My suggestions: Have you checked with Throttlestop if it's being throttled for any reason? Have you tried setting your power option to performance or checking the energy options for the cooling strategy and max clockspeed allowed?
Based on what you've written, I think it's very likely that the heat pipes (if any) need to be replaced since the coolant inside has probably evaporated and escaped. As it's a Dell, replacement parts should be easy to get.
I think I set some option in the bios to limit CPU usage/speed for battery life or something hoping it would run cooler, but whatever I changed never made a difference and it's been a long time since I've looked in the bios.
I hadn't heard of throttlestop, just grabbed it to run. So CPU is specifically a Core i5-2540m
The 4 cores are all between 66c and 68c alternating, and it says max is between 76c and 78c.
'Disable turbo' is shown as checked, so is 'BD PROCHOT', SpeedStep and 'C1E'. 'High Performance' is not checked.
When you say heat pipes, would that be referring to the copper colored metal over the CPU and GPU, what I had been calling the heatsink? I had not realized they had coolant in them at all. I've never replaced that, but I'm comfortable enough changing CPUs and such so I'm not worried about doing so.
If that's what I have to replace I may look on ebay and do so, would indeed be nice to have it running less hot, and also get rid of my probably irrational fear that the heat might make the battery explode.
I had no idea either until fairly recently. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe I repaired a laptop where replacing the paste didn't help, but replacing the pipes (or rather the heatsink assembly, which they're a part of) did wonders.
If you're already comfortable with taking it apart, it's trivial to replace. I think it's your best bet. You might even be able to get it directly from Dell since they also sell replacement parts.
For such an old laptop I'm not sure if I want to keep spending money on it, $15 to upgrade the ram, $10 for a new keyboard after I broke keys from taking them off to clean them, $25 for a new battery etc.
Even though it runs very hot it does seem to work ok, and I'm hoping to just buy a brand new $100 or so machine hopefully in the first quarter of next year, but we will see. I still may end up doing so though.
I think I would have to try and buy from Dell directly, as on ebay all the heat sinks were preowned, and may be no better than the one I already have.
> heat pipes (if any) need to be replaced since the coolant inside has probably evaporated and escaped. As it's a Dell, replacement parts should be easy to get.
Was my initial guess as well, though it's hardly worth replacing unless wanting to keep it for sentimental reasons
