Quote Originally Posted by Muirenn View Post
Horrible problems with my Dell Lattitude 531, mostly an engineering issue. The cooling vents are on the bottom. The thing gets so overheated. I replaced the hard drive at 3 years because I had so many other problems, and it didn't really help. We're thinking it may be a motherboard issue. Yuck. Currently using 8 year old gateway laptop, has new hard drive and battery. Both crashed prior to the Dell purchase. Much higher quality machine than the Dell.
Dell laptops do seem to get hot and have just-adequate cooling. If you don't run your laptop all the time or don't live in a hot climate, things work better. I have heard others surprised at how hot their Dell laptops run after using other brands.

That said, I have had problems with my MacBook's fans failing and then the hard drive failing, so I guess nobody's perfect