Dell Latitude D530 Problems

[Tubbycoates]

Hi all,
I've asked about this problem before, and nobody has given me an answer. Now it's getting worse, so I need to do something urgently about it.

When I power up, (it's running Windows 7), everything is fine. After about 20-30 minutes, the screen goes blank, then comes back on again immediately. If I'm on the 'net, the screen freezes, and I have to come out and go back in again. If I'm playing a game, the same thing. If I'm on QBasic, the input channel stops working.
This would be an annoyance I can live with, but it's now repeating about every 20-30 minutes. Sometimes if I'm on the 'net, even coming out and going back in doesn't help, and I have to restart the laptop.
If it's any help, when I do restart, or shut down, I get a message saying something like 'waiting for background programs to close', even though I've closed everything before I shut down/restart.

Can anyone throw any light on the problem please?

TIA

[Buenchico]

The usual cause of something which only occurs some time after booting up is overheating of the CPU. So one of the following might be the cause of the problem:
(a) the air vents are blocked ;
(b) the fan isn't working (or is working inefficiently) ; or
(c) the thermal bonding between the CPU and its heat sink has become fractured.

My guess is that (c) is actual the cause. If a laptop gets knocked it can easily occur but with the damage not becoming noticeable until later on.

[Tubbycoates]

What can I do about it please ?

[Buenchico]

If you're confident enough to open up your laptop and work inside it you can reseat the CPU, cleaning off the old thermal paste and applying fresh paste to replace it as you do so. (Youtube has plenty of videos on the topic).

However it's a task that I might hesitate to do myself (even though I opened up my netbook to add RAM to it only the other day). So it might be time to call upon the services of a computer technician. (PC World charge a flat fee of £60, plus any parts required, for laptop repairs but local independent repairers are usually cheaper).

[Tubbycoates]

Thanks very much,very much appreciated.

[Guilbert53]

I think it does sound like overheating.

Running games is very compute intensive and the CPU can get very hot with constant use in a game.

Try blowing out any dust that might be inside the laptop case (I use a hairdryer) and blow it all around the laptop, on the base and sides and anywhere there is a slot or slots that could be clogged with dust or fluff.

If the slots are clogged then this could overheat the laptop.

It also depends WHERE you are using the laptop.

If, for example, you are using it in bed and the laptop is resting on the duvet then this may block the air vents and overheat the laptop.

Make sure wherever you are using it there is plenty of space round the laptop to let air circulate.

[Guilbert53]

It also seems this model is quite old, and maybe the software you are running is pushing the laptop to run faster than it was designed to do.

The faster the laptop runs the hotter it gets, and the more likely it is to overheat.

Time for a new laptop me thinks.

[Buenchico]

I've got a laptop that's very sensitive to ambient temperature and to anything nearby that could restrict the airflow to and from it. It doesn't totally crash if things get a bit too warm for it but the graphics adapter does, resulting in the screen going blank for a bit. I've found that I can get around it by simply wedging a pencil underneath the rear of its base, thus improving the airflow underneath it. For a more professional approach to the problem though, you could try one of these:
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[woodchopper]

Thanks for the advice also Chris - when I was installing the SSD in my old computer I removed the fan off the CPU and blew it out with a compressed airline.
I wondered what the dry gunk was that was on the cpu heat sink - now I know - new stuff paste ordered.