I just damn well hope that that won't ever happen to my new Laptop.

It happened to my old one,a nd it started to fume, but it was only worth £200, and a fix would cost about £125.00, and itwould also drop its value because it has been previously broken, so we decided I'd buy a new, and I must say fantastic Laptop, which was Windows Media Center Edition 2005.

I wonder where I can get a spare battery for it from?

All the best in the laptop problem.

The Mafamba Team !!!

Replying to snutz411
I had the same problem I started up with common shut-downs of only being on the laptop for 10-15 minutes then it all of a sudden it wouldn't turn on, so then I switched off the ram one stick was bad.

Then I switched the processor and I finally got it to run for a week but went back to the same problem until the mother board went bad. If I'm not mistaken its a might of been a heat sink problem or maybe the cooling fan. In the long run this comp was bad in the beginning.

-ToTo

I have an old Dell Inspiron 1000 I picked up for $75 to bridge me last summer between when my powerbook died (after 6 years) and MacBooks with Lepoard were out. I ran it the first month with XP pro and never encountered any heat problems even with the battery being dead (basically becoming a resister producing heat). I played around with FreeSBIE and Puppy to make sure everything worked, including the cheap Ativa PCIMA wireless card, as my plan was to turn the machine into a dedicated FreeBSD laptop for development work. (SO I could do programming and use my Macbook for media projects.)

Well I noticed that with both systems, if I started watching a movie or video file the machine would just power off for no reason. Just like the power cord had come undone. I thought it was some goofy thing in the media player puppy used. I've seen in happen before with other Linux based systems.

FreeSBIE has a Top process running on the XFCE desktop. Well, it did the same thing with mplayer in FreeSBIE. And then I noticed how bloody hot the laptop got. So the next time I watched the CPU temp start at 67 and slowly creep up to74, when it hit 75, boom, the system shut down. This was repeatable.

The live OS's weren't throttling the CPU speed, so it was running full blast all the time. So it was over heating (had only happen once in windows when I blocked the fan port with my leg at a coffee shop). It's since become a full time FreeBSD laptop and I configured the kernal to manage the 2.2Ghz Celeron-M CPU a lot better and it's not been a problem. Also I bought a Rubbermain Laptop stand thingy. I've noticed it keeps things about 4 - 5 degrees cooler since air can move around the thing freely. (Both my MB and this Dell).

But yeah, the dells have some heat issues.

Dell 600M startup problem
Laptop Overheating

My 600M won't startup. When the power button is pressed, the three LED's will faintly blink a few times and then stop. I've seen a 600M offered on eBay with the same problem described. Item was listed "AS IS" Anyway, is there a simple cure for this?

-John Brigga

Laptop overheating.
Laptop Overheating

I had an HP laptop die on me (blue screen of death, hard drive fried) back in '94. It was 5 months out of warranty. Fortunately, I guy I knew with HP hooked me up and I ended up getting sent a larger model/refurb that is pretty good (Pavilion ZV5000 series). However it overheats with some regularity.

Yes, the fans are running fine (they start really whirling loudly when it starts to overheat). I took the battery out years ago when it stopped charging (it also seemed a possible source for heat since it would get very hot). I also pop off the back and vacuum/blow out the fans every once in a while.

With Mobile Meter running on it, I see that it AVERAGES 56C (ACPI Temp). This will occasionally shoot up to the 70s when running certain programs (Windows Media Player has been a particular problem lately) or when certain flash/animated graphics type stuff come up. Whatever it is, it's seems related to the RAM being taxed too much. The HDD Temp keeps pretty steady around 51C.

Mobile Meter says that the ACPI is configured to monitor specific zones � and if there is only one thermal zone, it should be of the processor temperature. Since I took the battery out, I�m assuming it is monitoring the processor temp.

There was a time when it would start up hot -- fan blowing hard and as soon as Mobile Meter displayed, it would read in the mid 60s. I think blowing out the fans solved that problem.

I have been able to manage the continuing issues by watching the Mobile Meter (a godsend), frequently rebooting (complete shut-down not just a re-start), and using problematic programs one at a time. Oh, and thank God I have an external hard drive now to back up to.

If anyone know of an easy fix for this, I�d welcome it. It�s an old computer now, so I rather not put much money into it.


-reply by Ganymede71

Dell 600m Startup Problems
Laptop Overheating

Replying to Feedbacker
Same problem
1) Never turn it off. Once started it runs fine.
2) When it is shut off by accident we put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.
3) Don't leave it there overnight!

Once cold it starts up again.