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General discussion

Overheating Problems...

Oct 10, 2005 7:14AM PDT

I am currently running a two-year old Dell Inspiron 1100 series laptop. From approximately six months ago, I have been noticing somewhat frequent overheating, or slowing down as I run more programs. It has an Intel Pentium 4 Processor and has 512 MB RAM. So I do think that my computer doesn't have the capabilites to run the programs. Do you think I would need to clean out my fan. I haven't cleaned out the fan or done anything with it since I have recieved the laptop, so does anyone know what to do. If I do need to clean out the laptop, does anyone know any specific method to cleaning it for the Inspiron 1100.

Discussion is locked

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How long since it was dusted and cleaned?
Oct 10, 2005 7:26AM PDT

This is the downside to desktop P4 chips in laptops. The owners may not know that maintenance and cleaning is required. After a few years you may also have to get heatsinks checked or a fan replaced. I know many want it to need as much attention as a refrigerator, but these Pentium 4 based laptops need attention.

Bob

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Couple of Things
Oct 11, 2005 8:21AM PDT

1 - Use a vaccum cleaner to clean out any dust trapped near the fan. Most laptops have their fan(s) located near the outer part of the case.

2 - Use a notebook cooling pad. This dissipates the heat coming from the notebook much more efectively than a notebooks standard fan(s) alone.

3 - As for your programs running slowly. Depending on the amount of programs, maybe it is neccesary for you to install more RAM, especially if you have anti-virus software aand games installed on your computer. But if you're just a casual web surfer, 512 sounds fine.

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couple more things...
Oct 11, 2005 10:56AM PDT

1. elevate the back end of your laptop off
or away from table. (make sure you don't use
on padded or carpet surface)

2. Ensure you don't have rogue apps that are
holding the CPU hostage or at 90 or 100% for
no reason

3. open your power options and step your cycles
down by 50%

those are just starters, if you bothered to
search this forum prior to posting, you would
have seen more options