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Latitude D620 slow performance when cold
Hello,
I sometimes leave my D620 in the car overnight and the temperature falls to 30-35 F. When I bring it in the office in the morning and boot it up, I hear a loud fan running and the performance is very very slow. If I immediately reboot, it works fine. Has anyone else experienced this too?
- After doing some research, it looks like Dell has a problem with thermal sensors that are giving the same symptoms that I'm having. The low temp causes the termal sensor to report an inaccurate temp and the system thinks it's overheating and trys to reduce heat by kicking the fan in high-speed, disabling L2 cache, and slowing down the processor speed. I found BIOS update A06 dated 12-11-06 that says "thermal control enhancement". I'm hoping this is the fix, we'll see how it goes after leaving it in my car tonight.
- The cold temperatures will stress the components in the system and lead to premature failure of cold solder joints. They're not great for the battery either - the batteries will also suffer premature aging.
It's not a good idea to allow anything electronic that isn't designed for it, these wide temperature swings. - Thanks for the info! My D620 which is only a couple of weeks old, recently gave me a message saying it overheated and had to shutdown. I had put the laptop in standby and put it in my dell case and then left it in the car after coming home from work. During that time, it also drained a fully charged 9-cell battery within just a couple of hours. I was really surprised that it overheated as it was in my cold car. Ironically, the laptop, its case and the car seat were all really warm. I didn't think that the sensor might malfunction out in the cold, but now it makes sense.Just FYI, most standard consumer electronic equipment is made to run at ambient operating temperatures of 0 to 60C. Some are 5-55C or so. Storage temperatures are usually -20 to 60C. I cannot comment on the post above that says that the cold will reduce your component & battery life. The only issue with cold is usually the hard drive not being able to spin up. Most hard drives only operate within a 5 to 50C ambient temperature range. So that being said, I would avoid leaving ur laptop in the car if it's going to be out of this normal operating range. If the laptop is shutdown, it think u could leave at the storage temperature range, but don't expect to just bring it inside from -20C and expect it to work.
Message Edited by russr on 01-17-200711:27 PM
futuretiger
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Posted February 19th, 2011 08:00
Glad I found this thread!
I have a Dell Latitude that was made for Singpore, but I am now in Sweden and I sometimes need to take it outdoors where it is -20 degrees celcius! I d'like to know if it is safe for my laptop AND the adapter.
The laptop is wrapped up during the 2-3 hours outdoors so I suppose it doesn't get 'hypothermia' through and through, so the power adapter is more of a problem because it is more exposed to the cold.. it seems to emit a funny high-pitched sound after I bring it indoors (where the temperature is 40 degrees higher) and plug it in.
I am also worried that the adapter might malfunction and damage the laptop via wrong volatage or something.
In brief, what is the safe temp. range? Should I absolutely discontinue this practice or is it not too bad?
Thanks!
jocase
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Posted December 18th, 2006 19:00