Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop

[richs]

My daughter's Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop for college is on its third motherboard replaced under warranty by Dell. When running the torture test, this computer repeatedly freezes up or shuts itself off. I suspect that the motherboard cooling is inadequate. So I have given up on trying to run Prime95 on this laptop. I just thought that folks might like to know...

[optim]

tes, thank you. I am about to buy a new laptop and I was thinking about Dell; but not now!

[markhl]

Originally Posted by richs

When running the torture test, this [laptop] repeatedly freezes up or shuts itself off.

You can still run it. From Undoc.txt:

If you are running on a laptop or in a hot room and you want to slow the
program down to reduce heat, then you can add this line to prime.ini:
Throttle=n
where n is the number of milliseconds to sleep after each iteration.

E.g. your iteration takes 0.156 s = 156 ms, you sleep 40 ms after each iteration, so you are sleeping 40 / (156 + 40) ~= 20% of the time, and generating less heat. You may have to tune the value of Throttle to get the best results: running as fast as possible without overheating. Also run it in a cool room!

[lpmurray]

I have an athlon1800+ and a pentium 2.2ghz p4 HP laptop and they both overheat. I have 1 on a laptop cooling fan and the p4 on an air filter that blows air up from underneath and they both work fine. shut down the fans and the machines shut down.

So far as the overheating problem, I have been looking into this for a few days now. I was told that the first thing that should be purchased for a laptop is a 'laptop cooler'. I just ordered a Vantec Laptop Cooler Model LPC-305. This is run off of a USB port (no external power needed for USB 2.0), and supplies a power cord for USB 1.1. I picked the Vantec because it is also a 4 port hub. This should be handy because you use one of your USB ports to power the cooler. The dimensions and weight look good in the specs.
It won't have any problem fitting into my laptop case, and from the pics and stats it looks very portable. There are a lot of reviews on the web. Most indicate that it reduces the temp by 17.5 to 20 degrees F. There are some coolers available that are a lot cheeper, but do not have the 4 port USB hub. My order came to $45.11 with standard shipping through Xoxide.com (no, I don't work for any hardware company or Vantec or anything. I just have a problem with overheating when I use processor intensive software over a long period of time). There seem to be some coolers with fans for $15 out there if you don't need more USB ports. I would imagine that any shipping is going to add $5 to $8 to your order, and the $45.11 I spent included shipping.
I also found a couple posts where people found only a little thermal gel linking the processor to the heat sinks. Thermal gel is cheap, and you can get it at Radio Shack, but I hate opening laptops. They claim more gel really helped. But from what I read, overheating with laptops over a period of time is almost to be expected, and several people suggested a laptop cooler as almost a necessity with a laptop if it is being used several hours at a time. Besides, Radio Shack always wants my address and phone number.
If you are willing to wait a week I'll let you know how well the new cooler works with my Inspiron 1100.
-Verbosus

[delta_t]

One thing I found with running Prime95 on a laptop is that the CPU fan on these laptops aren't easily replaced (unlike desktops). The laptop CPU fans are usually part of some highly integrated piece and not user replaceable.
I've had two laptops that were running Prime95 continuously (when plugged in) (no throttling) and the fans over time became louder and louder due to the bearings wearing out. Eventually they had stopped. Luckily my laptops had 3-year warranties and I was able to get the company to replace the boards due to the fans not working. So if you do run Prime95 on a laptop, weigh in the fact that you could shorten the life of the CPU fan because it will be constantly on while running Prime95. If you have a decent warranty on it, then it may not be a problem, but if you have a short 1-year warranty and plan to use your laptop for a long time, perhaps running Prime95 with throttling on, or a cooler like the Vantec stated above, or not at all (cringe).
With all that said, I still run Prime95 on a very hot Pentium 4m laptop. The fan on the laptop has held up for 2 years, but I think I have new fans because the board had to be replaced twice already for other issues (RAM slots not working). My other laptop has its fan literally screeching when the CPU warms up and then it gets too hot and stops. Unfortunately it's out of warranty and not supported anymore.