[WOW] want a near silent dell Inspriron?

[Mr.Guvernment]

Hey all,

Well i got a dell inspiron9100 laptop about a week ago, brand new and works great, this baby has

15.1' WUXGA (1920 x 1200)
Prescott 3.2 / 1mb
512 2 x 256 pc3200
60g 5400 RPm
radeon 9700 64mb


So, i put BOINC on this baby so it runs %100 CPU usage alot but MAN can those fans get loud - this system has some good cooling to say the least - but it is loud. (i have ahd it on my lap but in a way i dont block the air intakes) and weights about 8lbs and gets me about 60mins on the battery.

So i decide - let take this baby apart and see the cooling and such. I get it apart - take off the CPU heatsink and see they used BARELY enough cheap white thermal paste - it was not even covering the entire cpu!!! near the center.

So break out the AS 5 - put some on - nice and even - assemble the laptop again - start it up - turn on BOINC and now for 30 mins it has been running and the CPU fan has not gone up i would say more then %10 of it's slowest speed!

i can barely hear this thing run now with the CPU fan running so low i guess, and feeling the back of the laptop it is pumping out warm air:D

So - if you want a quieter dell laptop - take it apart (using dell's guides of course) and add some AS5 or your preferd good thermal paste and enjoy the silence.

[Ad Rock]

Makes you kinda scratch your head and wonder why Dell wouldnt take more care during this step of the build? I mean you would think that if they could market their laptops as quieter than normal the extra 10c in thermal paste and a little quality control would make a big difference in their sales.

Then again maybe its just me.....

[Dreamstalker]

That's a hot ;) topic on the Inspiron forums over at Dell's site. Mine (5150) gets darn hot darn fast without a cooling pad (are they sure this CPU isn't a Prescott? My 2-year-old Toshiba gets better airflow and lower temps with S@h). It's OOW in a week and I need to get more memory anyway; maybe then I'll open her up and add some Ceramique, see if that helps.

[ozzlo]

that's why i love my pentium m 1.6 cause the fan dosen't even consider coming on unless it's at full load and then it's so quiet when it is. in the spring I am planning to up it to a 2.1 dothan and i would consider as5 then

[XunknownX]

...So - if you want a quieter dell laptop - take it apart (using dell's guides of course) and add some AS5 or your preferd good thermal paste and enjoy the silence.

Curious, are you running any type of monitor so you know the temps your getting now? I have a Dell XPS and considering doing what you did. I do have a prescott and it runs up to 70C with Doom 3 going for a bit.

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^ i dont have any monitors installed at the moment - i am not sure which ones would work with this laptop.

for the week i have had this almost the second i started BOINC the fan reved up to full speed - when on low it is not too loud.

The air tempurature seems about the same coming out the back - but it is just the fan does not rev up as high.

the fans rev up more now when i was playing hL2 last night on the laptop - but that could of also been the GPU fan.

Now i need to get a special allan key screw driver so i can remove the vid card heatsink and chipset heat sinks and replace the thermale paste on them.

I will try to find some monitor to see what my temps are.


Dreamstalker - it seems typical of dell to cheap out on cooling - it was the same with their dimension 8250 i had, the cooling sucked with one 120mm fan sucking out the case got like an oven with 2 hd's and a readoen 9700 and 1g rdram 1066.

Dell really needs to focus more on their cooling on their lower systems beside their XPS ones. - the set up for the laptop cooling is very effective - but all it needed was a little more care - as said - in apply some god thermal paste.

Suprised AS doesnt try to strike a deal with dell to use their paste...

[Dylruss]

My 1150 (Celery 2.6) has temps at 50-55 average, and 61 when at full constant load. I was thinking of doing that exact thing to help with it's cooling, and eventually the battery life since the fan isn't going all the time. But thought to wait until the warranty is done (another year).

Go here to show the temp of your dell, and the choice to change the fan speeds when you want: http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/

[mtb856]

Here's another one... I'll show current cpu speed, battery discharge rate, cpu and HDD temps.

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/release/0310/mm0310.zip

[crimedog]

hey man hope you're enjoying the laptops :)
how you like that screen? any high-res shots :D?

[moz_21]

Just sharing some info:

Well I had planned to do this to my Presario 2100, and I read this, and decided to do it today. I was bored. Anywho, took it apart, slapped some Ceramique on the heatpipe, put it back together. It worked:

Before: 71°C (saw 76°C one time)
Now: 61°C

All is full load running FAH.

Thanks for the inspiration! :)

[mtb856]

Not at the moment..... ENDURO might have some Half Life 2 screenies from his laptop though. I'll have to bug him and see if he'll post some.

The laptops are awesome though... I've made it through about half of the Stargate SG-1 DVD's (it takes a while to get through 8 seasons of shows :D ). ENDURO sold his desktop, so no he's playing UT and HL2 on it...... works well, you can play HL2 at low graphics on the laptop, so we're set for most of the gaming that we like to do.

[Mr.Guvernment]

hey man hope you're enjoying the laptops :)
how you like that screen? any high-res shots :D?


i am loving it! the timing could not have been better - i am impressed at what this laptop radeon 9700 can do with games!

have bene playing HL2 all night - i need more ram - can play it @ 1280 x 980? 16:( ratio but it stutters and io check my ram and it is at about 600mb

So am going to get the 7200 RPM HD and the 1g ram - going to cost me about $350 - then save for the $350 radeon 9800 256mb card :)


that geocities link didnt work :(

trying that other program though.

[mtb856]

We bought some Kingston ram from newegg.... I think it was about 80 bucks for a 512 stick, so I just got that and stuck it with the 256 that came with the laptop.... I didn't feel like spending another 80 bucks just to get 256 more, so I stuck with 768MB.

It makes a big difference in gaming though, so it would be worth the money spent.

[Mr.Guvernment]

okay installed that program

says idle temp for my presshot is 54C idle and 66C with %100 using BOINC - deum that is hot!! i cant imagine how hot it was before with the cheap thermale crap dell had on it...

but his program also says my CPU fan speed on low is running at 78,060RPM and on high 134,100 RPM, it also doesnt pick up my CPU speed

[Mr.Guvernment]

We bought some Kingston ram from newegg.... I think it was about 80 bucks for a 512 stick, so I just got that and stuck it with the 256 that came with the laptop.... I didn't feel like spending another 80 bucks just to get 256 more, so I stuck with 768MB.

It makes a big difference in gaming though, so it would be worth the money spent.

for sure - i figure get the dual 512 sticks so to run the dual channel of this chipset - and then sell the 2 x 256 on ebay or here as well once i get the radeon 9800 sell the radeon 9700 64mb and maybe get some cash return :D

[mtb856]

Nice :D

Does the program I posted mess up with your cpu speed as well?

[techun]

my celery 2.0 (sister bought it...didn't know anything, but got a good price) averages at 38 with normal everyday programs running on it, as long as you don't have a plastic bag on the intake it doesn't go over 45 ever (oops)

[Mr.Guvernment]

i do prefer artic silver 5 as the best paste

The program doesnt mess up my cpu or anything just does not report it but their web site says to upgrsade the bios and it should fix that.


I guess my office is warm even though it was windy today as i am now sitting @ 47C idle while typing this :)

[Dylruss]

Is there any program to show the toshiba temps. Whats the best thermal paste to use.
Thanks

Don't know about other programs that do that for other brand lappys, but I will look out for you, everyone should know.

Best stuff might be AS5 like what 90% of the desktop users use here.

EDIT: Somebody in these forums just used Speedfan http://forums.overclockersclub.com/?showtopic=40880&pid=381673&st=0&#entry381673 It may work for yours.

[mbentley]

i own a dell inspiron 9100 and i decided to apply some as5 after seeing this thread. the fans is much quieter now and it takes about twice the load to raise the fan at all... very nice for the ears :) if you have the time and don't mind voiding your warranty, i'd look into reapplying the thermal paste on the processor...

say no to generic, poorly applied thermal paste :)

[dead_man311]

Ill have to try this on my 5150 as soon as my Warranty is up

If you find something that monitors temps post it , i havent found anything that works yet with mine

[mbentley]

Ill have to try this on my 5150 as soon as my Warranty is up

If you find something that monitors temps post it , i havent found anything that works yet with mine

i as well can't find anything that will check the temps of my processor. i believe there is just no support for it in the bios.

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^ ncie to hear i am not the only one the paste worked on :)

as for a program the http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html worked for me, it shows me @ 47C idle and upto 66C on full load with BOINC

not sure how accurate it is, but it is something.

[SB911]

I have an ASUS L5800GA, Intel 3ghz with h/t, 2 x 512 pc3200 kingston, 9600 pro mobility dedicated 128mb.... My idle and low use temps are around 55C and 100% cpu is 70C, that is with AS5. Playing games (doom3, farcry, etc) the 3 fans scream louder than my desktop. Using ASUS Probe for temp readings.

[Dylruss]

I have an ASUS L5800GA, Intel 3ghz with h/t, 2 x 512 pc3200 kingston, 9600 pro mobility dedicated 128mb.... My idle and low use temps are around 55C and 100% cpu is 70C, that is with AS5. Playing games (doom3, farcry, etc) the 3 fans scream louder than my desktop. Using ASUS Probe for temp readings.

If it is anything like the desktop boards, the asus boards always read a little higher then they usually are.

[Slackfumasta]

For those of you who can't find a temp program for your laptops, especially the Dells, did you try the one that was posted earlier in this thread?

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/release/0310/mm0310.zip

It works out of the box (figuratively) on my 5160 at home, and on my 8600 at work I had to configure the CPU clock speed reading to Measure Actual instead of looking at the Windows reading. It works great on both machines now, worth trying it out and playing with the configuration a bit.

[ozzlo]

i use the i8kfan program and am very very happy with it. i must point out that your fans may not be designed for the high speeds the program can run the fans at. the general rule i have is don't run a fan at a faster rpm than the bios does (naturally by it'sself) due to the risk of overvoltage of the fan.

[Mr.Guvernment]

For those of you who can't find a temp program for your laptops, especially the Dells, did you try the one that was posted earlier in this thread?

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/release/0310/mm0310.zip

It works out of the box (figuratively) on my 5160 at home, and on my 8600 at work I had to configure the CPU clock speed reading to Measure Actual instead of looking at the Windows reading. It works great on both machines now, worth trying it out and playing with the configuration a bit.

all i get on that link is


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[Slackfumasta]

Here, I just put it up in some of my webspace:

http://sskai.homestead.com/files/mm0310.zip

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^ appreciated :D grab it and will try it out.

[four4875]

for that prog, i learned that you shouldnt put the prog itself in the startup folder, as it creates an ini of your settings and will open that with win too. make a folder and put the shortcut in the sratrup folder.

[Mr.Guvernment]

i dont let anything start up with my system usuall just to keep boot time fast :D

[mbentley]

hmm... that program appeared to have worked... cool :)

[MegamanX]

I've got a 5150 Inspiron, 2.66 Ghz... a little sluggish but cheap.. :p

I'll get to the point: whenever I run S@H, Boinc, Quake3 or anything CPU intensive, the CPU gets to about 70 °C in about 3 minutes. I "wrote" a short program in order to monitor CPU temperature and Frequency, and I noticed that it goes down to 1.66 Ghz in no time. 1 Ghz less just because I want to run CPU intensive apps ? Thats no good... that seems like fraud to me... but anyway, I'll just try to add some AS5 or something because I've even modified my desk in order to provide better cooling for the system to no avail. Anyway thanks for the tip...

MegamanX
A00881017 at itesm.mx

EDIT:
PD: I'm running Linux right now, and I'm only running KDE 3.3.2, Firefox 1, Kmail, Amsn and Konsole, and the kernel reports 71° C... check this out:

MegamanX root # temp_cpu && uptime && cat
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq

Temperatura Actual igual a 73 grados C

20:43:28 up 1:18, 2 users, load average: 0.47, 0.27, 0.17

1599960

This means processor is running @ 73 °C with a 0.47 load.. that's real low, SpeedStep has already kicked in due to extremely high temperature... this is sad. I was thinking about waiting till my warranty expires, but not anymore, I'll do it ASAP. Thank you..

[gigahertz]

I have Dell Inspiron 1150 w/

Mobile Pentium 4 @ 2.8Ghz which idles at 1.4Ghz most of the time

the laptop idles at 45C. WHen using it it warms up up to 50C. When i am using the cpu 100% then it gos up to 60C

i think i am all good :)

[MegamanX]

Hey I just wanted to let you know that Dell will replace my heatsink, I read on a Dell forum that Dell was replacing heatsinks since they "redesigned" the 5100 series heatsink. (http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=184252)

I'm not a US resident so I was unsure to get any response from them, but in less than 24 hrs they answered me back, and they will be replacing my heatsink at my place.

Well, after that, I'll be adding some AS5 or similar and clean it on a regular basis.

Cheers...

MegamanX

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^ man that stinks becaus dell cant cool their system wellenough you get screwed on raw power!

i would definetly call dell about that and tell them - the As5 may help, but that is nuts!