Yup, its covered under warranty.

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Added on October 9, 2010, 5:09 amShould be OK. On previous model (earlier this year), Dell Studio 1557 have high temperature issue. It is because of high power consumption by ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570. The result is high GPU temperature when playing demanding games. The power consumption of the HD 5470 is 13-15 Watt depending on the used memory (15W with GDDR5). There are mixed review about 5470 GPU where notebookcheck website said the power consumption is the same with 4570. I can't find the exact power consumption on 4570 (not even on AMD website) but I did read somewhere that all 5XXX series GPU have lower power consumption compared to 4XXX series GPU. So, it should run much cooler than 4570. What I'm saying is, the above specification which is Studio 1558 should be free from overheating issue.

These are my games experience with Studio 1557 (without cooling pad):-



This post has been edited by kizwan: Oct 9 2010, 05:09 AM

It is much easier if you visit Dell website. All the information you need is all there, payment option, delivery method, etc.

This is good specification. SC2 will run much smoother on middle to high settings. My Dell Studio can run SC2 much smoother on middle settings compared to my Asus. The smooth is during mission load & when on big size battle. However my Asus can play SC2 on ultra high settings if I overclocked the GPU right. There is plenty headroom for overclocking GT 335M compared to ATI 4570 on my Studio. The most important is warranty & support which I think Dell is the best. If your notebook have major problem, like need replacing the motherboard, you can get Dell technician do it for you minimum in 24 hours to a couple of days & they do it at your house. Other brand usually take time minimum 7 days at least & you'll have to send it to service center. Just my 2 cents.

This post has been edited by kizwan: Oct 14 2010, 06:55 PM

It is normal for notebook that old to overheat because of the dust. It also common problem for Dell Studio. Did you monitor the temperature before it went off? What is the temperature? You can clean it yourself & save the money. You can go to any repair shop @ lowyat & they will clean it up for you. If I were you, I'll do it myself. You don't have to open it, although opening the casing & clean the inside directly will give better result. Instead you can use blower (or whatever name it is) to blow the dust.

This post has been edited by kizwan: Nov 24 2010, 04:04 PM

You need to call Dell hotline to extend the warranty, 1800880022 (Malaysia). You can't do it online (website). For 1 years around RM40X & 2 years around RM6XX. If you extend after current warranty expired, you'll need to pay double. Please call for exact price. I got these information today. They told me the price is according to current market price.

This post has been edited by kizwan: Dec 8 2010, 03:57 PM

Fortunately you already extended the warranty. Which one do you have? 1555, 1557 or 1558?

To anyone who don't know.

Anyone with 1557/1558 & want to replace the thermal compound yourself, make sure:-

• Follow the service manual when disassembling your notebook. The hinge is fragile. Each of the hinge has two screws; one in the casing (you'll see it after you removed the Center Control Cover) & one underneath your laptop. Remember, when you removed one of the two screws, do not operate the lid, whether open or close. If you do, it can break the plastic which hold the screw.
• Copper shims; (CORRECTION 10 SEPT. 2011) 0.9x20x20mm for the GPU & 0.7x35x10mm for the video ram (1 piece each; 0.7mm & 0.9mm are the thickness). Why? Because the GPU is using thermal pad. It's useless after short period of time. Replaced it with copper shim. Copper shims can drop the temperatures from 5C to 20C (tested & proved). If you unable to get copper shims, you can use aluminum instead. If you have old desktop CPU heatsink (the silverish white color means it's aluminum), you can use the fins. Cut the fins & use sand paper to make it thinner (if too thick). For the video ram, re-use the thermal pad. Should be in this order; heatsink > copper shim > thermal pad > video ram. Take your time when refitting the heatsink to the CPU & GPU. You don't want to break those two.
• Thermal compound. I recommend either IC Diamond 7 or Arctic MX-4. I prefer MX-4 since it's non-curing (at least that was stated in the specification & reviews) & easy to apply. Non-curing means you don't need to go through "thermal cycles" before you can get optimum result. With IC Diamond 7, the curing time is 2 hours. (UPDATE 10 SEPT. 2011) Arctic MX-4 not perform as it should be on Dell Studio 1557. Right now I ordered Shin-Etsu G751 thermal paste to try next.
• Isopropyl alcohol(99% or high purity). Arctic clean solution would work too with Q-Tips to clean up the previous compound. Don't use paper towels as there are too many fibers and it catches and tears. Use a lint free cloth if you have one or an old T-shirt or even paper coffee filters if you don't.

Good luck!

This post has been edited by kizwan: Sep 14 2011, 07:41 PM

Does this suddenly happen to you? OR it happen since you got this notebook? Did you try to set (Firefox) View \ Zoom \ Reset? With resolution 1920x1080 on a 15" screen, the text & icon will look small. Try 1366x768.

This is my first time I heard anyone complaint the 1080p screen on Dell Studio notebook. Usually they get use to it. Can you set to 1280x800 or 1600x900 or 1440x900? You can try increased the text size in "Control Panel \ Appearance and Personality \ Make text and other items larger or smaller".

Recommended by a friend@NBR, I found Shin-Etsu G751 thermal compound is better than Arctic MX-4.

(While browsing & checking email. The max temps are after running 3dMark06)

Arctic MX-4


Shin-Etsu G751


This post has been edited by kizwan: Sep 14 2011, 07:52 PM

Shin-Etsu G751 just RM24 per tube. I bought it at Lowyat Garage Sales ( http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?act=ST&f=54&t=1702139 ).

To disassemble Dell Studio 1555, you can follow this Service Manual. You can skip some part, for example disassemble Power Button Board (no need to do it).

This post has been edited by kizwan: Sep 24 2011, 03:24 PM

You'll need to replace the whole LCD cover. For this sort of things you can easily find it on ebay:-
http://shop.ebay.com.my/i.html?LH_AvailTo=..._arr%3D1&_rdc=1

If you can find it here, it would be expensive though.

This post has been edited by kizwan: Oct 1 2011, 07:16 PM

Get SSD disk. For sure it will improved performance. You also can enabled IDA on both cores. Intel P8600 CPU frequency will increased from 2.4GHz to 2.53GHz