Strange noise in Inspiron N5010

[Karen Blanche]

I bought my Dell laptop last month and I was using it very carefully. I use it on laptop table, on hard surface with full ventilation. I do not have any problem with its working performance but from some days I am seeing that it is making sound. I think its fan. When I put my left hand on its left -front edge its start making sound. This sound seems to occur when fan is on high speed. In start this sound was coming by left hand position but from tomorrow I am noticing that I am getting that sound without any touch. Lifting my laptop seems to cause the noise immediately. I am confused that I am making something wrong in its use. Does anyone have any idea? Is my fan has unbalanced? I have called to the service station but they advised me to upgrade BIOS system while I feel it’s not BIOS problem. Any help will be very thankful.

[Gonzo]

Hi everybody! I have searched for this laptop because I was planning to buy this laptop. I was searching from some reviews and I found some information. I found that body of this laptop is little rusty, particularly form left side. If you will put your hand on this left side you will found some sound from it because of slight pressure going on it. All this happened because fan is working in very conjunction area to extract heat out generated by the CPU system. Fan makes loud and annoying sound when CPU is under load. But finally what I read from there that its run cool without making much heat through the base.

[Pugsly]

Hello everyone! I am also using this Dell Inspiron 15R N5010 runs with Intel Core i5-430M CPU and its have two core. I have not seen this problem with me might be I was using it in some different position. And the biggest benefit with this laptop is 6 GB DDR3 SDRAM with 2.26 GHz processor. All this specification is more than we are seeing in mid range notebooks. What I feel that with all these specification its performance is very awesome. I know there is some problem in fan sound but I have not seen any overheat issue with my laptop. I am using windows 7 on my laptop.

[Regina]

I was planning to buy new laptop from last week and it was first in my choice list. Because what I am seeing, it is giving me all high performance features in mid range price. But now, after reading this thread I am bit confused. I want to know that, is this problem is with every Inspiron N5010 laptop? I am still planning to buy this laptop. Is anyone here who can tell me that if it is great laptop? Just give me advice based on your experience. Thanks

[Simond]

Here someone asked about its performance and quality, and then I would like to share my experience on this thread. I am happy with my laptop quality and performance. But I feel there are some problems in its design. My first concern about partition they have provided in their design. Dell utility 100MB, Restore 15 GB and the windows partition for the rest of HARD DRIVE. I was looking for physical copy of genuine copy of OS. Despite that, since the function keys also work as the different hotkeys I have the trend to turn off the wireless by error in its place of pressing F2.And my another complaint is about that indication use to show that laptop is connected with AC or battery. But I have seen that noise problem in my friend laptop.

[Misraji]

I have also purchased DELL N5010 last month and believe I am also surfing with this same fan sound problem and it’s very irritating. I am sure that BIOS update will not help me bcz it is hardware problem, BIOS can solve only software problem. And I have not asked for replacement yet because that sound is very low and its looks joke if I will ask to replace it. Since we both are facing same problem, there must be other as well with same issue. I hope I will get some solution from company …….

[Antonio1]

1. I know there are some fan sound issues with this laptop. It all happens due to its rusty body from left side and location of fan is much slim. I have tried to solve this problem but did not found any solution. Even Dell service centers are also not able to provide any solution. If you want to avoid this problem then u have to change your habits to use it. Try to use on flat surface and do not applied any pressure on its body. I have not seen heat sink problem with its cooling system yet, its means its performance is very good. Wait and watch, Maybe Company can provide any solution in future.

[ceizzil]

hello, i just bought the dell inspiron n5010 around 20 days ago and i also noticed this strange buzzing/ticking/sandy noise. I actually thought the sound was from a bug in my room for a while, then i realized the noise was coming from my laptop. After a week this noise became very annoying.. to the point where I could not stand it anymore. I called Dell Support, i asked if this was a common problem, and the technician said this was the first he heard of this problem, but judging from this and other forums, i'm guessing other people also have this problem. So the technician made me upgrade to BIOS A13, this did not make the noise go away. He also made me run a bunch of tests with the hard drive but nothing solved the problem. In the end, we couldn't figure out what was wrong with the laptop so he gave me three options. He said i could exchange for new computer, i could send my old one into the factory for repair, or i could get a full refund since i was under the 30 day refund policy. i doubted that getting a new one would help fix the problem if it was a model issue. But i also did not want to refund the computer since i liked everything about it except for the noise problem.

My observations are that the noise is loudest when the hard drive is working hard. I thought that maybe it was just a loud hard drive, so I opened up the computer and swapped it for another hard drive. However the sound still persisted. When I put the harddrive that came with the Dell inspiron into another computer, there was no noise in that computer. This lead me to look at the casing of the Dell inspiron. I found that in the left corner near the speakers when the hard drive is running fast, it shakes the speaker which hits the front casing of the computer. Also there is a piece of foam inbetween the speaker and casing to try to stop the speakers hitting the casing. However, I believe this is what was making the weird scratchy noise, when the foam is being stretched. Therefore, to fix this problem I placed some of my own foam between the speaker and the casing to secure them in place more tightly. After reassembling my laptop, the sound was gone! Anyways, this solution is worth a try if nothing else works for you.