Evan Closson

Dell XPS M1330 Fan Stuttering

10/30/2008 9:22:48 PM

Comments

Thanks for your post! I had the same problem and this solution worked for me.

Ive had the same problem too... might give that a try. How does it run with the a12? Does the fan run all the time?

I've had this problem too, and more; Dell has gone to shit, their repair techs are incompetent and careless, and their Indian call center crew awful. It took TWO MONTHS for my xps m1330 to be repaired... first it was the faulty video card, then it was the damages THE REPAIR DEPOT CAUSED. I just got it back FINALLY and it has new and exciting damages (the faceplate that fits over the headphone jacks on the front is falling off and my plastic insert for the SD card reader is still missing). I will never EVER buy a Dell product again, and I will go out of my way to tell everyone of my awful awful experience. As far as I'm concerned, I wasted $2500. Fuck Dell!

@pissed@dell
> How does it run with the a12?
Runs great.
> Does the fan run all the time?
Nope, all good after the bios flash.

@hates dell
Sounds like you had a bad time man. That sucks. Those call centers are horrible but I have only used them once.
I must say I'm very impressed with the M1330 and I am of the belief that Dell was kind of wandering aimlessly for a while but have now gotten back on the right path.

Evan = Hero Worked like a charm

The Dell BIOS in the M1330 is now at version A13. I had the same issue with my 1330 until I updated the BIOS. Thanks to the OP for the clue, saved a lot of time.

omg, i found this a few seconds too late. as soon as i ran into the problem, i reformatted my laptop again. argh.. next time i will search earlier. thanks for the heads up.

Yey...thanks for this mate...

Thanks dude!

I've got the XPS M1330 and just updated to BIOS A13 (from A11) and I *still* have this issue. Chatted with Dell Support, and they informed me that I would need to have the motherboard replaced (after doing nothing but updating the BIOS). Any other suggestions to get this freakin fan to turn off?

Not sure Ricky. The problem started for me once I upgraded my video drivers. They must have been out of sync with the bios revision I had and that caused the fan issues. Do you have the latest graphics drivers? Maybe reverting to BIOS A12 will help? What caused the fan stuttering to start for you?

hai...I'm having the same problem..The thing is im using 2 OSes which are Windows n Ubuntu.For ur information the fan does not make noise if im using Ubuntu.I dont know what to do. I searched from the internet n found out that dell is having problem with NVIDIA GPU. Should I sell my laptop?I like this laptop but im worried that I need to spend more money after the warranty ended.(I'm a student).Please help me

I update Bios A14. It solves the problem. I'm using M1330 Nvidia 8400GS.

@Dann - Don't think you should sell. This hyperactive fan issue appears to just be a driver issue. I say keep fiddling with the vista drivers and BIOS from dell until you find a pair that work for you. If that fails maybe you should return it before the warranty ends :)

The same problem after Windows update today including video driver for XPS M1330 Nvidia 8400GS. Thank you for the advise - I flashed BIOS with the newest version A14 AND WORKS FINE. Thank you

I noticed after updating the video driver having the same issue with starting and stopping. Now however it seems to run ALL THE TIME. I will flash my BIOS and let you know. Thanks

I had the same issue after installing an updated Nvidia driver, flashed new A14 BIOS and all seems fine now. Great advice - thanks

A12/A14 do the trick. Keep up the good work ;)

OK, After flashing the BIOS to A14 the fan seems to not studder and remains in some kind of LOW RPM mode. This is much better. We'll see how it goes from here. Thanks for the info.

Cheers for that! big help

This worked perfect with A14 to solve that exact problem. Thanks a bunch!

Thank you very much for your help

anyone know why dell pulled 8GB support from A14? and why they pulled A13 (which has 8GB support) from the web site? Vista x64, XP X64 and VMware ESXi work very well with 8GB.

Noob question... I have this problem. I know neither how to check my bios version, nor how to flash things and update to A12. Can anyone help? Cheers

I just started having the same problem. Dam updates! Lets see if I can figure out how to update the bios!

Thanks man... I flashed to BIOS A12 from A11 and it worked for me... phew... I thought my new buy would be a waste... other than that XPS 1330 seems to be amazing.. I hope my graphic card doesnt heat up though... anyway... thanks!

Thank you thank you thank you, this was killing me. Against my better instincts I installed the latest windows update including the nvidia driver update - IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT is one thing I have learnt time and again. It feels like the fan is running constantly now though, at a low rpm. Can't tell if it did this before the problems started though.

Mike- when you first boot up your computer on the dell title screen it will say "BIOS A XX" on the bottom. Look for it when you start. To flash the bios just download the update from dell support and double click the file

I rolled back my video driver to 7.15.11.7597 and then updated my bios from A11 to A14. Worked like a charm. Thank you thank you thank you

Was A11 just upgraded to A12 then A14 - seems to fix the problem. Thanks for the advice

Hello, I have XPS 1330, GeForce 8400GS, Driver Version 176.44 I payed attention to the fan noise a few days ago - it drives me CRAZY. Please, Can anyone tell me how to upgrade or downgrad my bios to be the correct one which solves this? How can I know what bios version do I have? HELP!

I had this problem for a week, have just upgraded to bios A14 and it is working fine again.

Great post! this was driving me freaking insane...almost threw the laptop out the window haha...constantly going max to min max to min....thanks for the help

Thank you so much!!! You saved me and others countless hours of headaches with tech support. Went from A11 to A14 and it worked like a charm.

Thanks a lot, man! This was bugging the hell out of me. Updated to A12, and everything's fine.

Thank you man, I went crazy from the fan noise... skip to A12 and now it's "Enjoy the silence"!

Well done - many thanks Such a simple fix - Dell - not helpful

now twice my video card is bad should of brought the 1530, which does not have the same issue. What i did is unstall the driver and use standard VGA, now it works fine but I cant get the best HD pic with my TV tuner and there is no direct acceleration.

in case anyone is wondering, the latest A14 fixes the problem.

Awesome! The noise was driving both be and my co-workers insane. A14 works for me.

Thanks so much for this post. I flashed m y BIOS to A14 and the fan stopped its insane operation. I am enjoying the silence now.

I used A14 and the last version of Video card driver but my laptop died, I dont know what should do now?

Wow... this saved a ton of time. Thanks for the tip. It quieted thigns down immediately and preserved my sanity.

Thank you Evan. It's amazing how graphics drivers can mess things up. You saved me a ton of time troubleshooting my sister's PC.

Hey Guys, Just to add to all the comments, I recently (today) had the same problem with the latest Windows updates... fan on full tilt. Followed the advice here and flashed the bios (Now A15), and it seams to have done the trick... fan back to normal. Thanks for saving us a lot of time! Cheers.

Thanks for the great help. The problem was not resolved by the service techs but thanks to you. A bios flash to A15 on my Dell latitude 630 did not work either. What finally did the trick was the driver update function for the nVidia Quadro NVS M135 ending 2 month of frustration.

Hey, I had this exact same problem after a recent driver update from the windows update service for vista. I rolled back to the previous version and that sorted it. However I downloaded the windows 7 beta and the same problem came back. Trying to find a fix for the issue I came across this thread and updating to the most recent A15 bios from A07 has done the trick. Back to its old self. Thanks.

Yep, same problem.. now fixed.. thanks a million!

finaly fixed, thanks to you! big thanks! :D

Yup... upgraded to A15 and it worked. Thanks man.

Fantastic, can't believe it, I was starting to fret that I had a serious problem then found this page and it worked!

Thanks, updated to A15 and the crazy fan issue stopped. Thanks!

I also have all these issues and Dell replaced my laptop. In the mean time I updated my old machine's bios to A14(its working fine). The new machine has BiosA15 on it but making noise, do you geeks think I should revert back to A14 on new machine from A15.

Holy crap, you just justified the internet.

Thank You! This link was at the top of the Google search list for "Dell M1330 fan". I expected a long drawn out search. This was too easy...and it worked!

Wow. Thanks. I was going to throw something through the window.

I have a Dell XPS 630i. I never gave much thought about the fan running so much, just thought it was normal. I haven't had the thing a full year and now it seems my video card has gone bad. I'm waiting on a response from Dell via email. I sent them a pic of my screen since they told me to F12 as soon as I turn it on. I still owe about $100 on my Dell card for this pc. I don't care about my credit report! I'm going to give them the rest of their money if they don't fix my problem. I'll be damned if I'm going to let them have my pc for as long as some of you have mentioned. This sucks! I bought this machine because it was one of the last pc's I found that you could order with XP Pro. Also, the 12 months no interest lured me in.

Have an M1330 XPS, updated the graphics drivers and had the same stuttering problem with the fan. Was trying to figure out what to do, came across this and then went and updated my BIOS to the latest A15 version--fixed the problem. Thanks!

1) Bought my red XPS M1330 on Jan 2008. After 4 months, it started to get blocked immediately after starting Vista. Whatever application I was trying to start, bam, got stuck. Reinstalled "factory settings" image, lost all my current status of the programs, but looked ok after that 2) Soon after this (I didn't notice it was from the nVidia update), the fan started to behave like you said. There are 6 months since is doing like this. Never bothered to look for solution until my wife stated she will throw either me or my Dell on the window 3) Last week I've installed some fanspeed control apps and they've showed me high temperature for the CPU and GPU (around 60Celsius for CPU and 80Celsius for GPU) 4) As far as I remember, I flash the BIOS (Dell Center warned me there is a new BIOS version available) and the fan still doing the same terrible noise, with the stop step ... I will go home and check which version of BIOS I really have 5) BUT MEANWHILE, and now comes the question: there are some posts in Dell Community forums which are saying someof the nVidia cards are having HW design faults. They are saying, as well, that the fan speed was forced to medium/max speed in order to make graphical cards to die as much as possible after warranty period. My question is: doing the upgrade and have the fan speed back to normal, did you guys checked the temperature of you GPU unit after that? Have any of you noticed notebook to be extremely hot below keyboards (on the laptop mouse sides)? How long have you been owning the notebook? I am afraid that setting the fan speed back to quite will make my graphical unit explode rather sooner or later ... Cheers, Theodor

Unfortunately was true. nVidia graphic cards seems to have huge hardware design problem, and they are stating they didn't imagine this as it happens only in conjunction with a type of material and design used only in some of the notebooks: http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html Other opinions: "Nvidia is under some attacks and problems right now due to graphics card failures mainly due to overheating issues. THeir cards come from the factory with a default 30% of max fan and you really need to use 3rd party software, like Riva Tuner (I suggest), and set the fan to 80-100% and can also make it do this on Windows start." http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9983840-1.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-255549_15_0.html The best link is by far this one: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081 Unfortunately, I just passed my 12 months warranty 2 weeks ago ... I found out about this problem to late. And anyway I am in Europe and I bought the laptop from USA. I flashed the BIOS to version A15 and it did lowered the fan speed, yes the noise disappeared, but it looks like all of us now just have to wait and see how long we can enjoy our laptop from now on ... I cannot believe I spent 2.000$ and Dell didn't called all the faulty laptops back for replacement. Or to blame nVidia, or do something. Right now I am looking at SpeedFan utility and I see the temperature of the GPU nVidia unit to be 69 Celsius, this having in mind that no other application apart from this web browser is opened. I don't want to think what it will happen if I want to use my notebook harder.

thx a thsd times

Nooooo on/off/on/off now mines doing it after a windows update!!! I'm on A11 will try upgrading to bios A15!!!

Perfect BIOS upgrade on XPS M1330 from A11 to A15 and no more anoying fan on/off/on/off!!! Thanks for this, I've been working for 3 hours with it doing that and it was begining to drive me more bonkers!! Virtual XP PC's asp.net and SQL2K5 still working, so no ill effects from upgrade thus far! Anybody know why i should get timeouts on ping across wireless connection to server when I have Sony 890i ADSL modem phone configured to use bluetooth??? Perhaps another thread...

Thanks a lot! I just installed the new drivers and got this problem. You saved my life!

THANK YOU! this was driving me nuts. I was about done using my computer after hours trying to get the fan to turn off.

THANK U for ur solution, i was goin 2 open my 1330 and remove da VGA Fan powercable, lol ne wayz thnx

I have a M1330 too, and my graphics card broke. Dell sent a mechanic over to replace it, means new motherboard. The mechanic told me there have been problems with the nvidia card breaking down and that Dell will deliver a new one even when the warranty has expired. Mind you, these are his words! The point I want to make is that I think dell and nvidia are trying to make it mor reliable by updating drivers and bios. So updating your notebook may have more benefits then only fixing the fan speeds.

Thank you alot for the help.My M1330 has been driving me crazy with the fan noise. I chatted with a Dell agent last nite and she sent me a link to download the latest BIOS A15.Wow!On flashing the new BIOS version and rebooting,the fan stopped immediately!!! Thanks alot.

I have also the fan problem. I upate from BIOS 7 to 14. Wow, now I got a mutch faster computer too! Thanks!

Thanks for the post Evan. Upgraded from BIOS 7 to 15 and the fan stuttering stopped.

I have had problem with heat and fan going crasy. The answer for me was to reset the heat sensors. When in windows use [Fn]+[z] to reset the sensor. The fan stop a little bit and start up again hopefully with a lower speed.

A12 worked for me. Thank you so much, it was driving me NUTS. You are my hero.

at this moment iam facing the same problem, i have intel mobile graphic axxelerate 3100. i updated bios to A15. not work tried old version A14. also A12. still the same. anyone have idea to help write me.. thanx in adanced.

Thank you soooo much. I was about to send my computer to dell for repairs because I couldn't figure out what was wrong. The A14 Bio worked for me.

GREAT CALL!!! I though my XPS 1330 was having a ASTHMA ATTACK. Just updated to A15 and my patient is much better

I update BIOS to A15 and problem solved! Thanks for the help man!

a14 did the trick!! thanks

Great Work

You have no idea how much time (and sanity) you just saved me. Thank you for posting this!

Looks like it worked. Dell support had A15.

I called Dell Support on 3 separate occasions within the last week trying to figure out what was wrong with my M1330. If only I had come here first...the tech support in Bangalore really needs to get their act together. Along with many people on this forum, I won't buy Dell again. I was about ready to cut my ears off because of the fan constantly turning on and off. Thanks Evan!

Thanks for this posting! Maybe now, my officemate won't threaten to break my M1330.

Switched to Mac...couldn't be happier

I am having the same problem but unfortunately my battery is shot which means I can't update BIOS. Other than buying a new battery is there a workaround to this dilemma?

Disregard my last post. A rollback of the drivers fixed the issue!

-would have never figured that out- flashed to bios 14-- worked like a charm- thanks guys-- here is the link to the site- support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R204481&SystemID=XPS_M1330&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=14178&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=7&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=1&fileid=285127

Thank you, thank you thank you. Flashed to BIOS 15. Creepy fan breathing gone, nirvana achieved.

You are my absolut hero! The noise was wearing me down! I spend nearly all my day in front of this thing, so you are indeed a life saver. Thanks so much!

Click to open Device Manager.‌ If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Double-click the category containing your device driver, and then double-click the name of the device you want to restore to a previous driver version.

Click the Driver tab, and then click Roll Back Driver.

Hey guys I had this problem about a year ago, not this kind but my mother board crashed because of that faulty graphic card,it heats up too much!! so if your fan goes wild you should be happy cause its cooling your system, otherwise you want to spend $500 on your system, i won't buy any DELL products either..

by the way there is a program called: I8KFANGUI

which with that you can control your fan speed on your desire, google the name and you'll find it.

however you can email me on armin.nz@hotmail.com so i would email it to you manually, put the subject on XPS1330 FAN

Thank you for that info it was really great. :D

I was already thinking about using some cotton in my ears!!! ;)

Thanks a lot.

If you have not heard about the NVIDIA chip problem with M1330, you might look into it. The fan is coming on because of over heating and will eventually fail. A mother board replacement is the only solution and it is a temp solution. Check out these sites for more.

blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2308&tag=rbxccnbzd1

blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2172

This was the best piece of advise I found in the net for a long time...

DELL XPS M1330 BIOS A09

Recently I installed some temperature monitoring applications on my Ubuntu OS with one bad result.

After a reboot, only after a reboot the fan revs intermittently for about 20 minutes.

Lots of Google searching is leading me towards a BIOS update, A15 is the current version and I even have the applications installed and ready to Flash the BIOS via Ubuntu. What are the risks. Will I mess up my OS install because the kernel expects to see a particular hardware platform.

I just thought you may have some insight.

Thanks for this godly advice.....I flashed my BIOS to A15 and the fan is calm now....enjoying the peace!!