Extremely Slow Computer (85% of the time)

The fan starts running about 5-10 minutes after every startup and keeps running until I shut it down. And about 15 minutes after every "sleep" and keeps running until it sleeps again.

The fan is pretty loud in my opinion.
I can feel a little air blowing out the exhaust vent.
I cleaned it a couple of weeks ago in hopes that it would help but it did not.

Temps:
HD0 - 42C
Temp1 - 52C
Core - 52C
Ambient - 0C

As a reminder this is a Dell Inspirion 8600 Laptop / 1.25 G of RAM / Pentium M processor (I can give more stats if needed).

Many thanks.

 

I say shut down all the services.. even the microsoft ones.

Just for kicks to see if its faster. If it is, then there is a microsoft related service doing something.

 

I found this mentioned for Inspiron and Latitudes to control the fan

Code:

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

Before you attempt to do this, I'd caution you that slowing the fan down if it is trying to dissipate laptop heat is a bad idea because you could fry the components.

You might want to get brave and open it up to clean out the dust and apply new thermal paste.
Here is the download link for manuals, etc.
http://docs.us.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins8500/en/8600cr/

 

Well, I took Derron's advice and disabled all the services just for kicks. Unfortunately that only speeds things up a teensy bit; its nowhere near what it should be (and has been in the past). A worthy shot though.

I'm going to download the utility plodr posted above in the hopes of getting some more accurate temp readings since the utility is specific to this laptop series. I'm not afraid to open up the machine and apply some thermal paste if that's what it needs. I'll post back with some temps from this new program.

 

Well, I've attached a log for I8kFanGUI. I'm not sure if it shows us anything, but you can see the point at which the fan clicked on. What I did was put the computer to sleep and then brought it back. When I did this the fan was off for awhile...as you can see from the log. The machine was running much faster during this time. Then in about 20 minutes the fan kicked on and it slowed down drastically...you can see that in the log as well.

Also, TimW, I have already done a clean install of XP but it didn't change the fan/slow behaviour.

Now I'm reluctant to turn the fan off for obvious reasons...that would probably be great for about a day until I fried the machine. So I'm guessing I have to tear it apart...clean it...and apply some thermal paste? Does anyone have any advice on this? (I do have the manual for this model already.)

 

According to that log the fan speed never varied far from 600.

 

I was looking at the next to last column...fan1speed. It goes from 0....to immediately up at 5000 when it clicks on, doesn't it?

 

OK, Sorry, I missed that:-o

If you notice the processor buildup starts 8 rows before the fan starts, so that suggests to me that the fan is being software controlled.

Do you, or have you ever had a program that could have controlled the fan? It is possible, there are plenty out there.

 

Hmm...I'm not exactly sure I understand what kind of program you're talking about. If you mean a utility that I've downloaded myself, then definitely not. I've just used this I8kFanGUI utility and SpeedFan. Now if you're talking about some other program that could have controlled it I really have no idea, because I don't know what types of programs do that?

 

hmmm... have we suggested you try to use linux? try www.ubuntu.com

See if that is slow or not. Install it first tho to truly see if it slows down or not. LiveCD will always run slow depending on your speed of your CD/DVD drive..

If ubuntu runs quick... and you can install several programs using the Ubuntu Software Center... in the Applications button, and everything is quick, I would stop thinking its anything else but the OS.

You know what I would try... use a program to make another partition and install a fresh copy of XP.. side by side with the older copy. If that fresh copy is fast.. well that solves the issue, format and reinstall windows.

 

Derron...as I mentioned below:

So I really don't think that another install will do any good at this point.

Now, concerning collinsl's post earlier:

This is true...and I was looking closer at the log and you can see that not only does the processor buildup start 8 rows up...but also that is the first time the CPU-temp hits 59C. The fan doesn't kick on until the CPU Temp is consistently 59C. Of course all this has to do with when I brought it back out of sleep mode.

Right now the CPU-temp is 38C and the fan has been on for awhile already!

I just procured some Arctic Silver 5. After I get some compressed air I think I'm going to take this bad boy apart and see what I can see. Should I get the ArctiClean cleaning compound and clean off the area first or is that an overkill?

 

I would recommend cleaning it, just to be on the safe side.

 

thats why i asked if we did suggest something like that. Tried to read quickly through the other posts to make sure we didnt try some new fresh install. sry bout that, I was rushing.

 

I would still try to see how ubuntu acts tho...

but thats just me.. don't do it if you don't want to. I would laugh if ubuntu was fast ...

doesn't make sense that it would ... but ya know i have been surprised by linux like that.

 

No problem!

 

I bought some compressed air and am ready to take the laptop apart this weekend...but I also have a little more info.

First, this forum post I found is the exact problem I'm experiencing...too bad there is no solution listed. But this is good info if I do find a fix later.

Also, someone pointed out to me that on the log of the fan I posted earlier their is a brief startup of Fan #2 but then it quickly ends. Originally I just thought that was an error with the software, but now I'm wondering if maybe there is actually 2 fans on this particular mobo and one is completely dead? Does anyone know how many fans a mobo like this is supposed to have. I'm still searching for detailed diagram of it...

 

Success!

Sorry about my delayed post, but I wanted to make sure that my fix did actually work...and after a week it looks good.

So, I took apart the laptop and gave it a thorough cleaning with some compressed air. During this ordeal I removed a rather formidable dustball from the GPU fan as well. I also found that the thermal paste for the processor was extremely dried out and scarcely applied at this point (after all the machine is 6 years old). So I cleaned off the old thermal paste and applied some new Arctic Silver 5. Then I put the machine back together, which actually wasn't as difficult as I anticipated.

The results? No more slow behavior. It's been over a week and things are still running smoothly. Please read on for some potential explanations.

Theory #1 - The thermal paste was the culprit and now things are cooling down faster and better. A fine theory, but I think the next one is the winner.

Theory #2 - The giant, formidable dustball in the GPU fan was the overall culprit. I really think this was the problem and here's why: When I looked at the I8KFanGui Log (posted below) it had showed that the CPU fan [fanspeed1] came on High after a certain temperature...and then it stayed on (from which point the slow behavior never ceased either). Now, this log also showed that the second fan tried to come on as indicated by [fanspeed2] at the same time as indicated by a few revolutions, but then never started. (Thanks to TekTime over at www.techguy.org for this insight! See the thread here.) This is in fact monitoring the GPU fan. It appears that Mr. Giant Dustball totally kept the GPU fan from running at all. Now that the culprit has been removed the GPU fan kicks on at the same time as the CPU fan. However, they both only turn on Slow instead of the High behavior of the CPU fan before. What's more...is that after the temperature comes down, both the fans shut off as well. Now I have had the GPU fan come on High briefly over the last week, but then go back to Slow, which still seems to be normal behavior. I've attached a new fan log to show how both fans are now running.

Sooo, perhaps there is some setting in the BIOS that will not allow the CPU fan to shut off the GPU fan isn't on/working, and that is why the CPU fan never shut down before. Perhaps this caused the slow behavior or maybe the power that it took to constantly try to run the GPU fan over Mr. Giant Dustball was wearing on the machine as well? I'm not sure of that, but I'd love to hear some theories.

Regardless of the exact reason it was slow before, I believe it was because the GPU fan wasn't running at all. And now...at least for the last week...everything is great!! :-D

I'd like to thank all of you for helping me through this problem over the last number of weeks...it totally paid off! I hope this can also help someone in the future.

 

And why regular cleaning is advised.