Hello everyone,
My 2 year old Inspiron N411z used to run fine when running graphics-intensive applications, but over the last few months it just abruptly shuts down after thirty minutes to an hour. I suspect it's overheating; the temperature sensors are reading ~50 to 60C idle, and ~90C just when watching a video. When I play games or debug some of my graphics programming projects, it spikes as high as 100C.
The fan works pretty hard, and it doesn't seem to let me change its speed anyway. I've optimized the integrated graphics card as much as I could through the Intel panel and application settings to draw less power. I also got a (relatively cheap) cooling pad, a small Targus dual fan pad. Temperatures remain high.
At this point I'm suspecting there might be something wrong with the heatsink, which is a shame since it's about a year out of warranty. Or there might be excessive dust in the vents; I can't see in there very well without taking it apart, which I haven't yet. I'll get some compressed air and try cleaning it, but I wanted to ask if anyone else has had similar trouble with the Inspiron laptop line. What were the symptoms and causes? I'm not sure what else might be the problem, if it's not the heatsink and/or vents. Could anything else cause this behavior?
My 2 year old Inspiron N411z used to run fine when running graphics-intensive applications, but over the last few months it just abruptly shuts down after thirty minutes to an hour. I suspect it's overheating; the temperature sensors are reading ~50 to 60C idle, and ~90C just when watching a video. When I play games or debug some of my graphics programming projects, it spikes as high as 100C.
The fan works pretty hard, and it doesn't seem to let me change its speed anyway. I've optimized the integrated graphics card as much as I could through the Intel panel and application settings to draw less power. I also got a (relatively cheap) cooling pad, a small Targus dual fan pad. Temperatures remain high.
At this point I'm suspecting there might be something wrong with the heatsink, which is a shame since it's about a year out of warranty. Or there might be excessive dust in the vents; I can't see in there very well without taking it apart, which I haven't yet. I'll get some compressed air and try cleaning it, but I wanted to ask if anyone else has had similar trouble with the Inspiron laptop line. What were the symptoms and causes? I'm not sure what else might be the problem, if it's not the heatsink and/or vents. Could anything else cause this behavior?
