Dell laptop throttling down the CPU

[trif]

I have a Dell laptop with a 466 Celeron in it, and I'm not getting all I can out of it for GIMPS. I have turned off the "smart CPU" option in the setup screen, but it is still throttling down, presumably due to heat issues. It was throttling down to 350, so I put an aluminum cookie sheet under it and elevated the whole mess about a half inch to get some air circulation. It now only throttles down to 407, but I'd still like to get more of what I paid for. Anybody have any experience in this area?

[relic]

check to see if the keyboard has a plastic sheet under it to catch dust/food/beer, etc.

Many do. If you remove the plastic (as long as it's not the KB substrate ;) ) you can blow a fan across the keys and get cool air into it.

Also check out where the CPU heatpipe goes...often it terminates near a grill on the laptop's side that you can put a fan near to help suck out the heat.

That's how I get my laptops to stay at full speed in the 24/7 DC world. :D

Od course setting them in the snow would work as well. ;)

[Scotttheking]

I melted my laptop, just shipped it back today for warranty service.
If they send it back and it fails again, I'll tell them to give me a desktop since the laptop can't do everything I need:D

[NetMasterOC3]

Although my dell lappy is only a p2 366, it does get uncomfrotable warm.

I have taken the following steps to help keep it cool. First I have proped up the rear on a architect's scale (the little triangular ruler jobbie that you can get at places like office depot) helps with airflow under the laptop. In addition I also blast out the heatsink, from intake to exhaust with compressed air monthly.

Out side of that, there isnt much that you can do to cool your laptop, unless you want to hack a new fan into it.

[ColinT]

I have an old laptop in the closet running Ubero 24/7. I took a C= 1541 Floppy drive and flippd it upside down. Then I put the laptop on that. Now I have a wide gap between the laptop and the floppy drive.

[trif]

Sigh, silly me, it's always the obvious stuff.

The laptop was overheating because the CPU fan had failed. Luckily it only thottled down instead of melting (gotta give props to Intel for that). I have an external fan set up to blow air into the external air port, and that is keeping it cool enough to run at full speed.

[ColinT]

Great! Another success story!

[p3ngu1nb0y]

I have some knowledge on laptop cooling :rolleyes: I run mine often for DC...

Anyways I just set mine atop some books leaving the space under the CPU exposed and it works just fine but I also remove any PCMICA cards that aren't necessary and I found a PCMCIA cooler someplace (I'll dig up linkage in a bit) but when it comes down to crunch time I just grab a housefan and point it at the sucker....