I have had some experience with Dell Laptops, in my case the Inspiron 1501 & 1526.

Almost all the problems of these Laptops were heat related. (burned mobos, hot Hdds,

brittle or too much cpu thermal grease (which caused one laptop not to start up).

The heat sink can collect an amazing amount of lint lodged across the vent fins,

which, of course, blocks airflow & makes the Laptop hotter, even though the fan spins.

To me the Dells are not airy enough, access & placement of heat sink & fan is unfortunate.

To remove the lint, clean heat sink & fan, & replace thermal grease one must take the laptop

completely apart. - A service panel over the trouble area would make it a lot easier.-

Also, two fans, as a default for every Dell Laptop, would be much better ( for the cpu & video card/mobo).

I would have to convince Dell to change their design.

To tell you the truth, I could not recommend Dell Laptops, unless they had

improved the heat problems.

If one can find the lint, & is able to remove it with tweezers, perhaps a 25%-50%

heat reduction would result. - Just replacing the thermal grease between cpu & heat

sink fixed the Inspiron 1526 to be able to boot again, & back to normal running condition.-

Yes Dell should do preventative maintenance, it is certainly cheaper then replacing a

cpu or video card/motherboard.

It they will, I do not know, but one can try!

Send them this e-mail, if you want.

BavarianPH,

Ubuntu forever!

(P.S.:  Ubuntu (Linux) is, in my humble opinion, the best OS out there,

definitely the least expensive, since it is free, open software.)