My Dell XPS 1210 laptop has been having an occasional problem recently: random pixels have started changing to random colors when it gets warm. I bought a laptop stand with a couple fans in it, to help reduce the heat buildup, and didn’t think anything further of it — until the system started crashing when I tried playing Age of Empires III with GoddessJ.

Finally, over the weekend, I called Dell about it. After some back-and-forth with the front-line tech guy, he decided that it was the video card memory (duh!), and that since the video card was integrated into the motherboard, they’d have to change the motherboard on the system.

I’d paid a little extra for a three-year on-site-service warranty on it, and it’s still going, so they said that they’d send a guy out. This morning I got a call saying that the motherboard had come in, and would I like to schedule a time when the repair guy could come out and replace it? Sure!

The guy showed up at 11am and immediately tackled the job. I hung around to watch, since I’d never taken a laptop apart myself before. He had to strip it down pretty thoroughly — it was rather disconcerting, seeing one of my babies in pieces on the table — but he got the motherboard replaced and the whole thing put back together in about thirty minutes.

While he had it apart, I examined some of the pieces, and discovered a huge clump of dust blocking the inside of the exhaust port, right up near the fan where it couldn’t be accessed without taking the whole system apart. I’ve had this laptop on, and pretty much full-time, for nearly two years now, so it’s not altogether surprising. We discussed it while he put the system back together, and decided that that was probably the cause of the trouble — the video chip was overheating first because the heat from it had to travel the farthest along the heatsink.

In any case, I have a new motherboard in the system now, and the dust is cleaned out. I can already tell that the system is running cooler than it had been. Maybe some compressed air blown into the exhaust port on a regular basis will keep it clear of dust so this problem doesn’t happen again? It’s worth a try. GoddessJ is happy that we’ll be able to play Age of Empires III together again, and I’m just happy that the system still works after being gutted and reassembled.

There’s never a dull moment around here. 🙂