Dell :: Broken Screw On A Heat Sink (XPS M1530).
May 7, 2009
I've been recently applying Arctic Silver 5 paste to my CPU/GPU according to the guide found on this forum. After that the temperatures not only did not drop they actually are slighlty higher. The problem may be that I haven't use the lint free cloth tough I did took care not to leave any lint on the surfaces. Anyway, I decided to redo a whole operation with much more care. Unfortunately as I opened my XPS M1530 one of the screws heads was broken in a way that I could not use any of my phillips screwdrivers on it. How can I remove it now & more importantly what are the dimensions/sizes of the screws that are used to attach the heatsing to the GPU/CPU as I may have to buy one to replace it & don't seem to be able to find that info anywhere?......
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Jan 7, 2010
do you guys agree with this guy on the airflow?
Air gaps from Dell's stock setup of heat sinks
Now this was something I was not happy about. There is a large gap from the left fan (fan 1) to the CPU's heatsink from before. Then there was now a gap between the CPU and GPU's heatsinks. You can see in the picture above the screwdriver that is clearly visible (click the image for the full-res version).
In my history of custom cooling back in the 80s and 90s, there is one thing I learned that always remains constant: airflow is key. So my task would be to modify the airflow to force all air through the heatsinks by not allowing any to escape the airflow path through any gaps.
Aluminum Foil Shrouds
I accomplished this by using a few pieces of kitchen aluminum foil, scotch-tape, and additional AS5. There are multiple reasons for this. First for safety I evaluated the entire area and found no electrical components or circuit boards anywhere near this area. You do not want a piece coming loose and short-circuiting things!
Second is having aluminum foil allows the heat to transfer from one copper pipe to the other (just a tad though, too thin really to do a massive amount). That may not have been the best idea at first because CPUs usually run cooler than GPUs from my overclocking experience. But considering how freakin' high my CPU temps were before I even began, I could only see this as helping to offload some heat to the GPU's heatpipe - even if just a tad amount, anything had to help.
I also closed down the air escaping on the left side of fan's outlet to the CPU's heatsink, as well as the gaps between the two heatsinks. Now all air is forced by the fan trough the CPU heatsink, and then through the GPU's heatsink where it than only has room to exit the back vent.
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Jan 27, 2009
I got a defective C640, completely dead, no charging and a charged battery did not work either.
I found a bad solder joint at one of the DC filters located under the PCB just under the DC-jack, easy to resolder . Found also that the videoboard was loose. Now it is working.
But then I had a strange problem, when I put down the cpu heat sink the fan stopped, and when I just lift it a litte bit it started!?
I could not solve this until I installed the speedfan program and marked the Dell square under configure > options and rebooted?
Then I have a leftover, a plastic piece L-shaped 2+3 cm with an hole at one end,
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Jan 14, 2009
I'm not sure if others are aware, but I have recently found out that the contact between the heatsink and the GPU and chipset are made of a metal-foam material, while the CPU's is copper with thermal paste. After doing some research, it's said that these "high-performance foam heatsink" provide "high thermal conductivity, high internal surface area, and the connectivity of the voids". I'm not sure I'm buying into this since my idling temps are about 60C while my 9300M in my Asus U6V idles at 49C and even my 9800M GS in the Asus G71G idles at 60C.
Has anyone else seen these metal-foams used in other laptops and do you think this decision of using foam heatsinks is due to lower production costs? I personally would have preferred solid copper/aluminum w/ thermal paste rather than a piece of foam
Top red circle = chipset heatsink; lower right red circle = GPU heatsink
Close up on GPU heatsink
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Aug 31, 2007
Heres my problem.
I have an acer laptop, with a faulty DVD RW.
I need to remove it, but the screw on the bottom, which needs to be removed in order to take out the cd drive, has been damaged by me trying to unscrew it, and it will not turn, so the head is damaged and i cannot use a screw driver to turn it.
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Aug 13, 2009
an Inspiron 8500. I have increased the memory to 2Gb, added a wireless N card and put in a 160Gb HD. It runs Win 7 RC ok with it's Mobility Radeon 9000 32mb but was thinking of putting in a 9600 128mb.
My question is if you're not going to be doing any gaming is the heat sink mod mandatory to use the 9600 in the i8500? Looking mainly to use some of the Win 7 eye candy features. Found a place on the net selling new (supposedly) 9600's for $100, which is what used ones go for on Ebay.
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Dec 3, 2009
I am thinking of just getting a nut and bolt to try to fix this problem, anyone have any ideas for a quick fix? Attached is a picture
btw: I tried superglue to glue the screw hole back on and let it dry overnight before putting the heatsink on.
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Aug 8, 2009
I've had the m1530 for 15 months (Out of warranty) Never really had any significant problems with it, until yesterday. When it boots up, it will load the desktop and then freeze.
The mouse will move, but nothing will load and everything stops. Not even Ctrl Alt Del works. I keep trying to reboot it, and I have got loads of various errors from the blue screen, a message saying my virus protection is not up to date, message saying a file is corrupted, and a message saying my firewall is turned off.
I guess it sounds like a virus, but it will load every-time in Safe Mode no problem (When I click on Firefox while in SM in actually causes it to freeze, but I uninstalled it and still have the prob). What can I do? Time to reinstall Vista?
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Jul 11, 2009
Well, I've just managed to drop my laptop, and the part of the casing has snapped Its a clean snap snapped on the outside, on the just after the curve on the hinge (If you imagine the planel that says XPS on the casing,
well the crack is about the equivilent of half way up that, just after the curvature of the hinge)
I know my warranty doesnt cover accidental damage, so is there any way I could replace this casing myself, of fix it somehow?
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Dec 7, 2008
After hearing about the known heat issues with the nVidia 8400m card – I started monitoring the temperatures on my laptop using ‘SpeedFan’. The temperatures remain pretty consistent – albeit on the high side….
They are as follow:
GPU: 65C
Core 0: 55C
Core 1: 55C
These are averages – they really don’t get much higher (at least for too long). When the fan turns on they drop about 5C (and go back up when it turns off). I bought my laptop back in March (actually very happy with it) and have had no real problems (fingers crossed). I mostly use Office, surf the internet & watch movies – no real hardcore gaming for me…
Anyone think these temperatures are normal?
Should I call Dell?
Will all these video cards ultimately fail?
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Aug 21, 2009
I've had my XPS M1530 for a year now and I've recently gotten into overclocking, undervolting (going through this now), and monitoring my internal temperatures due to playing Oblivion, WoW, and AOC. Anyway, I checked the temperatures, and while idle my core temp sits at about 77C. With dual monitors (goes into 3D mode) it'll reach ~86C just surfing the internet. While gaming/overclocked it can easily reach 90-93C. I've gamed for LONG periods of time and it never seems to go above 93C ever, which is good b/c the max is somewhere around 100C (probably because of my cooling pad).
So I've looked online and everyone else seems to have temperatures of ~20C lower! What's going on and how come my laptop is this absurdly hot? Do any other users have temps this high? Have I had faulty hardware for a year now? I'm basically just wondering if there's any other suggestions out there or if I should call Dell asking them whats up with my laptop (I have a 4-year warranty).
Dell XPS M1530
Vista x64
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz
nVidia 8600M GT
4GB Ram
I just tried undervolting, and after changing the voltage it says "stress your CPU for 45minutes to make sure you don't get a blue screen of death or laptop crashes." It tested for a minute and RMClock (the program to undervolt) had to throttle the temps down b/c the CPU temps were getting over 95C.
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Apr 17, 2009
I used speedfan to measure the heat. At around %10 CPU usage in Vista (no games running or anything, just Firefox and GTalk) it shows GPU @ 77C and CPU @ around 65 C. I think it's way too much but I'm not sure. Am I correct and if so what can I do about it? ...
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Jul 20, 2009
I've had my XPS 1530 for about a year now and at school (running Vista Home Premium 32 bit) I dont remember having any issues with heat, and I could leave the laptop idle in my dorm room and come back hours later and it would be fine (NO AC or Fan blowing on it directly)
I came home and installed 64 bit version of Windows 7 but it began to run so much hotter, I installed all the right graphics card drivers from nVidia but still the touchpad and right before the keyboard were very very hot.
I just recently went back to that 32 bit version thinking it was the graphics card that was too hot but I opened the back panel of the laptop where the WLAN card is and realized it is that card that is below the touchpad and that is the component that is getting most hot. Normally, the GPU is around 65-70 degrees idel and i'm not sure if that is normal. The CPU is around 50-55 idle.
Is there anything I can do about this? I've tried disabling the wireless card with the switch and using Ethernet but it does not do much.
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Feb 4, 2009
I really should be writing my english essay instead, but after all this time, I'm better at writing forum posts about my laptop's massive heating issues.
On a good day, my 4 month old XPS M1530 32bitVista Home Premium laptop will run at about 65 degrees celcius. From what I've read, this is a normal temperature for the laptop.
Note that my fan used to run, but only does sporadically now. I don't know what triggers it on or off .....
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Mar 28, 2009
since i installed windows XP on my M1530 i got some serious heat issues with my laptop.
speedfan is indicating idle:
core1: 60°c
core2: 60°C
GPU: 70°C
I Did however install all drivers as described in the manual on the forum. Before format temp were normal.
Is anyone experiencing same things or has suggetions how to solve this?
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Feb 28, 2009
I have an XPS M1530 which just had its motherboard replaced. I've now noticed that the underside of the laptop directly under the touchpad gets very hot. Its far hotter than any other area of the laptop even on load!
Its a new mobo and not a refurb. After using for half an hour it becomes quite uncomfortable on my lap. I initially thought it might be the WLAN card but ive switched it off and used ethernet instead. The problem persists. Has anyone else experienced this problem with their systems?
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Aug 11, 2008
I'm looking to buy a M1530 with the 8600M GT. I'm concerned about heat issues as the machine will be mostly used in Thailand in a non airconditioned room, often 90-100 fahrenheit. I don't do much gaming at all, so the vid card won't be running maxxed out or overclocked at all, i just want a decent 3D card for CAD and modeling. I also intend to use it with the 9-cell all the time which will help to keep it elevated a bit.
I was disturbed to hear the the GPUs can't be swapped out like some of the 17" Dells, so i'm not to keen on purchasing a laptop with known heat issues and taking it too a hot climate, especially since Dell will not be able to later swap out the video if they get a cooler running card. The 7800 go died in my E1705 just 14 months after use. Am i heading down a foolish path by considering this laptop for a hot climate?
Also, i'm a bit torn between the non-LED WUXGA screen and the 1440x900 LED screen. I loved the WUXGA screen on my E1705, but it later developed some fugly dark areas. Also the idea of LED seems nice. OTOH, I don't mind the ultra high DPI that will be an outcome of using WUXGA at just 15.4", i'm happy bumping up the font sizes to compensate.
Has anyone been able to compare the screens side-by-side? Why can't dell just give me LED lighting and WUXGA resolution...
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Aug 11, 2008
I'm looking to buy a M1530 with the 8600M GT. I'm concerned about heat issues as the machine will be mostly used in Thailand in a non airconditioned room, often 90-100 fahrenheit. I don't do much gaming at all, so the vid card won't be running maxxed out or overclocked at all, i just want a decent 3D card for CAD and modeling. I also intend to use it with the 9-cell all the time which will help to keep it elevated a bit.
I was disturbed to hear the the GPUs can't be swapped out like some of the 17" Dells, so i'm not to keen on purchasing a laptop with known heat issues and taking it too a hot climate, especially since Dell will not be able to later swap out the video if they get a cooler running card. The 7800 go died in my E1705 just 14 months after use. Am i heading down a foolish path by considering this laptop for a hot climate?
Also, i'm a bit torn between the non-LED WUXGA screen and the 1440x900 LED screen. I loved the WUXGA screen on my E1705, but it later developed some fugly dark areas. Also the idea of LED seems nice. OTOH, I don't mind the ultra high DPI that will be an outcome of using WUXGA at just 15.4", i'm happy bumping up the font sizes to compensate.
Has anyone been able to compare the screens side-by-side? Why can't dell just give me LED lighting and WUXGA resolution...
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Jan 11, 2009
i heard there were several heat issues with the graphics card and stuff.
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Oct 15, 2008
I wanted to change my hard drive back to my original one and it turns out that when I first changed it in May I have screwed the low quality screws too tight. When I tried to unscrew them again, 2 of them (the ones that are towards the middle of the laptop) failed to unscrew and I pretty much turned them unusable with my repeated tries.
I'm not going to rant about the fact that Dell could actually use STEEL screws to prevent this type of thing, I'm just going to ask you Dell XPS M1330 owners if there's any other way around getting the hard drive out.
If I'll unscrew all other screws, can I take my XPS apart? Is there anything I should be particularly careful with (other than unscrewing the low quality screws that is)? Or do you have any tips on how I could unscrew the faulty screws?
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Feb 19, 2009
Anybody know what size screw is needed to hold the bluetooth card in place? I want to order the card but from what
I understand it won't come with the screw, so i need to find one that will fit.
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May 3, 2010
Does anybody know the screw size for the wwan card in the XPS 1640 ?
I bought a card but it didn't came with the screws and i don't know what size to order.
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Jan 2, 2009
I have a Dell 1720 and i am very happy with it
I want to replace the blue lid
Does the lid screw in to the main lcd or just snap on ?
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Nov 2, 2009
I was wondering if anyone on here uses a special size or brand of screwdriver when working on Dell laptops.
The reason I ask is because we support a number of Dells here at the office, and my team mostly has an el cheapo laptop repair kit with a very cheap universal screwdriver set.
I've noticed that the phillips head of the screwdriver doesn't seem to set very well into the Dell screws on the bottom of the laptop
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Nov 5, 2009
(they finally nailed them for what we all KNEW was happening)
Dell accused of getting $6 billion from secret Intel pact New York's Cuomo names Intel in antitrust lawsuit (Nov. 4) By Ben Charny
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Dell Inc. allegedly received billions of dollars in payments over a four-year period to use chips made by Intel Corp. Payments that sometimes totaled more than the computer maker's reported profits for a fiscal quarter, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
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Feb 15, 2009
Will Dell replace this unit? Their is no way they can replace the parts, which model will they replace it with? specs are below............................
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Jan 18, 2010
Whenever my laptop is on a flat service such as a desk I get incredible vibration and distortion from what seems to be the subwoofer in front, even at low volumes. Is this normal? Seems kind of silly...
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Sep 8, 2008
My 7900 on the Dell M1710 I have has burnt up and I'm looking for a card to replace it with. I had thought the 7950 was a good replacement, but wondered with the shell being an M1710 are there other cards to put in there or is it only the 7900 and 7950.
Also, is there a good place you can think of to purchase these cards? Ebay is kinda dried up now.
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May 7, 2009
After almost 7 services by the *always gentle* Dell techs, im getting a new problem, my WIFI reception is just crud, being right next to my router i get 4 bars... and if i get a little farther apart it will loose signal and oscillate between 3 bars and 1 bar, and sometimes even disconnect all of a sudden on places i always had good signal, and reconnecting will fail a couple of times before its successfully connects. ( ive tried this with several different routers, and the same happens )
is it possible that my WIFI antennas were damaged? or could it also be my wireless card? ( intel N 4950 )
i have already checked where the 3 antennas connect to the card and they seem ok.
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Nov 23, 2007
I'm getting a weird white vertical line , about 2 inches thick, all over my display, it doesn't matter if I'm browsing software, or just at boot screen, the line is there.
Weird thing is, it seems to randomly dissappear sometimes, but appears again when trying to shut down the lappy, is the first time this thing happen to my display and I shuted down my lappy, hoping its propably a heat problem.
Here's a pic:
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I hope that it doesn't be any gfx card problem...
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