Laptop Overheating - Problem with Dell 600m

One of my friends has a Dell 600m which he bought around the same time as me. We pretty much have the exact same specs, but my processor and video memory is a little better. He has been having problems since the time he got the laptop with it overheating to the point of it locking down. I'll agree that the Dell 600m's from the Summer of 2003 will get way too hot for normal laptop use.

My laptop has only locked up once or twice for me because of it overheating, but his computer will lock up every time he doesn't have it on a cooling pad. And even then there is a good chance that it will if it is left on for too long.

I do like the 600m as a model, but his case is a rarity.

Does anyone have any clues on what could be making his laptop heat up so much to the point where it locks down on him? Keep in mind that we have the same model computer bought around the same time and only he has this problem on a daily basis.

We've looked into the possibilities of a faulty motherboard, bad memory, bad exhaust for the laptop, or bad heatsink. We've even had Dell Techs come out to our house to "try" to diagnose the problem, but they are as stumped as we are. I don't know if this makes his problem more unique or it just means that Dell's Tech Guys are as good as BestBuy's Geek Squad.

His laptop isn't covered under warranty anymore, so any extra parts would probably come out of pocket.

 

 

 

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I believe Dell has recalled their battery due to a series of explosive incidents. I believe the model you mentioned is included in the recall. Could the battery be causing the overheating? I’ve used several different dell laptops from work and never had that problem before. How long does it take for your laptop to overheat?

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Diddo, sounds like the battery is the likely cause. The other possible problem is that a fan isn't working or vents are clogged. I have seen that happen before. I know my Powerbook gets warm...although it's part of the Apple batttery recall for the same problem. However, mine never overheats to the point of locking up...or then again may it's just a mac

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A problem which comes up in desktops fairly often is that the heat sink is not attached quite perfectly. Even a small problem- not enough adhesive, not positioned properly can cause problems. These can be very hard to diagnose.

Those Dells are under the battery recall, and a battery delivering over-voltage to the system can cause components to heat up (and die prematurely). Suprisingly, under-voltage can have the same effect. Other posssibilities is that if the battery is not holding charge, the charging circuitry may be running all of the time. Does it have short battery life or take too long to charge? Does it mostly heat up when plugged it? Does running without the battery help?

Does the system really get obscenely hot, or does it kick out because of the heat earlier than your laptop? Does the BIOS have a temperature monitor you can watch? The reason I ask is because I ran into a very strange heat problem with a PC once where the CPU did not fit quite right in the socket. When it was running, the pins would expand and push the CPU out of contact. The system would crash. Then, now that the system was shut down, the CPU would cool and go right back into the socket. So, every time I opened it up, everything was fine. It would only fail when the system got hot, but it never had a chance to get excessively hot before dying.

A silly question: has your friend tried running in battery saving mode? Does it help? If so, they may be able to run it that way all of the time. It will result in a slower, but non-crashing laptop.

 

 

 

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The battery does get hot, but we've already check the version number of the batteries that are affected.

We both have the same laptop so when we heard about the battery recall we checked. Unfortunately we bought our laptops about 6 months before the affected batch of batteries were made.

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well it could just be the cooling fan on it.. have yoiu guy had that checked out.. also the sink.. it could probably even be the power supply... generating too much heat

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I am having a similar problem with my 600m.

Mine will run for about 5 to 10 minutes and powers down for no reason. This occurs without the batteries installed, running on A/C power. I've checked the voltage of my power supply (it was within .05 volts of what was listed on the adapter with no load) and even tried a different one for the same computer.

It shuts off when using batteries only. I have both the normal battery and a drive bay battery, and any combination of batteries and A/C adapter results in the same issue.

The issue with mine started when I was working on the laptop, and noticed the batteries were at about 50% power, so I hooked up the A/C. Several minutes after doing so, the laptop shut off and would not reboot. The power light would come on for about 3 seconds, then go out. After cooling for about an hour, it restarted, but only briefly.

This problem has not gone away, and of course Dell doesn't want to send someone to look at it under the extended warranty. They are saying that because it was purchased on eBay from a retailer as a Dell Factory refurbished unit the warrany is void.

Since it seems like a heat problem, I decided to crack it open to investigate. The hinge cover snaps off easily. That's all I had to do to see that the heatsink for the video and northbridge was severly blocked.

After cleaning it out, I was hoping for things to be back to normal. No such luck. I have even taken the heatsinks out, and used some heat sink compound in hopes to transfer the heat from the processors more efficiently. No dice.

I have searched for days trying to find a utility that will monitory MB and CPU temps, but every one that I download only finds sensors for the HDD. The BIOS does not have a temperature monitor that I am able to see. It is revision A17. The motherboard model is X2035, rev. A01. It has a 2GHz Celeron CPU, 64MB ATI Radeon VPU, SXGA display, 1GB RAM, Intel Pro Wireless... It did seem to get pretty hot.

I am wondering if it has to do with extra heat generated by the second drive bay battery.

I have a second 600m, which is dead. Similar turn of events, but when it shut down, it never restarted... Board model Y8639 A00. Same specs. It also seemed to get very hot. Of course it died just month after the warranty expired and Dell would not give me any good will on it.

So that's my story. I'm not happy with Dell right now. Currently I'm on a Gateway M460E and it runs much much cooler. Unless Dell helps me out, I'll probably part out both laptops and get another one of these Gateways.

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apparently, only Dell and Samsung laptops overheat from all the laptops that I've found throughout my school.

xboxrulz

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Compaq too. My 2500 model kept overheating, finally the motherboard burned out.

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odd, what type of battery do you have?

xboxrulz

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