Apparently, I am qualified to be “hardware” at GVSU.
The heat sink / fan unit in my Inspiron 5160 went bad a few months back. It was no longer under warranty so I just shelved the thing. I called up Dell tech support, and they quoted me something like $160 to fix it. That is $160 I would rather spend on something more interesting. So, I just waited for nothing in particular.
A couple days ago I was browsing ebay and did a search for the part that went bad, apparently I could “buy it now” for $6.22. So, I figured I would give it a try.
I briefly consulted el hardware to determine how much work it was going to be to replace the part. Apparently it was possible, so I figured I would give it a shot.
So, I ripped that damn thing apart, since you apparently need to remove 50 screws and every component just to replace the CPU fan.
The above photo is a shot of my “stripped” 5160. This was taken after I removed the previous cooling unit. The following two shots are of all the crap I had to remove.
Let’s see, this photo shows the LCD, the HDD, the EMP shield, the new thermal cooling unit, and an upside down keyboard. The button panel should be hidden in there somewhere too.
This photo just has the so called “palm rest” which basically is the palm rest, and touch pad.
Now, as I reassembled the thing, I did put some thermal compound on the die despite .hw’s recommendation not to. Almost all the previous thermal grease was lost on the previous thermal unit, so I figured I had better do it.
After the whole mess that took the better part of an hour, I booted the machine up and it worked (which surprised me). Then, I prompted turned if off for fear of over heating it since I did have time to test it then.
At the moment I am in the process of setting up a dual boot of Windows and Ubuntu. I figure if that does not kill it, nothing will.
57 Comments
ubuntu pwns.
make sure you use LTS instead of ‘breezy badger’. it just came out.
gg fulljeff
apparently i had a commented deleted…wpe….
:-\
wtf are you talking about vanlandw?
vanberge, I named my ubuntu installed “vanbergay”
Nice job!
Most people afraid taking their laptops apart. I think if you are careful then you can fix your lappy yourself. Find a disassembly guide on the Internet, buy a needed part on eBay and do it.
hi gladius, i also have an inspiron 5160 and recently the fan has been running on high mode 24/7. so tonight, armed with a tube of thermal lubricant and a canister of compressed air, I took the laptop apart. I was only able to the the fan. I loosened the spring screws but I couldn’t separate the heat sink from the processor. I was afraid I would damage the chip so i just cleaned the heat sink. Do you have some advice on how to do it? Nevertheless now my fan is running smoothly and my temperature never goes beyond 71 so far. thanks in advance.
I have a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop. My fan went off a couple of days ago after running noisily for about a year now. I bought a new fan for $20 from parts-people.com. They have all the Dell parts you need for a pretty decent price. I went to the Dell website and followed the manual about how to get into the computer fan. Followed the steps from Dell’s website to rip off the laptop and guess what it worked. I assembled everything again and now the new fan is running like a breeze. I can’t even believe that I could do that myself.
sphinx0101, I felt exactly the same way.
I have a 5150 and have now had it apart 4 times at least for various reasons. What I’ve found is that after a year or so, the heatsink will be full of dust and the CPU will start throttling back from 3GHz to 1.6Ghz just to maintain 73 degrees C. At this point it is neccessary to remove the dust – after doing so it will run at 60 deg c under full load.
Here’s a pic showing the dust problem:
http://www.nialloswald.co.uk/bb/dust.jpg
And the innards:
http://www.bits.bris.ac.uk/niall/5150pics/insides2.jpg
I own an Inspiron 5160 and while mine wasn’t overheating to the point that it was shutting off, it was definitely getting quite warm – probably upwards of 70c. I’ve always been pretty good at mechanical/technical things so I decided to take the plunge and took it apart using the repair manual from Dell. It was VERY dusty and I blew it all out and reapplied Arctic Silver heatsink compound after cleaning off the old stuff.
To johhnyboy: I had the same problem separating the CPU from the heatsink. I used a small screwdriver (probably not advised) to wedge in all around the CPU and it eventually popped off (the old compound was acting like glue). I’ve seen posts of people using a razor blade and carefully slicing through the old stuff little-by-little all around the CPU.
In any case, one I applied the Arctic Silver and put it all back together after cleaning it out, it runs great! It’s like the laptop has a new life. I dual-boot Fedora 7 and WindowsXP on one drive and run Madriva 2007.1 on another drive and I haven’t had a problem since. It runs less than 60c all the time now.
Dell has extended the warranty for all 5160’s till September. They just rebuilt my computer for free. Contact them.
Thanks to all the posts all over the web on this issue, I checked with Dell regarding my 5160 as well. Warranty had been extended (unbeknownst to me until I checked my service tag online)….they sent me a box and dhl call tag. I returned it and they replaced the motherboard and heat sink and I had the unit back the day after they received it!! CPU running at 45 degrees…haven’t heard the fan come on once. I was ready to crucify them…..I think they’ve redeemed themselves!
I was just sent/given a 5160-already it won’t power,seems the power jack’s solder was cleaned up to get going again shortly before it was sent to me.I have no battery power left and it wont charge.(Lights on front attest to that),screen went black.great,just what I needed,a lemon.Been reading all the complaints/probs online.apparently it’s been wonderful up until now so I figure ALL’s not lost.The solder on the power jack is stage 1
I am so greatful to your many posts…
I have a 5160 and the machines sometimes gets too hot to touch (has powered off due to heat); runs sluggish and last week the LCD Screen went out on me.
I just checked my warrenty and it is good till Feb 2008 on my machine. WOW!
Thank You all for pointing me in the right direction. I am going to contact Dell and send in in to get fixed.
Thanks again!
I have an Inspiron 5160 and the power light and battery light are on nothing else seems to work
Thank you for any help
I didn’t see place to put new post so doing it here.
My Dell Inspiron 5150 has a DC jack problem. It will not power up with adapter plugged in. Also I used to be able to wiggle the plug to get it going again but that doesn’t work anymore. I need help on getting the motherboard completely out of case so I can change this part. I have looked everywhere for more screws that might be holding it but can’t find any. I have taken out all the parts (hard drive, CPU, DVD Drive, etc) but just can’t get it out of the bottom case. Can anyone help me please? Thank you so much.
Barb
i have a dell 5160, i have lights on but nothing else, anybody able to help me.
I have done the same thing.Be cautious while removing the fan.In my case processor was stick with the fan.Then I had to remove it from the fan,unlock the processor dock,place the processor and lock it.Finally worth doing it.Thanks.
I’ve had the “wiggle the a/c adaptor jack around” problem for about a year. It had become increasingly more difficult to find the sweet spot, and last night, the battery went dead before I could get the a/c adaptor to work.
I took the 5160 apart to see if I had a bad solder connection on the plug. Didn’t help. I guess I need to replace the part. Any idea where to get one?
Also, regarding completely removing the motherboard, don’t forget about the two bolts that hold the video plug on.
I wouldn’t get too excited about the brief extended warranty. I originally purchased the 3 year warranty with my 5160, and over the past 18 months, I’ve had 10 service calls. I’ve had the LCD replaced once, the motherboard replaced 6 times, the adapter replaced 4 times, and the heat sink replaced 4 times. When Dell fixes things, they only work temporarily. My computer usually works for about 2-3 months before it begins to overheat again.
Barbara/Nate-
There is no repair other than replace the DC Jack. Solder is not an issue on those connectors. The inner leafsprings of the connector has become fatigued and no longer touches the inner ring of the DC Adapter.
ROY Lights only -
Typically that is a Schnitt Trigger LVC14 right above the right clip of the Wireless card. Try Reflowing the solder first, if not- replace (newark electronics). I bought 20 of them the last time, a typical problem with 1150, 5150, and 5160.
Dencon -
Suggestions (cheapest first)
Try replacing the on/off panel. they tend to stick.
If you cannot find a replacement, swap buttons on existing panel
Hope that helps
Hello there, I have an Inspiron 5160 that gets extremely hot and switches itself off frequently. I am about to buy a new laptop, but wouldn’t touch another Dell. Are there any other laptops to avoid that suffer from this overheating/blocked fan problem?
My 5160 is tha bomb. I have only had to take it apart twice! It now has 2GB of ram and a full power P4 3.2 with no problems apart from the onboard USB not working! It’s the muscle car of laptops. Glad I bought 2 Toyotas and could spare the downtime on the laptops.
I have a Dell 5160 that will not boot up. It start to load up the bios but locks up after 75% complete. Tried hitting f2 to to go to the setup menu and f12 to go to the boot menu. I tried a hard drive from another 5160, No luck. Has anyone seen this problem before. Dell will not help me over the phone unless I pay them $30.00 .
My daughter’s 5160 if exhibiting the same issue…boots to 75% complete and reboots. I’ve tried a number of things (pressing different keys upon power on) and 1 time was bale to get it to safe mode and 1 time to boot to the diagnostic CD. Both of these times the system froze up after a short time.
My thinking it a bad bios or possibly MB. Has anyone been able to resolve this yet?
Thanks
Hmm…interesting info from Paul and Ken. My 5160 has been an iron horse from day one! Built to the max, it performed better than anything out there…until 3/23/08. It will not boot past, maybe, 10 % now. Just before this occured, I kept getting BIOS error on every bootup. I wonder if this is an imbedded “function” Dell installed; BIOS failure on/around Feb, Mar 2008. It seems too coincidental as I have searched other sites for comments and there too, the same has been reported. (Do I hear ‘class action lawsuit?)
Ditto last three posts – My 5160 has just started experiencing exactly the same problem after a faultless three years of ownership. Bios bar loads to 50% then stops then reboots… No amount of restarting or stabbing F2 or F12 seems to help…It’s even baffling my ‘pet’ techie chum – who hasn’t seen it before…I’ve been advised to extract the HD and use a USB caddy/spare laptop to salvage the files. It does seem more than coincidence that this appears to be solely a 2008 problem?
When I received my 5160 the cooling fan cycled and considered this the normal opertion. As it aged the fan is on constantly. Final the display went dark and displayed some 3″ wide pale yello bands. Called Dell paid the $39.95 and they diagnosed the mother pwb. I asked about the fan the teck said it was normal to run all the time. Purchased the pwb and had it installed. The laptop worked for 3 hours and died again the same symptoms. Called them again, Tech support now went through the same fault tree and now diag. the video card. Confessed the oringinal mis diag. Now I asked about the fan again and the tech told me it was a known problem that the Heat sink assy was mis manufactured and they extended the warranty period. They did not notify anyone! Why? Because they lost a Class Action suit and was forced to extend the warranty and repair free of charge the heat sink for those that experienced problems.
Now out of warranty my unit has failed and it is going to cost me to get it put right.
Pmontana
Need to fix the charging port for 5160 Inspiron. Anyone knows how to do that?
thanks in anticipation
Need to fix the charging port for 5160 Inspiron. Anyone knows how to do that?
thanks in anticipation
samir17shah@yahoo.com
I have a 5160 that the fan ran quite a bit on high and was hot. When I opened it up and blew out some dust I also lifted up a tape covering the fan bearing which I oiled with some bearing
oil I use on clocks and now my laptop runs cooler and seems likes the fan doesn’t have to labor
much anymore. If it had keep running that hot I’m sure it would have died shortly.
I have a dell Inspiron 5160 no lights will not power up. when you plug in power supply lights flicker. What could be wrong.
My Dell 5160 had started to run the fan on high all the time and the bottom and rear edge seemed incredibly hot. I found this thread and saw I was not alone. It was long out of warranty, so I decided to follow the Dell Service Manual instructions and take it apart. I had no intention of replacing anything, just cleaning. Here’s a few notes that I haven’t seen in previous posts;
1. The dissassembly is tedious, but not all that horrible. You do have to go all the way down to removing the heat sink unit to get to the real dirt.
2. The heat sink will stick to the CPU and not want to come out. You can pry up gently with a small screwdriver on the left edge. My CPU actually popped out of the socket and came with the heat sink. That made it easier to gently pry the CPU off the heatsink, but be careful the chip doesn’t land on the table and bend some pins. You can use the half turn screw on the socket to open it back up and put the CPU chip back in. Be sure to match the little gold arrow on the chip underside to the marking on the motherboard.
3. Once you get the heat sink unit out – YOU NEED TO REMOVE THE FAN. This is not mentioned in Dell service manual, but it is easy to do with three screws holding the fan and one for the wire cover. When you lift out the fan and look inside the air chamber, you will see a mat of dust/hair etc. on the INSIDE of the heatsink. Very gently, using a small art paintbrush or Q-tip, you need to get that mat out of the air chamber. The fins are fragile, so don’t push.
CLeaning the dust on the input screens, the fan blades, and the side air notch in the fan spiral is important too – but I think that internal dust mat is the “smoking gun”.
That mat forms because the fan sucks air from under the laptop (and a little vent on the side) and blows it through the copper “radiator” out the back. As it vacuums off your table top, dust gets built up on the inside of the narrow cooling fins and eventually builds a blanket. Perhaps casuing a class action law suit.
4. To avoid dust building up as fast, make sure your laptop holes are covered. My daughter managed to loose the plastic filler plate that goes in the PCMCIA slot on the left side case. Since there was no card plugged in there, it made an unscreened hole for dirt and dust to enter, so I put scotch tape over it. Also, it might be a good idea to occasionally dust the table the computer sits on, and the area around it (stacks of books, old software boxes, piles of CD cases, etc).
Anyway, my Dell 5160 now runs as when it was new; If not doing much, the fan throttles down to a low whisper, and if doing a bunch of stuff, it runs quite audibly and the thing still gets warm. But not the “may day” fan speed it was running at before, or the scary kind of hot it used to get.
I am also curious, where did you all find a software utility to measure the CPU temp in the Dell?
Rick
I also have a 5160 with the same issue, battery won’t charge, etc. My warranty is good till Feb 09 but when I contacted Dell about the problem, they seem to think the reed switch is bad. Unbeknownst to them, I have had my mainboard out and inspected it to find that I have a burnt transistor that is very close to the ac power jack. My plan is to disregard the warranty and find another board to replace and use some of the heat sink/ fan repairs mentioned above.
A few days ago I “fixed” a broken 5160. It would not boot properly, only bsod. I could startup and run a simple mem-test tool (from cd) that said that I had lots of memory error. The memory worked fine in another computer so I figured that wasn’t the problem. The cpu was the next thing to replace (aint too many replaceable components in a laptops so this step was quite obvious). I bought a cheap standard P4 with socket 478 on ebay in Sweden – $5 or something like that. Replaced the cpu, and at the same time removed some (alot) dust from the fan and heatsink. Reassembeled and started up. The bios seems to notice that there is another cpu inside, since it reports that this new cpu is not compatible bla. blah. and that I have to press F1 to continue. I do so and the computer boots and runs okay again. HAPPY!
Hi
I need to change a D.C jack on my Dell 5150 can you help me out how to soder that ones I did soder that but did not work can you help me please
Thank you
Best regards
I have 3 pcs of DELL 5150, all have same problem. If i charge battery on other same working laptop & then insert it in faulty 5150, it works fine..but if i insert AC adaptor it doesn’t power on nor charge the battery. I have changed DC Jack, replace Adaptor & done everything I can. But the problem is same, It works on battery but not on AC. When AC is connected every voltages are correct i.e. 3.3 & 5v to power on the unit. 3.3v on the center pin of the jack. I have also replaced MAX1632, PC87591 but there is no difference. Please help me where is the problem.
check the filter capacitor next to the jack on the board.
also if you need more info on that email me at jjaeger110@email.itt-tech.edu
hi I have the same problems the computer boots up 50% then shuts down, i think i will try to replace the cooling fan, first and see if that will work.
does any one think that would fix my problem.
It almost certainly is overheating, had the same problem. Changed fan, now its working.
My dell inspiron 5160 is not getting with power adoptor, adoptor is ok. Pls guid me what should I do to over come this problem.
kind regards
Seems I may have same heat problem alot for wtih the Dell 5160.Mine just stating to not want to boot all the way up,boot to about 60% on bar and stop and restat and then just freeze.It also was running very hot anf now want even boot to that point.Seem where some of you said Dell fixed this problem for free,wonder if I could get same fixed on mine?–Thank You,Wayne
Anyone interested in selling their 5160 or any model laptop that is not working or giving them trouble please contact me at jjaeger110@email.itt-tech.edu Thank you.
Also contact me (225)316-6455
I have a 5160 as well with a motherboard problem. I have completely dismantled it and when I touch the AC to it it goes click click click , sounds like on and off and on and off and when it had the palmrest on the power and battery lights would flash at the same speed.
Does anyone else have this problem , what part on the mobo is it..
Also when I measure the DC jack pins to the motherboard it gives an erratic reading at the same speed as the clicking , it goes 18v – 16v – 18v – 16v every half a second.
Hello All
I have Dell Inspiron 5160 and recently its DVD drive and USBs all stopped working at the same time. Any idea what might be the problem? what can i do to resolve it?
I didn’t read -all- the comments so I don’t know if anyone else noticed this; but, the disassembly went too far and more parts were removed than were necessary. Certainly the screen does not have to be removed.
Removal of the keyboard and an aluminum plate under the keyboard exposes everything needed to then remove just the heatsink and fan assembly.
I’m a relatively inexperienced at laptop repair; but, I have done the heatsink and fan on two 5160′s, one just yesterday.
I have a Inspirion 5160 that had an overheating problem. So I took it all apart (per documentation) and cleaned out the fan and filter and associated area. Put it all back together (rather easy task), booted up and NOTHING.
The fan came on, the display flickered, then the fan went silent after about a minute, then nothing except the CPU light was ON. I then repeated the disassembly to make sure I connected everything, reassembled and rebooted on battery only. The only difference was the battery light momentarily came on, otherwise all the same as before.
I am aware of the electrostatic issues so I was very careful, but perhaps that is the problem after all. A side issue: when I pulled out the fan and cooling assembly, I noticed that the Pin Grid Array separated from the holder not the heat sink. Is that normal? or is that potentially my new problem?
my ac jack doesn’t work on dell inspiron 5160. does anyone out there fix these computers?
i’ve had alot of these problems and the one with the power on and off comes with the cpu over heating i removed the fan and the cpu came withit of course,so i separated it and put the cpu back in its place and tightend the cpu set screw and put some heatsink compound on the unit cleaned the fan and set fan back in place ,the system started with no problems
I have a dell 5160 with trouble , it not power on , ot it displays no lights , the fan does not get power , new power adapter new battery
Hi – I have a Dell Inspirion 5160 laptop. The laptop screen is flickering. Sometime it will work well without any issue but soon the screen will start flckering. I have NVIDIA 64MB graphics card. Any idea what can be the cause of this issue?
Had the same problem, changed the Videocard. Now working!
When I get a dell that doesn’t power up or display, I connect an external monitor in back and it fires up & displays. So… sometimes the ground in the dc jack won’t connect and the external monitor jack acts as a … um, replacement ground.
Anyone have a pin diagram for the Battery Pack 6T473 for Inspiron 5160? My AC adapter is good, but due to the DCConnecter loose connection its not powering up. If I can directly charge the battery from the AC Adapter output will be nice. Hoping this will work atleast untill the data is backedup… Any help?
Geeks….My Laptop does not start at all. If I plug in the power adapter, the power lights even don’t turn on. Some times if press Power button no of times, yellow light blinks for like 4 times but nothing happens.
Pls help!!
Thx
Geeks….My Laptop Inspiron 5160 does not start at all. If I plug in the power adapter, the power lights even don’t turn on. Some times if press Power button no of times, yellow light blinks for like 4 times but nothing happens.
Pls help!!
Thx