radiator grille.  This is essential to stop the overheating which is killing your machine.   Google 'Ik8fangui' and download the fan control utility. This enables you to keep track of the CPU temperature (should idle at around 45C if you've got Speedstep enabled), as well as letting you set the temp at which the fan comes on.   However, getting the 5150 to run cool now may still be too late to save your video card, which sounds as if it is already damaged.  If all else fails, you can replace the video card, but it will set you back another £70 - £90 to get a factory reconditioned one with a 1-yr warranty from a parts vendor (much more from Dell). You could get one a good deal cheaper on e-Bay.

Mary G · Answer

I don't think you should spend any money trying to fix it. As you've found out the hard way, the 5150 was a bad model that has always had severe overheating/motherboard problems and that's why Dell tried to fix it. If there's any chance to return it and get your money back, do it. Or sell it for parts. Put the money towards a new laptop from Dell with a decent warranty.

Angel_Leaf · Answer

Thanks for the help, it was still under warranty and the original owner did get back to me but to be honest after reading what you guys have confirmed I think it's best I sell this on and get myself something else. I was looking at others in the Inspiron range, are any of the others known to be bad ? I need something cheapish, the outlet website seems to have affordable choices.

rwm32 · Answer

Suggest avoiding any 5xxx or 1xxx Inspiron.  But you may need to start a new thread to get a wider perspective on this.

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Bought Second Hand 5150 - Problems

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