Inspiron 630m problem.

Redegg

Hi,

My laptop is running very sluggishly and windows itself takes a good 5 minutes to load up. This has only happened in the past few days. It was running perfectly and then all my applications froze. On rebooting it took about 15 minutes for the destop to load up. There is also a delay with the mouse click and general typing. I was downloading nothing at the time.

Also my fan has gotten louder and lots of air is blowing out.

Any ideas anyone? (I posted here as the dell forums asked for a customer number which i don't have on me!)

Cheers,
Colin.

Ruu_Old

Have you got the laptop long? I would get the fan looked at if it is still under warranty. How much RAM have you got and have you tried the usual, like viruscan and anti-spyware scan?

Redegg

yea. Nothing showed up on them. Machine is painfully sluggish and fan is loud.

Have 512 RAM
Have had laptop since last december.

Have chacked task manager and there was nothing unusual there.

Has anyone had this problem before?

majiktripp

Run it through the inbuilt Dell Diagnostics,
On starting the laptop directly hit the F12 button to get a boot menu selection screen,
From the menu , down the bottom choose Dell Utilities or something to that accord,highlight it using up/down arrows and press enter.
It will boot through to a Dell diagnostic partition and allow you to run express or extended tests.
Give it an extended test and tell us how it does.It can take upto an hour so be patient!

Redegg

Ok will try that later. Thanks for all the replies too!

Redegg

Ok It has now been a week. I have tried it all bar the inbuilt Dell Diagnostics thing, I hear it was a bit confusing. So I think I am just going to reinstall windows XP. However dell stopped giving them out about a year ago!... Is it ok to use a mates disc or will I have to ring dell and ask them to post one out?

Any ideas, anyone?

tywy

you should be able to use a friends disk....i've installed the same xp pro on two dells....they don't seem to have serial numbers.

Redegg

Ok i ran my laptop through the inbuilt Dell Diagnostics. i found the following. The video tests after in were very annoying and one of them made my lap top freeze:


ERROR:

ERROR CODE: 3900 : 0626

MSG: temperature sensor out of range
temp =255c,min = 10c, max = 100c

this given error code and message can be iused by dell technician,,,,,,,,

Test progress - 0%
Total progress = 38%

device = CPU thermister
Test : Sensor range test
Test status : checking temperature sensor

majiktripp

Looks like you found a problem area...if under warranty it might be worth ringing dell and seeing what they can do when you quote them that code...

TempestSabre

Sounds like its over heating. How old is it?

I can post on the DellTalk forums without a customer no...

Redegg

Had it six months. Sohudl not be over heating already!! And it's over heating even when I have absolutely nothing open?? The laptop does not seem that warm really. Just sluggish and louder fan.

TempestSabre

I might have thought, perhaps theres something not fitted correctly internally, fan, heatsink, thermal paste. But you would have had that problem from day one and not just at 6 months. Perhaps its just full of dust, that happens pretty quickly with my own PC's and Laptop. On my Sony Vaio I do it about every 6 months.

It might just be some rogue process even if you can't see it in task manager. You could boot up the machine on a live linux distro. If its still doing it, then its hardware problem. If not its software.

Redegg

Thanks for all the replies! It is a hardware problem. And I have tried refitting the hard drive and memory module. But that did nothing. I was trying to access to fan to see if there was any dirt lodge but it’s pretty much impossible to get at this! It’s nearly to open. I have heard about people using vacuum cleaners to suck dirt out through the vent. This has BAD written all over it.??

TempestSabre

The usual tactic is to get a can of compressed air and blow it through the intake vents, not in the exhaust vents (keeps the fan spinning the right way). While the laptop is off, I might add. Worked for my Vaio but it was over a year old when I first did it.

majiktripp

I agree with tempest on this one,the canned air is the way to go,suprising how much crap gets sucked into vents and clogs them up..why not try dell support and see what they say if its still under warranty?