Inspiron 5100 Overheating Problem with Skype

Question

Normally my Inspiron 5100 notebook runs with a CPU temperature of approx. 60 degrees celsius and fan speed of 3000 rpm. The problem is that when using energy intensive applications such as Skype, the CPU temperature rises during say a 10 minute call to about 75 degrees celsius. This causes the fan to run at 6000 rpm, and this seems to aggravate the problem and the CPU usage progressively rises to approx 90%. I have checked the fan inlets and they are dust free. I understand that because of space reasons the Inspiron notebook only contains one fan. Perhaps one fan is not really sufficient to do the job. Can anyone advise how to resolve this overheating problem? Thanks in advance for your advice. Best regards, Ken

ejn63 · Answer

You can try an external notebook cooling pad, but this system has overheating problems that have been documented in many places.

bacillus · Answer

Even though the fan inlet appears dust free I would still suggest you get a can of compressed air and blow out the vents in case your CPU heatsink is caked with dust.

thescribe · Answer

Those temps are pretty high. I suggest doing a nice deep cleaning, buy yourself some Arctic Silver 5 and open up the latop completely, make sure you clean off all the old thermal gunk on the heatsink and cpu and apply the Arctic Silver. Dell has manuals on how to open everything up, it can seem a bit daunting but nothing a majority of people can't handle. If you don't feel safe doing it, find a relative who's a little more comfortable if you want.

It's really the best thing you can do to get those temps back down to normal. My roomate has a 5100 and we just cleaned it out the other week, his CPU is now running in the mid 30's C.

joethall · Answer

Can someone please provide a link to the manuals describing how to open up an Inspirion 5100? jth

ken billington · Answer

J ust to let you know that the CPU slowdown was due to dust. I took a vaccuum cleaner to the fan outlet and also 'huffed & puffed' into the back vents leading to the CPU heat exchanger. Just blew hard into them for a couple of minutes like playing a trumpet. When switching on again the idle temperature has dropped by almost 20 degrees celsius. i.e. instead of 60 degrees it’s now idling at approx. 40 degrees. Thanks to all for the great advice.

thescribe · Answer

While blowing out the laoptop's vents is a good start, the dust will just redistribute itself.

Here's the 5100's entire manual

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins5100/en/sm/index.htm

and here's the section you'll need specicifally to clean up the heat sink and cpu

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins5100/en/sm/thermal.htm#1084976

Locked Topics – Laptops General

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