[Wiles]

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 that is a few years old. One problem that I've had ever since I bought it is that when I turn it on, it will run great for 5 minutes or so and then the fan will kick in and everything will slow down to a crawl. When the fan cools the laptop down enough it speeds back up again, however it doesn't perform nearly as well as it did before the fan turned on. Even if it isn't hot. Is there anything I can do?

[Wiles]

I just downloaded a program that checks my cpu speed and temp. It got up to 70c and the fan kicked in and the cpu speed went down to 600mhz. The temp went back down to 35c and the fan slowed down but the cpu speed stayed the same.

[brinks]

Your cpu's thermal throttling kicked in when the temp got up to 70c, it lowers your speed to prevent your cpu from burning up.

For sure your laptop has an over heating issue...

-Try not to block the air vents.
-See if there is a program that can control your fan speed manually so you can keep the cpu cool before the throttling starts.

[Saxon]

How are you using it? you may be blocking the fan vents if you are using it on your lap. Is this a constant error is it only from time to time?

If it is a cooling problem get one of the after market laptop coolers they are relativity cheep an can keep your laptop cooler that it is now to a varying degree of success depending on brand temp's ect.

[Wiles]

Thank you! Turning the fan on before it gets it gets hot did the trick. I wish I knew this when I bought it. I've looked at fan control programs before, but today I found one specifically designed for dells.

My computer has always had this problem, the fan/throttling never really seemed to work right. Sometimes my computer would get incredibly hot and I'd have to turn it off because the fan wouldn't kick in. Sometimes the fan would kick in and cool it down, but the CPU wouldn't go back to it's former speed.

I clean my fan regularly (I have 4 dogs ), and I alway use it on a foldup table I have, so none of the vents are blocked.

[MetalOwns]

Originally Posted by Wiles

I clean my fan regularly (I have 4 dogs ), and I alway use it on a foldup table I have, so none of the vents are blocked.

Just curious, but your actually opening up the laptop and cleaning the fan and blowing out all the crap in the heatsink fins right? Because that could be part of the problem...On my old laptop, when the temps started to get up to like 70C, I would open it up, and clean out all the dust and hair and other dirt off the fan blades and heatsink, and in the surrounding area...dropped the temps by like 35-40*C.

[Wiles]

Originally Posted by MetalOwns

Just curious, but your actually opening up the laptop and cleaning the fan and blowing out all the crap in the heatsink fins right? Because that could be part of the problem...On my old laptop, when the temps started to get up to like 70C, I would open it up, and clean out all the dust and hair and other dirt off the fan blades and heatsink, and in the surrounding area...dropped the temps by like 35-40*C.

Yes, I do open it up to clean it out. The problem wasn't the fan not cooling enough, it was that it wouldn't always kick in at the right time.

[Ste]

Wiles, while this may not help much at all, it has the possibility to. I suggest posting a hijackthis log, going through it we may free up alot of RAM and processor usage that will in turn lower tempartures a bit..
Also using msconfig, and google to turn off unneeded startup items..

[Kubel]

You should check for a BIOS update. Dell may have addressed this issue with your model.

[Wiles]

Even with the ability to control the fan, I found that on occasion it would still throttle down to 600mhz, when it wasn't even too hot. I updated my bios like suggested and so far so good. I updated it to revision 14, mine was previously revision 08.