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Dell XPS420 a bit poorly?
fat controller
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Earlier this evening, my Dell XPS420 hung whilst my daughter was using it (Moshi Monsters on the web, and that was about all that was running) - it wouldn't close any programs nor would it start the task manager or even shutdown or restart. In the end, I had no choice but to force it to power off by holding the button on the front.
Thereafter, it wouldn't restart - the BIOS screen would come up, and and then all I got was a blank screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner. No amount of waiting made any difference.
In the end, I decided to whip the cover off to see if all the fans were running, and to see if there was anything obvious like a loose cable etc. The only thing of note was the heat coming off a heat-sink sitting atop a chip right next to the much larger heat-sink on the processor - - - I'm not sure if its normal or not, but it was too hot to even touch.
Nothing else was of note, and all the fans spun up when the power was put on, so I decided to boot to Seatools on CD and check the hard drives; it booted, and reported that the hard drives were fine.
I then gave it one more shot at rebooting, and it decided to boot into Windows. I have ran a virus scan, checked for malware (all clear) and have ran CCleaner; it is currently running Defraggler, and seems happy enough (cover still off).
Is this hot chip anything to worry about, or is it normal?
Thereafter, it wouldn't restart - the BIOS screen would come up, and and then all I got was a blank screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner. No amount of waiting made any difference.
In the end, I decided to whip the cover off to see if all the fans were running, and to see if there was anything obvious like a loose cable etc. The only thing of note was the heat coming off a heat-sink sitting atop a chip right next to the much larger heat-sink on the processor - - - I'm not sure if its normal or not, but it was too hot to even touch.
Nothing else was of note, and all the fans spun up when the power was put on, so I decided to boot to Seatools on CD and check the hard drives; it booted, and reported that the hard drives were fine.
I then gave it one more shot at rebooting, and it decided to boot into Windows. I have ran a virus scan, checked for malware (all clear) and have ran CCleaner; it is currently running Defraggler, and seems happy enough (cover still off).
Is this hot chip anything to worry about, or is it normal?
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Any idea what the chip would be that was scalding hot? It had some sort of wire retainer holding the heat-sink onto it. I didn't want to tamper any further as I don't have any heat-sink compound knocking about.
Northbridge - they can run hot and need a good heatsink or fan.