Here is a 10 MB file from Tom's Hardware.
http://www.tomshardware.com/images/t...pu_cooling.zip

You can see Quake III slowing down when the fan is removed, and then the game resumes normal speed again once the fan is in place.

This is an older video, but still pretty good.

 

That happens to my new dell laptop. It would play unreal 2004 etc, pretty well, and then about 6 months later it started to bog down. I couldn't figure it out and I eventually resorted to putting ice packs underneath. Finally, I went online and found a thread about this particular dell laptop and it turns out it's a common problem.

Dust builds up around the CPU and eventually it gets too hot. Vacuuming doesn't work. The only thing you can do is blow compressed air into the vents to clean it out.

I got a CPU temp/fan controller program which gives a readout of the CPU temperature. With the dust covering the cpu, the temp reaches about 70C+. After cleaning it the temp rarely goes above 50C.

 

I am pretty sure that video was to compare the amd to the intel. The intel slowed down, and the amd burned up because there was no protective circuitry inside.

 

Has AMD resolved that yet with their new CPU's?

 

Don't know, haven't tried it lately . I know that the cpu temperature on the intel is measured inside the cpu itself, while the amd is measured just underneat with a sensor on the motherboard.

 

Which model do you have? Mine seems to run slowly at times as well.

 

My old inspiron 8000 did this after a year
It used a heat pipe cooling rig, poorly desighned one at that. I remove the cooler/heatsink, removed the plasic coating on the cpu, gobbed some silver thermal past on and put the heat pipe back on. A new fan and updated the BIOS again(seems overheating was a common problem) and now works great. Though it being and older laptop, hell acceint now I don't use it much, well acually its my linux learning tool

 

just another reason to not cut corners and go cheap. I've always gone intel and probably always will.

 

yes, this issue has been resolved.. the athlon and sempron lines to not incorporate it, although most new boards for those chips have a shutdown temperature monitor, where as the new 64bit chips have a similar system to the P4, where they slow down to cool down.. also boasting one positive over the P4. Called 'cool and quiet', when your not using your 64 (idle) it slows itself down and therfore letting the fan slow down giving you a much quieter system, for those that want to keep them on all hours of the day.

just a side note, the temperature sensors on ALL amd motherboards are off by at least 5 degrees, mainly because it uses ambient temperature (you can help this a bit by bending the thermostat up so its a lil closer) below the cpu, and not that of a contact/conductive one.

ALL model laptops do this, the gap between the fins is just too tight, and loves to keep the dust there, clean it every 6 months.

 

oops, double post

 

Heh, I don't remember! Goes to show how much I care about computer stuff...

Let me check but I think it is the inspiron 5100.