My 2 year old laptop, right for the trash?

[ysidfa]

Hey guys!
Looking for a bit of advice,
I got a new laptop August 2010, and it was mid range at the time but had decent enough performance for what i wanted.
Its a Dell Inspiron 1546
15" Dual core AMD turion
Windows 7 64bit
4gb ram
amd graphics card (i think)

It was quick for the price I paid for it (around £400) and it was used for college work and the occasion minecraft sesh!

Now, ive not used it for 3 months at least due to annoying problems

1. Battery doesnt charge (message showing adaptor not recognised pops up when its plugged in) and has to be ran of mains constantly

2. heats up incredibly quickly to sometimes over 95 degrees C (when under load)

3. performance has gone down the drain dramatically, Frame rate issues. Almost seems as if all the RAMs been eaten by something despite having closed all processes and programmes in task manager...

After talking to Dell customer support, they gave me a quote of £200+ for a new motherboard and fan unit... F*** that!!!!

I was wondering, is it worth selling it in the current condition, putting the money towards a new pc (probably a desktop), or.. fixing it and putting more RAM in?
Or wildcard.. Getting finance on a new Macbook pro retina?

Tom

 

[TallTom]

I would suggest you clean the fan out and possibly put some new thermal paste somewhere on it! That will get the temps down I would expect.

Use something like CCleaner to give the system a tidy and see if that makes it run a lot faster and helps deal with all the probelms.

As with everything its worth what someone wants to pay for it, £100 maybe

 

[x Alex x]

4gb ram is more than enough to run comfortably so you shouldn't need more, as well as the above i'd get all your stuff of it and format it, fresh install of windows and see how it runs.

does it still recognise all 4gb of the ram?

as for the battery, it's a common thing on dells, if you do format, make sure it's in the laptop when you re-install windows and all the drivers, sometimes that will sort it out others it wont.

 

[ysidfa]

I would suggest you clean the fan out and possibly put some new thermal paste somewhere on it! That will get the temps down I would expect.

Use something like CCleaner to give the system a tidy and see if that makes it run a lot faster and helps deal with all the probelms.

As with everything its worth what someone wants to pay for it, £100 maybe

I thought about opening it up and attacking it with a can of compressed air. I opened up all the "expansion" sections on the base, (where the ram, HDD and disk drive are) and is was pretty dust free , but after removing all the visible screws, It still would come apart and I didnt wanna break anything.. :/ Ill youtube a guide later and see what i can do.

4gb ram is more than enough to run comfortably so you shouldn't need more, as well as the above i'd get all your stuff of it and format it, fresh install of windows and see how it runs.

does it still recognise all 4gb of the ram?

as for the battery, it's a common thing on dells, if you do format, make sure it's in the laptop when you re-install windows and all the drivers, sometimes that will sort it out others it wont.

Its recognising all the RAM yeah, and I thougth about buying a new battery but at £45 I think running it on the mains would be ok


Anyone got any advice on semi-decent desktops?

Tom

 

[ChrisUK]

The temps are likely to be causing ALL the problems. If it's reaching 95*c I'd be 99% sure the processor will be getting clocked down to prevent damage.

Need to get an air duster or even an airline from a compressor on it (make sure it's got a water / moisture capture receptacle installed). And air duster won't really have enough ummmph to dislodge caked on fluff. Really needs to be dismantled and heat sink and fan unit removed, cleaned and reseated with high quality thermal paste.

Shame your not a little nearer to me I'd do it FOC or for a few bottles of blacksheep beer .

 

[ysidfa]

The temps are likely to be causing ALL the problems. If it's reaching 95*c I'd be 99% sure the processor will be getting clocked down to prevent damage.

Need to get an air duster or even an airline from a compressor on it (make sure it's got a water / moisture capture receptacle installed). And air duster won't really have enough ummmph to dislodge caked on fluff. Really needs to be dismantled and heat sink and fan unit removed, cleaned and reseated with high quality thermal paste.

Shame your not a little nearer to me I'd do it FOC or for a few bottles of blacksheep beer .

Feel free to come over and give it a whirl, I would happily accomodate you with unlimited tea, hobnobs (chocolate of course), tools and materials, and take you out for a few pints of Oakham Ales Finest.


Tom

 

[TallTom]

tbh 95C is normally the shutdown point of the laptop, much higher and the processor will burn out!

I would see if you can find a dismantle guide online, its really not that difficult and get a piece of A4 to place screw in circles with names next to them, e.g. Circle with screws in = Keyboard screws!

Do it all at once and it should honestly take you no more than a few hours, lot cheaper than a new laptop!!

Edit, Guide and Youtube video!

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1546/en/sm/index.htm

 

[ChrisUK]

:yeahthat:

Dell quite often are designed with servicing in mind and aren't much of a problem as long as you got some decent screwdrivers.

 

[fingers99]

Dust, fresh install (or at least a defrag and de-virus) -- dare I suggest a decent OS?

I'm still using a netbook I bought S/H for £120 4 years ago................. (has got through 1 OE and 3 cheapo Chinese PSUs, but the battery is fine, although the trackpad and keyboard need sorting -- keyboard is easy, but......... )

My experience is that desktops last much, much, longer than laptops and are better value by far for money.

 

[ysidfa]

Dust, fresh install (or at least a defrag and de-virus) -- dare I suggest a decent OS?

I'm still using a netbook I bought S/H for £120 4 years ago................. (has got through 1 OE and 3 cheapo Chinese PSUs, but the battery is fine, although the trackpad and keyboard need sorting -- keyboard is easy, but......... )

My experience is that desktops last much, much, longer than laptops and are better value by far for money.

I think I might strip off it what I need, files, docs, pics and other stuff, and install Ubuntu or another equally good Linux build. All this after cleaning and re pasting the internals

Tom

 

[ChrisUK]

Don't let Unity put you off Ubuntu it's massively different to Windows but once you're used to it it's brilliant .

 

[ysidfa]

Don't let Unity put you off Ubuntu it's massively different to Windows but once you're used to it it's brilliant .

Pretty used to Ubuntu, well an older release of it. I had an Acer Aspire One netbook a couple of years ago with windows 7 Starter (worst OS ever!!) I wiped it of that and used Ubuntu installed of a Flash drive for a good year with no problems at all! And as far as compatability is concerned.. Ubuntu can process .Docs, .avi, MP3, m4a and jpg so Ill be fine

Tom

 

[ChrisUK]

Well I'm currently banging my head against the wall trying to get a Ubuntu 12.04 server with Squid to authenticate against Active Directory on a Windows 2008 R2 server properly :bang:

 

[jenks69]

Well I'm currently banging my head against the wall trying to get a Ubuntu 12.04 server with Squid to authenticate against Active Directory on a Windows 2008 R2 server properly :bang:

Trust delegation FTW!!

 

[willmott1992]

1. Battery doesnt charge (message showing adaptor not recognised pops up when its plugged in) and has to be ran of mains constantly


After talking to Dell customer support, they gave me a quote of £200+ for a new motherboard and fan unit... F*** that!!!!

I had the same problem with my dell (XPS Studio 16). They quoted me something ridiculous for a new motherboard. The problem was the charger though, firstly check the little pin inside the connection hasn't snapped off?

My charger is a 90W charger, and I found out that putting a much bigger charger in (140W or something), sorted the problem out.. If you go to a small computer shop they'll let you try a bigger charger for free.

 

[ChrisUK]

Trust delegation FTW!!

I got it working. If I put the linux / proxy server IP in the browser settings it works. If I enter it's FQDN it doesn't :bang:.

Oh well it's working at least :slayer: