ErikW

I have a Dell Inspiron 2200 which I purchased in the UK in Aug. 2005, I work in the Middle East, where Summer temps. reach 39-41C, I work in a 27-30 C environment with my laptop, (Fans, sometimes AC)

My specs include;

Windows XP
INSPIRON 2200 CELERON M PROCESSOR 360
40GB (5400RPM) IDE HARD DRIVE
1024MB 333MHZ DDR MEMORY I upgraded from Dell in 2006

My problems began in he early summer (Late June) with a clicking sound emanating from the case. I determined that this clicking was due to the fan and not the hard disk. The clicking did not appear until the unit had been working for about 20 minutes. My battery failed earlier this year and I did not get a new one, as these are also unobtainable where I am, I was to have purchased one in the UK later this year.

I have a home built tower based on an MSI motherboard + Pentium 4 unit, and so I shifted most of my work to this computer. Where I am there are no parts, and spare parts are hard to find and exhorbitantly expensive. So I waited until my next leave to the UK where I was going to purchase a new fan.

A few days ago I needed to access my laptop and so opened up the unit to oil the existing fan, two screws to the fan assembly and heatsink were frozen solid and I was unable to access the fan assembly. I cleaned the laptop including the fan grill from accumulated dust. The fan was working after assembly,

The next day I began my work on the unit. The clicking seemed to have gone away, and I completed my work after 8 hours operation. One of the tasks I had undertaken was to make a deep scan for viruses and malware, I used PC Tools Spyware (Scan only) and a-squared to disinfect. I had noticed that the unit was running slower than usual, and the fan clicking was not evident, when I checked I realized the fan had not been in operation.

I turned off the unit, and let it cool for about 20 minutes and re-booted, I had an error message of ‘system failure’ the unit would not even shut down, I had to unplug the unit from the power source.

I waited about 1.5 hours until it was cold and re-booted again, the system operated normally, although slower than usual, I shut down the unit after 5 minutes operation. I downloaded ‘i8kfangui31’ and ran a fan and temp test which informed me that after 5 minutes the cpu was running at 57C and there was no fan activity.

I have re-booted the system several times and it has started but runs slowly, I have not remained on the system for more than 5 minutes.

How can I determine system and hardware damage? Is it repairable? Does it only require a new fan and possibly a laptop cooler? I have no diagnostics tools and I have refrained from opening up the unit until I have established an alternate cooling system