Laptop slows down (fan related)

Hi,

I went for holidays and returned and then started having this problem. My laptop works fine. Then after 5-10 min of running, the fan system (placed behind the hdd) starts making noises and running continuously. After that the laptop runs at an incredibly slow speed. It's not spyware or virus because I now have a new hdd (old one had bad sectors, thought maybe its the hdd itself but its not). I have a P4 2.0 and it runs like a P2 366 or less. Very slow! One more thing - on restart, the problem continues. However, on shutting down the laptop and then booting it up again, the laptop is fine again - i.e. for 5-10 min until it happens again! Finally, when the laptop is slow, the task manager shows no process/application causing any CPU overusage. - 90% idle.

Anyone with a specific idea as to what the problem is related to and what should be done? It's a Dell Inspiron 8200.

Prem

sounds like a heat problem.. my guess would be that the new harddrive may be generating more heat than the old one. the pentium 4's have a throttling device which slows the chip right down to nothing when the temperature is too high. (unless your chip is a Pentium M (Mobile edition))

I do have P4 2.0 Mobile. And the problem existed since the old HDD. So, after replacing it with the new one, the problem persists...

thats interesting, my friend had a very similar problem with his HP, turned out to be a problem with the motherboard. had to get it sent back and replaced. sorry i couldnt contribute anything really to this thread

3+ year old thread revived in 2008
Problem solved
Hi NEWBIE here posting for 1st time to say Thanks to premzero & RoLLiNLoW54.

I too have a Dell 8200 with the same exact simptoms & problem.
When I saw RoLLiNLoW54 say "heatproblem", I went outside used an industrial blower on all the holes/open latches. Unbelievable the amt of dust that came out, even from under the keys.
Problem solved woks fast now.
Thanks.

True that's what I've been doing too (every few months)! My laptop is pretty old now as you can imagine lol.. probably buy a new one next year...

When I hear industrial blower, I think of a big leaf blower. Please tell me your not using a leaf blower on your laptop.


Might I recommend better alternatives, such as compressed air canisters.

For my v2000 laptop, the fan revs up all the time and makes my computer extremely slow. This happens when I have more than one application open or a web page with video or something. It is not the hardware because this does not happen with Linux on this same laptop. It did not always do this with Windows. It just sporadically started happening. It has been like this for a while because it is still usable. I'm assuming that reinstalling the system software would fix this problem. I lost my windows disk, though. Can Windows Vista be installed on this laptop?

I think you have it backwards, I think your fan is "revving up" becuase your processor has been given a big job and is (or about to) start perfoming some intensive tasks.

it may be a good idea to look at things such as the task manager (hit ctrl+alt+delete), whenever your fan "revs" up and you experience a performance hit, look at what applications are running/which application is using all your resources.

Its always the System Idle Process that goes up to like 95% when the fan turns on.

What about your memory usage?

If your memory becomes maxed out, then windows will begin to use your pagefile (use hard drive space instead of your ram), which will increase the workload of your hard drive (and possibly turn on the fans). If there is a memory leak in a program and your pagefile becomes maxed out, your computer would most likely freeze up.

There is like a 0% chance that just Windows will do that. It is obvious that it is Window's fault. Linux does not do that. The two operating systems are installed on two different partitions. Linux is on 40Gb & Windows is on 40Gb. Only Windows freeze up the OS because of the fan spinning too much!

According to goggle the v2000 comes with either 256 or 512 megs of ram, which is not that much by todays standards, I would not be surprised if this is the cause of your problem.

I wouldn't blame it on windows, I would blame it on a buggy program that you may of happened to install. Memory leaks happen on all operating systems.

Your task manager will let you see how much processor power and ram each program is using, if you notice that there is a certain program eating all your ram when your computer takes a hit, you will know which program either needs fixing or removing.

btw I dare you to look at your page file right now, I but even right NOW your pagefile is being used some, which is an indicator you need more ram.

You must work for the window company or something because it has to be the window operating system causing this problem.

the "window" company is microsoft, and I do not work for them.

No doubt this could be partially the fault of windows, since the operating system is a point between an application and your hardware. But windows will not just randomly turn on your fans and freeze up. The fact that you mentioned that this will happen after opening a few programs is a big indicator that your problem is related to insufficient memory.