I don't know what to do. It gets super hot and uncomfortable to type. I already can't use it on my lap because I would literally burn my thighs. It also gets super loud (fan) if I try to add a game to the mix and everything starts stuttering till I just shut it down.
I've done this, and sometimes replaced the fan, on a few laptops for friends/family and it helps immensely.
Also maybe replace the cr2032 bios battery while you're in there if the laptop is old to replace it before it dies.
The little watch battery on the motherboard that stores the bios settings. If it dies, then whenever you swap the battery (or sometimes even on laptops if you just turn it off) it will forget any BIOS setting changes you made and pop up a first-time boot menu.
Nah it will boot up just fine, the PC clock will need to sync from the internet each time though, and some bios settings might need to be re-done. It's not a huge deal, just annoying and it's easy to swap if the laptop is already taken apart.
Clean the insides. Consider a cooling pad as well. Many laptops have shit air intake so i always reccomend cooing pads.
Not really sorry i purchased a cheap one myself. Looks like this one but without the silly led lights
https://youtu.be/so-tfg8n0-o
what everyone else is saying. clean it out, change the thermal paste, will most likely fix your thermal issues :spongebob-party:
not particularly. there's probably tons of guides online if you want to look. the paste itself is really cheap too
So currently I'm looking into cleaning the internals and replacing the thermal paste. Plus the battery because I get just 1.5 hrs of general browsing.
some canned air to blow dust out of the vents, a vial of new paste to replace the old stuff, and a new battery sounds good, gonna feel like a whole new device!
while you're already opening up the laptop and disassembling things, if you have the extra cash you could replace the hard disk with an SSD if you felt inclined. (assuming you dont already have an SSD in your laptop)
of course changing disks out comes with its own hassle like re-installing the operating system and am understanding if thats too much to deal with
probably windows will complain but if the SSD is >= old HDD size you can just copy the whole disk and avoid reinstall hassle
Clean the internals of your laptop and prolly do a clean install of your OS. My current laptop chugs on turning on and I had to do something similar by doing a fresh install due to all the bloatware from continuous windows updates.
I really wanna but there are so many subreddits (non-political) that I visit that just don't have alternative communities anywhere else (except for stuff like fb which i hate even more).
When you use canned air on your computer, do not let the fans spin. It can be tempting to use the canned air to make the fan blades spin really fast, it is fun and it makes a funny sound. However, spinning the fan blades can damage the bearings or worse spinning the motor can generate electricity that damages your computer.
Oh, thanks for that advice. I would have definitely done that lol.
Seconding this. Always secure your fans. Have clean hands cuz if you leave greasy fingertips future dust is gonna stick to that oil.
Oh and never smoke indoors with a computer. Gunks up the fans real good. I was a big dummy in my 20s and found out the hard way and burned my gpu out
if youre taking it apart i'd just wipe it down. i used to use regular old paper towels, but nowadays once the bulk of the dustbunnies are out i'll use a moist disinfecting wipe (do not do this, advanced technique for true playas who know 100% what parts of a computer can get wet and when).
when you take your laptop apart, leave the battery disconnected until youre ready to put it back together.
Looks like you can pull the bottom panel and the fan and clean it that way. Here’s a decent guide:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Dell+XPS+15+9500+Fan+Replacement/149221
Lmk if you hit a snag. Like I said make sure you disconnect the battery as soon as you can. Poking around in computers that can still turn on is bad news.
If you haven't installed the uBlock Origin browser addon, installing it will help browser performance immensely.
Edit: Same goes for using Firefox instead of Chrome
I already use uBlock Origin + Firefox. This is all on Linux, btw. Windows is a bit better but not by much. My battery now lasts 1.5 hours w/ general computing tasks (web, youtube etc) so I might need a new battery too.
That's what gets super loud so I guess yeah? Should I clean it?
If it's super loud it may be broken. If you're handy you can Google your laptop model and "fan" to find a replacement. It's usually just some screws and maybe adhesive.
Welcome, good luck!
edity: you can try hitting it with a blast of canned air before replacing it just to be sure though.
You so lucky. I use Linux too but I have Windows dual-booted. Doesn't matter either way.
Its all the spyware we downloaded onto your computer
is the graphics card blown out? my laptop used to go all project orion on me, turns out the independent graphics card had died and it was trying to use integrated for everything
Hmm, maybe. How do I check that? Also, I thought integrated was better to use for non-intensive tasks with dedicated only to be used for stuff like gaming?
the system will typically switch between the two, but when your dedicated dies it will lean on the integrated for everything
for windows: run -> dxdiag, check display 2 because display 1 is usually the integrated linux: nvidia-smi or aticonfig for your respective graphics card
Along these lines, it might be a good idea find a program which monitors sensors (lm-sensors/Psensor on Linux, Open Hardware Monitor on Windows) to monitor the fan speeds and core temperatures of your CPU / GPU. This will give you insight into where the heat is coming from, if the fans are working properly, and if the chips are operating within specified temperatures.
the default output isn't very illuminating, but it looks like your dedicated card is working. you could try
nvidia-smi -qfor more info if you like, but my sense is that it's not dead.huh. seems to be able to see the card. basically discredits my theory, but you could try opening up a game or youtube or something and check if the memory usage increases (the 2/4096MiB entry)
Ok, so with a game + youtube, the temperature shoots up to 75c but the memory stays the same (which is weird, right?)
prime-select query
So, i just type this in as is or as a part of a bigger command?
sudo apt install nvidia-prime
then try again. because it seems like the computer can see your discrete, i'm now trying to see if the system has selected your discrete card for use or if it's still leaning on your integrated. if prime-select query returns intel (assuming your integrated is intel), type prime-select nvidia, then reboot and see if that fixes your problem.
if not, then i'm out of ideas other than cleaning out your computer
It seems like nvidia-prime is only an Ubuntu thing (I'm running Fedora). I looked around online for more information, it seemed like there is a thing called nvidia-prime for Fedora , but it's used to make your computer run the nvidia gpu all the time. Should I go ahead and do that?
oof
i'm just an ubuntu normie, never used any other distros
you could check out this page for something similar to what you found
and to just interject my personal opinion: i run discrete gpu all the time as i'm too lazy to figure out how to get it to switch. keeps things simple and afaik the card won't catch on fire because of it so :shrug-outta-hecks:
yeah i'll look into it. thanks for all your help! seriously, you were great :)
