Assistance with laptop heating up..

K

karthik316_1999

In the zone
Hi,

My Dell Inspiron 3521 expells out air at a fairly high temperature & the grill area is itself warm to the touch. Thought of removing the dust that might be blocking the air vent fins.. that's when I came across videos such as the one below for guidance.


However, I see that an activity of cleaning the fans involves removal of the cpu heatsink & that thermal paste needs to be re-applied both for the GPU & the CPU.. which quite frankly I haven't done before and not confident about, be it a desktop or laptop. Answers seeked for the below please:

  • Is it okay for a novice user to take up this activity.. I don't want to screw up things !
  • Will my heating issue be resolved by this disassembly & cleaning process
  • Is re-applying the thermal paste mandatory, even though if all I want is just to clear the dust away
  • My battery has lost 50% of its capacity all of a sudden in the last 2 weeks. Can heat generated be an enemy to the battery's health ?

Note : I have not had any 'overheating symptoms' like an auto shutdown or something..

Thanks !
 
TheSloth

TheSloth

The Slowest One
  • Is it okay for a novice user to take up this activity.. I don't want to screw up things !
Click to expand...
Yes you can do this by yourself.
  • Just keep all the parts in correct order after removing. Don't keep everything piled together.
  • Keep few bowls beside you and put similar screws together in the bowl.
  • Take snapshot at each level of disassembly.
  • If something is not coming apart, then there is a screw holding it together. Make 100% sure there are no screws present before pulling things apart.
  • Do everything on clean floor or table.
  • Watch several disassembly video of the model you have.
  • You can also record your entire process, so while assembling it back if you get confused, you can refer the video to clear your doubts.

  • Will my heating issue be resolved by this disassembly & cleaning process
Click to expand...
If done right, yes it should definitely help lower temperatures, at least by small margin.

  • Is re-applying the thermal paste mandatory, even though if all I want is just to clear the dust away
Click to expand...
It is mandatory! Watch more videos on how to do this and what all you need to do it efficiently. You will need to spend some money here.

  • My battery has lost 50% of its capacity all of a sudden in the last 2 weeks. Can heat generated be an enemy to the battery's health ?
Click to expand...
Yes, generally speaking, heat is bad for battery performance. But 50% is significant amount in such short period of time. How do you use laptop? Play games on battery?
 
OP
K

karthik316_1999

In the zone
Thanks for the reply!

The battery efficiency reduction to 50% has been evident since the past 1 month actually but I had started to test it only about 2 weeks back. For eg., when disconnecting mains with a 100% battery, 6 hrs of backup would be mentioned in the taskbar. Which has now reduced to 3 hrs+..

Please note, same type of activity has always been done on the laptop.. (Browsing, Youtube, Entertaintment, Excel / Word docs)..
Hence the concern..

No gaming at all.. [would have loved to though, if the hardware had supported ;-) ]

Though I can manage with the steps given above (which are very useful..), there is a slight inhibition within me.. So..., what would be the nominal charge that could be paid to a doorstep laptop service guy to do this activity ?
 
TheSloth

TheSloth

The Slowest One
3+hrs is still decent battery backup. If no gaming then not sure what went wrong suddenly. May be just the battery is reach EOL. Don't charge laptop/phone batteries 100%. Unplug the power at 85% and plug it back in around 15%-20%.
If you are not confident then try reaching out to official service center of your laptop manufacturer or check if you have reliable 3rd party service center nearby you. If you are from Chennai, I have heard good about GBS laptop service center few years back, not sure how they are nowadays. I don't know how much they will quote but it will be lesser than official service centers for sure.
 
OP
K

karthik316_1999

In the zone
I used to get 6 hours+ due to the fact that I had upgraded my 3 cell battery (factory default) to a 6 cell battery around the year 2018...

Thanks for the suggestion & I shall check for service center availability.. (I need a door step service for sure.. Hence, the check with you..).. since I'm not sure if Dell could arrange a door step service for an out of warranty product. Let's see..
 
OP
K

karthik316_1999

In the zone
Checked a few places but none provide door step services..

The ask is around 1000/- ..
And they wouldn't allow me to be present during the general service .. (just in an interest to educate myself..)
 
TheSloth

TheSloth

The Slowest One
Yes contact and ask them. No harm in inquiry.

Also, if you decided to this by yourself, then watch several disassembly videos of your model, that will definitely give you confidence. Buy a new thermal paste and cleaning kit to remove old paste, and you are good to go. Keep things organized and it should be easy.
 
OP
K

karthik316_1999

In the zone
hmm dell toll free support works only on mon-fri (unbelievable)
So I'm unable to book an on-site visit.
Spoke to a carry-in service center and the quote is 1400/-
they won't encourage an on-site service enquiry.. seems I need to be routed only via the toll free :blink:
 
TheSloth

TheSloth

The Slowest One
Hmm. Post an update about how your experience was with service center once you service your laptop.
 
OP
K

karthik316_1999

In the zone
Update : Checked with Dell & they are not offering any on-site service for EOL laptops.
Engaged a local service guy who asked around Rs.650/- for the general service.. Visited my home yesterday & his statement goes like "Some laptop models might have a heatsink that's not removable by screws but 'might' have a setup which requires a [box/rectangular shaped] machine to remove & fix the heat sink properly". Showed the back of the laptop & said this golden color part that you see through here indicates that this is a kind of laptop which needs special care.

I have no clue what that machine is & went ahead to show some YouTube videos of the same model being dismantled. He made a call to someone & said if that's the case, we can have it done. But, it'll require more time. Since I didn't have the time, had re-scheduled the job to tomorrow.

Further when enquired about the thermal paste, he said it is all the usual paste that they use. Later when I spoke about Arctic Silver & all that, I was told that there are some paste varieties which are applicable only to 'huge gaming desktops' and would not be suitable for laptops. However said, there is 'another quality' of the paste which would be slightly thinker & perform better.. would cost additional 200 bucks.

I was also told that this exercise will result in only a marginal improvement in the heat generated & it's not like there wont be any heating at all. For that, you need to use a laptop stand with fans, etc..

I'm not sure which of the statements above make sense & which do not. Is it like the 'heat dissipating capacity' of the heatsink reduces with the laptop's age & needs replacement of any component ?

I wouldn't want to go ahead with this exercise if the 'improvement' would not be beneficial or is not really helpful in keeping the laptop healthy or would bring in additional problems that don't exist now and can easily be solved by using a laptop stand..

Throw in your experience please !
 
TheSloth

TheSloth

The Slowest One
Yes, the paste and cleaning would help less if the temps are already NOT too high. First of all, what temps you are getting and for what applications? Marginal improvement is legit actually, sometimes the old laptops just generate more heat so cleaning and reapplying thermal paste doesn't always help.
Post all the temps and then also state where do you keep your laptop? If its bed or table or something else.

Just random thermal paste might not help at all. Check with them if they can use the thermal paste provided by you. If yes, then Arctic and Noctua has good products. I don't know what kind of thermal paste exists which is applicable for "only huge gaming desktops". I doubt now if they know how to even apply thermal paste properly.
 
OP
K

karthik316_1999

In the zone
Okay so I monitored my temps using CPUID and the CPU/GPU remain at a max. of 58 degrees & the HDD at 38 degrees

There are no specific tasks that lead to high temps (The laptop is mostly being used for browsing/entertainment/excel/docs) It is usually used on a table that is covered with a plastic sheet & sometimes on a bed / couch / my lap
 
Zangetsu

Zangetsu

I am the master of my Fate.
Go to BIOS and monitor the temps there for 2 minutes and then compare them with CPU/GPU temp measured by App.

Applying thermal paste is tricky as it should be in between the max and min amount.
 
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