Guest tsichlas Posted March 1, 2005 Report Share Posted March 1, 2005 Maybe one of you guys can help. The cooling fans on my Inspiron are extremely noisy. The noise sounds like what you would get from a fan where the grease has dried out or where a bearing has gone bad. It is not continuous but is regular and steady and is extremely annoying. I have tried blowing out the compartment using compressed air and have even tried a vacuum cleaner nozzle. This seems to work for a brief period, but eventually the noise starts up again. The laptop is almost three years old, and has been used in mostly residential conditions and has also seen some office use. It has never been used in very dusty environments, and it has been regularly vacuumed clean of any dust that may be visibly present. Is it possible that after about 3 years of use, the cooling fans would have gone bad or is it something else that is easily resolved. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted March 2, 2005 Report Share Posted March 2, 2005 It seems our laptops are very similar, if not the same, although mine might not be as old, anyway, my fans do that too, although I have never actually cleaned them out with compressed air. Unless the fans actually do die and the laptop overheats (mine never has that I know of) you should not worry about it, if you get the model number, you should be able to get new fans easily from dell if yours die. If anything you should worry about the HDDs in your laptop, as I have replaced both of mine already. There is a site with lots of info about the I8200, has part numbers and stuff, I will look for it.... Bill Edit: Here is the site, you should bookmark it, has info about all sorts of things. (including fans) http://www.geocities.com/thebithead/I8200FAQ.htm If you ever want to upgrade the HDD on yours, I am the one to ask on here, the ones I have are nice.... Edit: Why I did not mention this uptop I am not sure, but you should take a look at this program, it can control your fans. http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 I am bumping this so people see it, check out this fan controller program. It is that fan program I linked in my post above, you should definitely check it out. It would especially be nice sine you might be having problems with your fans, or atleast their noise. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tsichlas Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 Bill, Interesting it does seem as if we own similar 8200's. Mine has the Hitachi DK23DA 30Gb hardrive. I use the same fan control software. Have been using it for about a year now and find that it is an excellent piece of software. Using the program controls under "Options" and the "CPU Temp Control" tab, I found that the #1 fan is the one that is going bad. So I switched it off for all temperatures below 60deg C. No more noise for the moment, and I am able to maintain temperatures in the mid to high 50's for the CPU, mid 50's to low 60's for the GPU and high 50's to mid 60's for the HDD. Have not had any issues yet with the HDD. Been running fine since late spring of 2002 when I bought the system. The system has worked great. Been a really good laptop albeit a bit heavy. But no complaints otherwise... knock on wood!!!! Anyways, thanx for the advice. I'll check out the two web pages you recommended. By the way, have 512MB of RAM at the moment and running WINXP Pro. Would I notice much improvement in performance upgrading to 1GB of RAM. Have a 1.7 P4 for a CPU. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 You should be able to upgrade to 2 GB of RAM if you want, I have not tried, nor do I know how much of a speed increase you will get by doubling (or quadroupling) your RAM, you should get a speed increase though. I have thought about this and just decided I will probably get 2+ GB of RAM on the PC I will build soon. As far as the HDD goes, I had that 60 GB IBM one, and I also had that 40 GB HDD for the modular bay. (failed after only 1 year, is now a paper weight) My 60GB HDD started failing, and I got errors saying there was no HDD or optical drive, if you ever get an error like that go get a H7K60 (7,200 RPM 60 GB HDD). Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamika007z Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 Seems like Bill's got this topic covered. For the fan replacement, you have to open up the computer and pull out the motherboard. From there on, you need to unclip the wire that is used to connect the fan to the underside of the motherboard, remove the screws used to connect the fan onto the metal backing frame of the motherboard and replace them with the fan with the part number of 6F858. Dell sold me one (including shipping) for about (roughly, it's been a while) 20 dollars. Do make sure you do NOT accidentally buy the Inspiron 8000 or 8100's fan. They consume less power but at the same time is less powerful as the Inspiron 8000 and 8100's. It's a pain in the butt, but that's what needs to be done. Also, if you need a fast hard drive for the i8200, just read my signature :) Bill has the same drive 7,200rpm drive. Hope this helps in addition to Bill's :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamika007z Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 My 60GB HDD started failing, and I got errors saying there was no HDD or optical drive, if you ever get an error like that go get a H7K60 (7,200 RPM 60 GB HDD). Bill do you mean the E7K60? http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/hgst...fa0466460e4f0a0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilenvidia Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 Adding more RAM will make a big difference if you are running big programs or Multitask (ie many programs open) Having more RAM with the above will stop Windows swapping RAM to the HD which can slow things down to a crawl. If you are only running say the internet or a spread sheet the extra RAM will be wasted as there will be no speed increase only a faster CPU will fix this. A faster HD will also make a big difference for progs that load alot of data in, a 7200RPM will be soooo much faster than a 4200RPM. But this is also wasted if you only open say 1 spreadsheet or just surf the net. Your fan problem might be due to worn fan bushes (ie Fan is vibrating on it's shaft) Only real cure is a new fan, as it will just get worse and one day just die. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 I believe the E7K60 is mainly for servers or whatever (not ordinary laptops) as it wastesd lots of power because of its lack of certain power saving options. (it is supposed to be always ready/on at full speed, so they disable them) A regular 7K60 is just fine for you if you decide to upgrade, how you can live with a 30 GB HDD I am not sure. I need alteast 100 GB. I could probably use more RAM, but it would just be a waste of money to upgrade cause I will soon be doing most of my gaming/video editing on a desktop, when I build one for my self. (doom3, Hl2, ect) The HDD upgrade on the (8200 is really easy. Although it is expensive. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamika007z Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 Bill, If you ever need help with upgrading the i8200, if you decide you want to, and if you think I could be of service to you, then let me know. About the hard drive, I was just making sure about there being a "H" flavored hard drive model, but only an "E" and the standard 7K60. To be honest, I believe the E7K60 is a cheaper drive because like the original Intel Celeron's, they were cpu's that didn't pass all lower-level tests or had problems here and there that were not a major issue, so they were marked as lower quality batched cpu's, called the Celerons. I believe this is the same case with the E7K60's. Since they *might've* (this is still a hunch) not surpassed all tests, they consider it a drive not for real use in the moble world whereas the drives would have to be shut down, booted up, and repeated all over again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
®®® Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 :) From what i remember the E7K60 was an "enhanced version" of the 7K60 in respect of reliability, lifetime, PowrOnHours or the like. It was more expensive than the 7K60 when i bought mine back in December 2003. Don't know the prices now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 If all they did was take away some power settings stuff to make it always on full speed with the "E" version, you should be able to do that with Hitachi's drive tools/stuff on the regular one, while I have not tested the stuff yet, I can disable certain power functions if I want. (I am running a server too) Of course I have cache for that.... The tools can also be burned to a CD and booted from that instead of a floppy I believe, so you guys should check them out, one of you posted them in a thread somewhere... (utilities section probably) The thread is here: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=759 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tsichlas Posted March 5, 2005 Report Share Posted March 5, 2005 Okay guys, It would be prudent for me to order a replacement fan and have it on hand. The problem definitely is the #1 fan. If I switch it off the noise goes away. So, I tried to search the fan part number 6F858 on DELL's web page and it says there is no such thing. What gives... do they have a specific web address for parts only. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted March 6, 2005 Report Share Posted March 6, 2005 You have to call them, it really shouldn't be too hard, even if you call the wrong number if you can get on the phone with an actual person, they can redirect you to the spare parts line. Check your manual for numbers in Canada or something, or maybe the US one can ship to Canada... I am too lazy to look up the numbers in my manual. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamika007z Posted March 6, 2005 Report Share Posted March 6, 2005 Okay guys,It would be prudent for me to order a replacement fan and have it on hand. The problem definitely is the #1 fan. If I switch it off the noise goes away. So, I tried to search the fan part number 6F858 on DELL's web page and it says there is no such thing. What gives... do they have a specific web address for parts only. Mike You need to call Dell directly. The spare-parts site isn't really up to par when it comes to specific parts such as that. Their spare parts number in Canada is 1-866-440-3355 Then ask for the part number 6F858 Hope this helps :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest james Posted March 8, 2005 Report Share Posted March 8, 2005 I bought a new fan for my dell 8200 not long ago.. But it's getting ###### noisy already..... :) Saw my buddy's slim samsung ultraquiet laptop with "ultraquiet hard drive"... I nearly cried. But hey, they don't have a module bay :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted March 8, 2005 Report Share Posted March 8, 2005 Isn't the Hitachi 7K60 nearly quite? (your specs say you have a 60 GB 7200 RPM drive) When I turn my fans off, even with 2 HDDs going, my laptop barely makes any noise, my second HDD is a 40 GB Toshiba. I almost have to put my ear up to hear the HDDs when the fans are off. But with the fans and the optical drive going, it can make a lot of noise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Almighty1 Posted March 12, 2005 Report Share Posted March 12, 2005 2GB of RAM will not make a speed increase. Windows is a resource hog and not very efficient. I'm the first person to have 2GB on the Inspiron 8200 and still do. The thing with the fans is that if you have a can of WD40, you can spray it in the holes using the tube from the inside of the Inspiron 8200 and it will get rid of the noise but when you hear the noise again, you have to apply the WD40 again or better yet, find some lubricant from the hardware store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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