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Dust-up over overheating notebooks
Dell has admitted that a 'small percentage' of its Inspiron 5100 notebooks have been experiencing overheating problems and that a fan vent has been redesigned and the Bios tweaked on later models to prevent this.
The admission came after Chris Richardson, a reader of Personal Computer World, contacted us when Dell demanded £325 to replace the motherboard on his 5100, a month after the end of his one-year warranty.
He discovered US postings complaining of a problem with the machine stemming from a dust build-up on the heat sink.
One, geocities.com, gives advice on how to deal with the problem.
Dell has agreed to replace Mr Richardson's motherboard and extend his warranty to three years as a 'gesture of goodwill'.
Dell said in a statement that the 5100 was designed to shut down if it overheated: 'However, we recommend that... customers experiencing this issue have their systems serviced under the Dell system warranty.'
The statement added: 'We would like to stress that this issue pertains to a very small percentage.'
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Small Percentage, yea - right
My daughter has a Dell Inspiron B130 (30 months old) it has been overheating for the last 6 months. It takes about 45 minutes of use. Her room is air conditioned and their are no obstructions. A cooling pad hasn't helped. The computer does automatically shut down when it recognizes the overheating. I have a two year old Dell Latitude D410 that started overheating three months ago. Small percentage, I don't think so. It is 100% in my house.
Posted by Vernon Stultz, 02 Aug 2008