Dell Latitude d620 Cooling Problems

dotmaster206 · Sep 23, 2010

I have a three year old d620 (I know...I know, it's my school laptop). It just went out of warranty. Once a year or so, I have had it opened up and cleaned by the tech people at school, under warranty service so it's free. Now that it is out of warranty, I can't do that anymore, and it's getting hot. CPU temps are around 60C when I'm not really doing anything. GPU is always hotter, 70C+. This concerns me. I want to open it up and clean it and replace the thermal compound on the heatsink.

Is it worth it?

Also, there is plenty about replacing the thermal compound on the CPU but nothing about dealing with the GPU. Anything I should know about that?

The motherboard was replaced twice because of overheating the GPU, probably dust and playing Half-Life 2 for hours on end. I've stopped doing that.

DavidGP · Sep 23, 2010

Hi

Yes generally its worth opening up a PC and cleaning the insides out, but you dont always need to open up the PC the main areas that end up getting clogged with dust and fluff are the air vents, so if you get some air in a can and a soft brush, or even use a vaccum cleaner and the soft bush attachement if it has one to clean the air vents.

If confident in opening up the laptop then you can clean it that way but to be honest re-newing the termal compound while may help, doesnt always and if you dont know what you are doing you can damage your laptop.

Would the Schools IT dept do this cleaning out for a cost?

But would try and clean the air vents first before opening up or changing any thermal paste.

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Dell Latitude d620 Cooling Problems

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