Its in your title. It's overheating. Please use the seach function of these boards and search for "5150 overheating dust" and you should find your answer. It's been answered here about once a day for the last year.

You'd think the fact that this question is asked so often would convince Dell to actually do something about this problem. But that would mean they would need to have good customer service, and clearly they aren't able to do that.

Well, Dell does not have anything to do with these boards except in the name. But yes, you would expect that. i believe it has been brought to dells attention and they did do something about that. There were two versions of the 5150. The second one they changed the metal in the heatsink and put a few new vents in case. But it doesn't seem to help. Sorry man, I'm in the same situation, but I just keep in under control.

I fixed it. Amazing eh? Alright heres the solution. I downloaded a program called i8kfangui220. (SIDE NOTE: This solution is somewhere on the Dell Message Boards.) I was running hot with the computer just on. It came out to like 125 degrees... thats like undercooked meat. Anyways, in the message I saw, they recommended getting some compressed air and blowing dust out. It didn't say whether to open the computer or not. So I looked at the back of the computer and saw where the fan pushes out the air. Keep in mind that I'm cheap. I do not like to buy air that has been compressed for 8 bucks or something. So I blew forcefully into that (the laptop is upside down and turned OFF) and on the underside of the 5150, GINORMOUS AMOUNTS of dust etc starts coming out of the circular... I'm gonna guess vent for the heatsink on the CPU. It actually wasn't that much but for a laptop I have only had for a year, it was surprising. So I turn the computer back on after 5 or 6 more poor-mans-compressed-air can and turned on the computer. It's running at just above 101 degrees fahrenheit. That's like a semi bad fever. So all is well with the 5150 for now. Hope this helps anyone who has to deal with the 5150s overheating.

-Jon

Well, that is exactly what the can of air would have done. But it has more force thus it will force more caked on dust off. For example, mine atm is idling at 86F or 30C. That's what is usually idles at mainly cause I have taken care of it since day 1 with the air. It's not a huge problem to once every week or two take 10 seconds out of my life and spray some air in the back. Sometimes I let it go to three weeks, but since I do it regualarly, it's never been a problem. Good luck to you in the future and I'm glad something worked out for you.

I had the same problem a couple of month ago. I called DELL tech support and they talked through a series of steps to pinpoint the problem and then finally order the Motherboard and processor to be replaced under my warranty. But since I never had this before I decided to buy a note cooler. I bought Vantec Lapcool 2 Notebook Cooler w/ 4 port USB 2.0 (V13-5201 ) for $39.00 from TigerDirect via Amazon.com. So far it's cooling just fine and no more overheating.