XPS 1530 - Turns off

Sounds like you're having a very similar problem. Mine caused it to turn off but it would take a bit to get there, it rarely would do it right upon getting into WoW.

Right now mine never gets over 60c, even while playing WoW. I would highly recommend you call Dell and they will send you a box to ship it to the repair depot, this is unless of course you purchased the on site repair but I would imagine they will still need to test it and figure out exactly what is messed up, either the video or heatpipe. I have a feeling they had some bad heatpipes or someone who didn't properly install them.

Hi I have the xps m1530 and mine is also shutting down.  And the touch pad is so hot it litterly burns my fingers after about 10 min.  I just want to share with you that today a Dell tech was here replacing the MO BO for the 3rd. time.  The 2nd MOBO they put in started acting strange the minnute they installed it.  The only way I could turn on the computer was to click F1.  They have also replaced the fan heat sinK and touch pad.  The second time after the Dell Tech left I received a call from Dell telling me the problem is in the Power Supply and there would replace it with a new MOBO.  They said  me it had to be a 3 pin power supply and mine was only a 2 pin.  Well needless to say when the Tech came today she discovered they sent the wrong power supply.  They said not to use the computer with this power supply only on battery until the new one came it.  When she replaced the 2nd MOBO it was the Power supply that put the MOBO out again.

However this  really makes sense since I owned the xps m170 and that thing went through power supply packs like crazy until it ruined the MOBO on it.  I replaced that MOBO my self.  I was so tired of replacing the power pack that I sold it and the person I sold it to has not had one problem.  With the xps m170 just before the MOBO went bad I put in a new power supply and it only lasted about 1 hour.  I think it is because of the way they designed the inside of these laptops.  Where the heat sink and fan are located there is no longer any room and the fans really can't cool the system.

When I get the new Power Supply I will let you knw if that is the answer.  I really hate to use this system because the heat makes my hands so sore.

Hey,

I got an XPS M1530 in August of '08. I play World of Warcraft. The first problems I noticed with the laptop was the overheating while in the game. It would then shut down without a blue screen or error message, just shut down, and would not turn back on for over 10 minutes. As I continued to use the laptop, the overheating stopped, but the shutdowns continued. I am now at the point where I will be playing World of Warcraft for maybe 5 minutes after starting up my computer, and it will shutdown. Dell Support has failed to help me, they have only tried to sell me parts that I don't think I need and a warrantee. If anyone could help me, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Yeah I got my XPS M1530 sometime in August 2008 as well and from the start I get pretty intense temperatures.  For example right now I am just running Firefix and iTunes and my GPU is idling at 78 Celsius (172 fahrenheit) and CPU is at 60 Celsius (140 f).  And I think thats a little high.  When I play anything really like Medieval; and I dumb the resolutions to 1024 x 768 the GPU hits 96 Celsius and CPU 80 C!! It just dies after like 20 mins no BSOD or anything. You hear that little power down sound, and if you're daring enough to risk touching the bootom of the laptop you'll feel the burn.  I've been told from friends to get it checked and call them about the temps, my friend has one too and he hasn't had it this bad and he runs the games and everything at higher resolutions and graphics.  I have the 2.5ghz processor, 4 gig ram, and the 8600GT graphics card.
I'm still under warranty but I would prefer if there was another way where it wasn't necessary to send in the computer, I'm at uni and I need my laptop for research and homework, etc. Any help would be great.                    ohh and I have the BIOS A12 so I don't think its the BIOS upgrade I've gone from A09 to A11 and now A12 nothing has helped.

Got my 1530 about 6 months ago- been ok til about 2 weeks ago- running v hot, fan on most of the time. Thanks to this forum I downloaded the CPUID Monitor and I was surprised to see the temps my machine was running at-GeF card 8600 at 200 dec F...for example....called XPS support and to be honest had low expectations.

Have to say overall the service/knowledge/help from Chenai India was superb- maybe I got lucky but I have never received from anyone such confident, helpful customer service..ever! 

Was surprised though that they knew this overheating problem was very common- hhmm you buy a top end laptop and you end up a beta tester maybe...we tried everything, BIOS A12, I removed the back of the machine (under instruction) and took out the RAM ...in a nutshell, not cured and an engineer will be here I hope in 2 days time..

This should not happen in an expensive machine- my Macpro friend tonight laughed out loud that this machine has an old fashioned thing called a fan...not least clearly DELL knows this issue exists and whilst the Tech Support lady was incredibly helpful there are better ways to spend a Sunday. Will report back after the engineer has called....

Overheating is usually related to heat transfer. Either the contact between the chip and the heat pipe is not good, or the heat pipe is bad. The heat pipes use a very small amount of working fluid, and is would be easy to get an incorrect amount during manufacture. The failure of the 8400/8600 video chips do not cause heat proplems, but heat problems can cause the chip failure. If the video is not corrupted, the chip is OK. The Nvidia/Dell/HP/etc. fix for protecting the chip is to run the fans continuously on a low speed to try to keep the GPU temperature as even as possible. Wide temperature VARIATIONS seem to cause the GPUs to fail. These GPUs usually use a heat transfer pad, not a thermal transfer paste. If you have a heat problem, try to convince Dell to first try redoing the heat pipe and thermal pad first. They probably won't like this, but they can send a new system board along in case the heta pipe fix doesn't help.

Here we go again

So far in 8 months have had 2 motherboards, heat sink, fans...engineer is coming agin on Friday to replace Hard Drive, Motherboard, Heatsink....this means I have to re-install Windows and all my software.

i have spent hours on the phone to India (they're helpful) but frankly I should have gone for a Mac !! This is an XPS 1530 top of the range and frankly it's not fit for purpose. If I didnt work from home I'd have to take another day off to wait for the engineer---thankfully I have the 4 year warranty- i think I will need every day of it.

Potential purchasers need to be aware of these issues.

I have had my pc since 2008 and in march of this yr of coarse it would be after extended warranty ran out I started having the issues of it shutting down and overheating and shutting down. I have nothing but trouble with this pc as I have had to replace the drive twice, the memory twice as well as numerous difficulties with it and I wont ever buy another dell period because your service is crap and your warranty is toooooooooo dang expensive. I cant even get it to stay on period now.