Help with laptop temps?

[Anon#1234]

I have an oldish dell latitude laptop. That has some overheating problems as a result of its exhaust fan being mounted behind the hinge, leading to heat been blown back into the laptop. I reapplied thermal paste recently and I was wondering if there are any other methods of helping with the thermals.

Laptop is a Dell Lattitude 7400

16gb ram

core i5 8th gen @1.5ghz

 

[Lafong]

Overheating problems causing measurable performance decline?

Or

Overheating problems causing your anxiety but performance is unchanged?

What are recent temps and was there a time when they were noticeably lower?

Laptops run hot by design. You can fiddle with fan situation, dust buildup, cooling pads, etc, but to some extent you have to live with higher temps than you might like. Or decide not to be so concerned and regard the laptop as a mere appliance to complete certain tasks until it fails.

 

[Anon#1234]

Overheating problems causing measurable performance decline?

Or

Overheating problems causing your anxiety but performance is unchanged?

What are recent temps and was there a time when they were noticeably lower?

Laptops run hot by design. You can fiddle with fan situation, dust buildup, cooling pads, etc, but to some extent you have to live with higher temps than you might like. Or decide not to be so concerned and regard the laptop as a mere appliance to complete certain tasks until it fails.

Id say slightly worse over time, however when I replaced my thermal paste, I gave it a good clean. I mostly just cant stand the fan noise and heat performance is fine.

 

[Lafong]

Id say slightly worse over time, however when I replaced my thermal paste, I gave it a good clean. I mostly just cant stand the fan noise and heat performance is fine.

I suppose there is some chance the fan is failing slowly and you might benefit by replacing it. BUT, that is rankest speculation, particularly if fan rpm and noise characteristics are unchanged.

Earplugs of some type?

Baffling of some type might help with a desktop, but tougher on a one-piece laptop where you need to be within a couple of feet of both the case and the screen.

"Oldish" laptop implies you wouldn't want to spend significant money for a fix....if there is such a thing. I don't know what cooling pads cost or how effective they might be in your situation.

You might be able to fiddle with BIOS settings to reduce power use and thereby the need for cooling, but that would likely be at the expense of performance. Dell may have also reduced your ability to control that stuff.

 

[Anon#1234]

Pretty sure I can undervolt it, would switching the os to something more lightweight also work?

 

[Lafong]

Pretty sure I can undervolt it, would switching the os to something more lightweight also work?

Switching the OS would be the first thing on my mind if I was already quite competent on that OS.

And the last thing on my mind if I was not.

I don't know if it would take you 20 minutes or 200 hours to find out.

Speaking for myself.......I'd rather buy a new laptop than learn another OS. But that may not apply to you at all.