Computers
All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin
Dell Inspiron 1100 overheating problems solved?
Background: When I tried to run SpinRite 6.0 on my laptop, it reached a drive temp over 62°C, which is the maximum temperature they’re allowed to operate (or something along those lines).
Anyway, I emailed GRC support, and received this reply:
It appears that some laptops are not designed to work with DOS anymore and the temperature controls may only be available in Windows.
SpinRite will allow you, when you hit the temperature screen, to proceed with caution. It may be that the drive is not going to get much hotter and it may also be, as you suggest, that this is not really a problem because laptops generally have heat dissipation troubles and so characteristically run their drives hot. However, it may also be that your laptops fans or other cooling devices are controlled by Windows drivers and so your laptops cooling is not functional when outside of Windows and running SpinRite in DOS.
I didn’t get too much from this reply, so I held out on continuing the hard drive maintenence until I could solve the heat issue. Shortly following this email reply, I ran into “Our Dell Inspiron 1100 Notebook Computer Kept Overheating” and “Our Dell Inspiron 1100 Has Overheating Problems Again“.
Basically, I had to:
- remove a few screws and panels
- remove the heatsink and fan
- clean the cooling fins from dust
- [possibly] reapply thermal grease to the CPU
- reassemble
To me, this was a fairly daunting task, simply because I haven’t tinkered inside the workings of a laptop. But, my laptop was running hot anyway, so I was hopeful that this’d help cool things down.
Today: At work, I brought my laptop in and utilized the tools I have here in my office. I wasn’t planning on cleaning the CPU core and reapplying thermal grease, because I didn’t have any. The only issue I had was popping off the thin blue top plate. It’s really flimsy.
Tools:
- Compressed air
- Mini Phillips screwdriver
- Standard Phillips screwdriver
- Flatheat screwdriver
With the help of the pictures in the article mentioned above, I cleaned the dust out of the laptop, and SpinRite has been running for over two hours. The drive temperature has held steady for the past hour at 54°C. Awesome!
I’ll be using it later tonight to see if my lap and hands feel better with it. (Yeah, even the area below the keyboard gets a bit warm!) I’ll also put some pictures up, marking the areas where you need to use the tools. I took them with my camera phone, because my main one wasn’t here, but it’s a 1.3MP camera - it should be fine.
Lastly, it’d be in your best interest to read over the both the articles, and skim over the comments. Some of them have important insight, so they need to be taken into consideration.
Thanks to Dan for writing these articles!
Maintenence for 75+ computers?
How do I clean and run maintenence on over 75 computers running Windows XP, that are also housing multiple accounts on each system? One by one? (You know, making sure they don’t have extraneous programs, cleaning temporary internet files and cookies, stuff like that.)
Steve Bass Blog
Sifting through my email-subscribed newsletters, I see that Steve Bass is now blogging. Now I’ll unsubscribe to his email list and keep track of his neat finds that way. Nifty! (PCWorld also has another blog titled “Techlog.” I’ll keep my eye on that one as well.
Dell tech support conversation
I was talking to a Dell Tech Support representative about a system here at work today, and while the system was downloading and updating stuff, I was basically shooting the breeze with him. It was actually pretty awesome! I asked him about troubleshooting hardware and software (beyond memory and the hard drive). (more…)
My methods of troubleshooting computers
Basically, what I’ve learned in the past two weeks of dianosing problems with a system is that in most cases, you need to test the hardware level before testing software. The following is what I do so far, but I’m really in need of any additional tips, links, and/or articles that have more things I can do. (more…)
Ruthless Belkin
I accidently had the Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter plugged in before I installed the software on a customer’s computer. I tried to fix it (a lot of times) by uninstalling, disabling, reinstalling. It was all in vain. After waiting 10 minutes on hold for tech support, I basically have to clean install Windows. Man, no mercy! I spent over an hour on it, too!
On the box, they should clearly say that if you mess up, you’ll have to format everything: in big, bold letters. Ugh! Idiot!
Huge CRT monitor for sale
Update: Sold for $50. Better than nothin.
Now that I’ve got a new Neovo F-417 17″ LCD monitor, can anyone give me a hint or two on how to sell or get rid of my Samsung SyncMaster 955DF? I need whatever cash I can get for it to pay Matt back. 
Thanks!
Tech support businesses on the rise
Going back a couple days into Slashdot posts, I saw “Tech support businesses on the rise.” Reading through some of the replies makes me wonder if certain things I’m doing are right and wrong, in terms of this so-called side business of mine.
Am I charging enough? Am I making it worth my while? Should I be doing it?
Do you have any thoughts about Geek Squad and others? If I’ve helped you, how do my strengths help you look for me when you’re in need? I’m just thinking out loud, and looking for feedback of some sort. Ooh, I should at least make a services page here, huh?
Get your drivers
Someone called me up late last night and was trying to get their laptop running the way it was before. However, he didn’t have his restore CD - just a Windows CD (I think). Anyway, it sounded like he got everything working properly except the integrated wireless card. He thought that all restore CDs were the same, so he was trying to get one from me. Sadly, they’re not, and now he has to figure out another way to get those drivers for it. Plus, he doesn’t know what model the card is. Yikes.
Lesson: Get all the information you can on your system, and get the drivers burned onto a CDR periodically, when cases like this arise.
Giving up on GeeXboX
Until someone helps, I’m giving up on GeeXboX with my Dell Inspiron 1100. It just won’t work properly. Vertical lines, and won’t display through the S-Video. The Toshiba Satellite A75-S231 (Jon’s laptop) works fine…but will only display on his laptop. It won’t display through S-Video either. I’m still hoping support will get added. What stinks is that the GeeXboX website doesn’t have any RSS feeds.
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