Legit Reviews

Alright here's the deal, my Inspiron 5150 kicks out enough heat to keep my apartment toasty during the winter, and that's while it is idle!!

Is there any way to underclock my CPU down from 2.8? I just want to reduce it to around 2.3-2.5 to keep it a LITTLE bit cooler. I'm running the Northwood P4 if that helps....

you cannot change anything in the BIOS?

some laptops have a setting that turn off the fans when its plugged in for power, i would check that and make sure the vents/fans are clean.

Snap, I have the 3.2G version of that laptop. All the config options were maxxed out when I got it, was a sweet deal on the factory outlet.

Are you unlucky enough to have the desktop p4 in there with no speedstep?

Cleaning out the air vents on the CPU exhaust with compressed air (or just blowing it really hard) will help at making it cooler.

The thing that helped me the most was i8kFanGUI. Its a little buggy on the 5150 but nothing that stops it working. It allows you to manually set the fan speed and monitor temperatures. I now set the fan to run on low all the time and that stops it from giving me 3rd degree burns if I use it on my legs!

Dan

DMB2000uk wrote: Are you unlucky enough to have the desktop p4 in there with no speedstep?

I guess I have the same question, is it one of those fancy desktop CPU's? If so, I'm uncertain what you can use, but if it is a mobile CPU, you can change your power scheme (under the Screen Saver tab) and set it to mobile. That will underclock the CPU automatically. My 2.0GHz Core Duo underclocks itself to 800MHz when it is hardly being used.

I tried to do the same to my laptop but it would never let me. Is there a way to do it with 3rd party software instead of BIOS hardware options?

The fan definitely kicks on, sounds like a tornado when it does so...I'll look into the mobile setting, and nope, the crappy Dell bios allows about zero tweaking with my settings.

I'll get back with my results to see if it stays cool, I'll also look for that buggy temp/fan control, too....

When I say buggy all it really does is stop monitoring the temperatures at random intervals, but you can click the settings back to read the temp that 'failed' and its fine again. It works perfectly as the fan controller.

The trouble with the dell bios is that it turns the fan off at 50oC, on when the temp gets to 55oC and then vacuum cleaner mode at 60oC. So they tend to idle pretty hot. With the fan on low and the temp below 50oC (it doesnt cut out after then, its generally is fairly cool after that)

Dan

PS. And make sure youve de-dusted the heatsink (blowing trick), as built up dust is the number 1 killer of 5150's, it gets baked on and then they are useless for cooling, so the CPU's overheat and die. its almost a design flaw.

I have used the air cleaning method since I got this beast. Fried a hard drive before I realized just HOW warm the beast got, and when I picked her up there was about 75% coverage of the intake dust-wise. Been cleaning it ever since.

DMB2000uk wrote:When I say buggy all it really does is stop monitoring the temperatures at random intervals, but you can click the settings back to read the temp that 'failed' and its fine again. It works perfectly as the fan controller.

The trouble with the dell bios is that it turns the fan off at 50oC, on when the temp gets to 55oC and then vacuum cleaner mode at 60oC. So they tend to idle pretty hot. With the fan on low and the temp below 50oC (it doesnt cut out after then, its generally is fairly cool after that)

Dan

PS. And make sure youve de-dusted the heatsink (blowing trick), as built up dust is the number 1 killer of 5150's, it gets baked on and then they are useless for cooling, so the CPU's overheat and die. its almost a design flaw.

I've had no problems with the latest release of ik8fangui, but previous versions I had that same problem.


Thanks for the heads-up on the 5150 though. A person whose computers I'm fixing, I believe has a 5150 and it shuts down at random intervals. I thought it was because it was hot... and I almost want to say that definitely is the case because the underside is extremely hot.

Holy cow! i8kfangui is friggin' sweet! Idle temps have gone (in half an hour of word processing at least since install) from 36-37* to 31-32* idle.....wish this had come WITH the damn thing! What a difference in such a short time. Maybe I should bust her apart and throw some AS5 on the heat sink just for sh*ts and giggles!! Probably bring it down to 29 or lower. But seriously, wow. I have it on max speed (the spinup hits 5500 rpm, drops to 4250-4500 after a while) and it's not too shabby noisewise.

I love you guys
Temperature:

I got a cooler for this, but st ill need to send in for a friggin screw

but yes, a cooler ( I got spire pacific breeze ) AS5, and the fangui should all help...