Normal temp for dell inspiron n5010

[dmandman]

I have a Dell Inspiron n5010, for about a year now, and I think the laptop has overheating problems. It suddenly shuts down, even if I am working only with mozilla firefox. Also the laptop tends to crash when it has been powered on for a long period of time. I tend to use it for about 10-14 hours a day. The temps in idle mode are the following:

Are these temperatures normal? I have an i5 M460 CPU @2.53 GHz with 3 GB RAM. Thanks

 

[WR2]

Hello dmandman;

40C or there about is what you'd expect at idle temps. 75C is what you'd expect for a heavily loaded system.

 

[AntiZig]

no, 75C idling is way too high. Normal conditions idling temp should be between 30-40C for a laptop, lower if possible.

i5 is not an old processor, so you've obviously got some problem there.

first order of business, blow out your air vents with compressed air. Dust in enemy number one for electronics cooling.

second make sure the fans are working.

make sure when you're using the computer you're not blocking any air vents with clothing/blanket/etc (ie don't sit it on a couch) If this is a problem for you (you often have to use it away from desk) get a laptop cooling pad. Any will do as long as it ensures the air can get in and out unobstructed.

lastly, you might have a mechanical problem with heatsink not being seated correctly/knocked off or other mechanical problem with the cooling system. Or your thermal paste has diminished to a point it no longer provides proper contact to heatsink.

Last part will require opening the laptop up, so if the laptop is still on warranty, I'd go through dell service and have them replace the cooling system + thermal paste just to be sure.

Good luck and hope this was helpful

 

[dmandman]

no, 75C idling is way too high. Normal conditions idling temp should be between 30-40C for a laptop, lower if possible.

i5 is not an old processor, so you've obviously got some problem there.

first order of business, blow out your air vents with compressed air. Dust in enemy number one for electronics cooling.

second make sure the fans are working.

make sure when you're using the computer you're not blocking any air vents with clothing/blanket/etc (ie don't sit it on a couch) If this is a problem for you (you often have to use it away from desk) get a laptop cooling pad. Any will do as long as it ensures the air can get in and out unobstructed.

lastly, you might have a mechanical problem with heatsink not being seated correctly/knocked off or other mechanical problem with the cooling system. Or your thermal paste has diminished to a point it no longer provides proper contact to heatsink.

Last part will require opening the laptop up, so if the laptop is still on warranty, I'd go through dell service and have them replace the cooling system + thermal paste just to be sure.

Good luck and hope this was helpful

Thanks for the answer. I understand that my problem is really serious now, because i always use my laptop on a cooling pad with an exterior fan. Also the laptop still has warranty. One thing that crossed my mind is the cooling pad is blowing too much dust in the laptop, because i have used the cooler from the beggining.

 

[WR2]

I know it sounds strange at first, but we do see a lot of strange stuff around here.

Have you tested the idle temps without the cooling pad?

 

[AntiZig]

hmm, strange stuff would be cooling pad created so much back pressure that it overloaded your built in fan motors and they have now failed resulting in reduced cooling. This is unlikely but possible.

definitely check for dust in vents and try without the cooling pad

 

[dmandman]

I know it sounds strange at first, but we do see a lot of strange stuff around here.

Have you tested the idle temps without the cooling pad?

Without the cooling pad, the temps go to about 90C so it's worse.

 

[packersfan]

I getting a little concerned about this situation from what I am reading. Here are my temps currently. NOTE: My computer is running Windows 7, OpenVPN, and currently 5 tabs open in Google Chrome.

Temps are 44, 41, 43, 41 (HardDrive), 52 GPU.

Are these normal? I just bought a cooling pad, but I'm not seeing much of a difference in temperatures. I thought perhaps I was overreacting about the temps, but my laptop does get hot on the keyboard and touchpad when playing games. I have a heatsink/fan assembly waiting in the wings if I need to replace, but the fan SEEMS to be working (I would need to find thermal grease, right?). I would love to get the temps in the 30s...but perhaps the temps I have are normal for a laptop?

 

[AntiZig]

those look fine, check your temps for when your laptop actually gets hot. If you see temps above 85 then I would suggest looking for possible solutions to improve your cooling.

getting your temps in the 30s would require ambient to be 20 or less, which is pretty hard in summer time.

 

[packersfan]

Okay...I guess I just overreacted a little bit. I'll see if a laptop pad makes things a little less hot when I get into play hot games.

 

[capang9555]

i have a inspiron 15r n5010 with the same core i5 460m 2.53GHZ. when my dad gave it to me. i cleaned out the fan and air vents but core temp was still giving me temps in the mid to high 80s in C so hot! i found 3 ways to keep the temps down. see results in the bottom

#1 i went and bought some new thermal paste from frys. when i took off the heat sync it was all crusty. so i put some new paste on it. that helped a ton.

#2 i got a cooling pad. currently i have a $10 pad i got at frys. it is a gearhead dual fan pad. just a little one. it does the job tho. i am waiting for frys to get the coolermaster X2 in stalk. that one is a beast. anyway. my 10 dollar one keeps the temps down a tad. i also have a extedned battery that sticks out the bottom. so even without the pad i recommend getting one to help with air flow

#3 one thing that is a blessing and a curse is... intel turbo boost. it is great because it gives you 2.81GHZ when you need it. the bad thing is it makes you cpu HOT! i found a way to disable it. i dont currently unless i am on battery. but its very easy you go into your power plan settings. and set you maximum cpu state at 99% that way it doesnt activate turbo boost. without turbo boost running at full load @2.53GHZ before new thermal paste. i would get max of 75C with the thermal paste it get 68C this is without the cooling pad. now compare those to with turo boost
_________________old thermal paste 100%load____new thermal paste 100%load
with turbo_________85C________________________79C
without turbo______70C________________________64C
turbo+ cooling pad_79C_________________________74C
cooling pad - turbo_65C________________________60C
sorry about the formatting..

 

[Startouf]

Yes that intel turbo boost really is an abomination. The fact is you might not even be aware that DELL shipped your laptop auto-overclocked, or not realize it has an impact on the durability of the laptop.

You can use capang trick to disable the overclocking (make sure you do that on EVERY power plan setting), or disable it in the BIOS. It should be easy even for people with little experience. Just press the BIOS key (F2 for N5010 I think) when you turn on your laptop, and somewhere you should find the IntelBoost Technology that you should disable.

Overclocking is meant to improve performance, but honestly, it doesn't make much difference (or at least not for the average player). However, you can easily reduce your CPU temp by 10 or 20°C by turning it off.
I remember doing that on a friend's laptop (really good RoG computer with intel t7 and stuff). The computer didn't even need to operate with max graphics on most games, and the temp dropped from 70°C to <50°C. And big bonus : the fan doesn't need to spin as fast, resulting in a much quieter computer (felt like turning off the vacuum cleaner...)

I also have a N5010 and i'd say my problems are much worse.
I do have a cooler and turned off overclocking, but i'm still reaching
>110°C for the GPU
>100°C for the CPU
>80° for the RAM

I opened my laptop recently, and i was very suprise there was almost no dust in it. Only thing i haven't done yet is to replace the thermal paste of the CPU, and use new thermal pads for the GPU. But anyways, I'm afraid one of the GPU capacitors's dead, which could explain why it's running so hot
(And I only need to play 20 mins on XCOM with lowest graphics to reach those temps, then the laptop shuts down)

i have a inspiron 15r n5010 with the same core i5 460m 2.53GHZ. when my dad gave it to me. i cleaned out the fan and air vents but core temp was still giving me temps in the mid to high 80s in C so hot! i found 3 ways to keep the temps down. see results in the bottom

#1 i went and bought some new thermal paste from frys. when i took off the heat sync it was all crusty. so i put some new paste on it. that helped a ton.

#2 i got a cooling pad. currently i have a $10 pad i got at frys. it is a gearhead dual fan pad. just a little one. it does the job tho. i am waiting for frys to get the coolermaster X2 in stalk. that one is a beast. anyway. my 10 dollar one keeps the temps down a tad. i also have a extedned battery that sticks out the bottom. so even without the pad i recommend getting one to help with air flow

#3 one thing that is a blessing and a curse is... intel turbo boost. it is great because it gives you 2.81GHZ when you need it. the bad thing is it makes you cpu HOT! i found a way to disable it. i dont currently unless i am on battery. but its very easy you go into your power plan settings. and set you maximum cpu state at 99% that way it doesnt activate turbo boost. without turbo boost running at full load @2.53GHZ before new thermal paste. i would get max of 75C with the thermal paste it get 68C this is without the cooling pad. now compare those to with turo boost
_________________old thermal paste 100%load____new thermal paste 100%load
with turbo_________85C________________________79C
without turbo______70C________________________64C
turbo+ cooling pad_79C_________________________74C
cooling pad - turbo_65C________________________60C
sorry about the formatting..