The same thing is happening to me..and i need my laptop....argh..it's shut down 3 times already... :(

I also have a Dell Inspiron and it always overheats and shuts down. I have had it for under a year also and the charger just recently stopped working altogether.

Mine is about 5 months old and it hasn't actually done that shut down thing yet but it gets INCREDIBLY hot unless it's on a flat, hard surface like a counter and now it's starting to get hot even in that situation. I hope it does break though, it'd give me an excuse to buy a much better laptop haha. DO NOT BUY AN INSPIRON 1525 ! ! !

Hey,... i'm in exactly the same situation as you... bought my inspiron 1525 from the US and now i'm studying abroad in the uk for the year (i got the laptop in august 08) and it overheats and shuts down.

Here's the thing. My previous laptop (shitty Toshiba Satellite did the same thing only worse so I had to have the fans replaced) so I knew no to use it in bed/on the couch etc. It was always on my desk. Sooo... with all this previous knowledge... i decided about 3 months ago when it last shut down that I would stick something under it, in the back, so that air could pass between it and the desk. And that seemed to work perfectly until today, when it overheated and shut down WHILE elevated on the book thing. I'm so exasperated. What does it take, or how much does it cost to get a laptop that doesn't have this problem?? At this point i'll pay anything I only got this one because I thought it was going to be loads better than my old Toshiba.

Oh and don't you think the mouse pad is a bit weird? after a while of researching a paper online, say, my finger gets kinda sore from dragging over it. This never happened before w/ my old one. Is it just me or is this odd?

I have had a Dell 1525 Inspiron for about 6 months now, it has had a problem overheating and shutting down and the fan does not cut in to cool it down. So i called Dell; they took it away the first time and it had a new motherboard, but still it overheated, then an engineer came to replace the motherboard and fan/heat sink assembly, still it overheated. So next time they took it back and replaced the motherboard and fan/heat sink assembly. Now it worked for maybe 2 days and then started overheating AGAIN.
What do you have to do for them to replace the laptop?????
Unbelievable...

We took Andreas advice and it worked like a charm for us! Thanks!

I have the dell inspiron 1525, Honestly i treat it like a desktop, I have had it for a little under a year, I leave it on for days at a time, I do have a cooling pad for it, along with the everest program to check out its stats when i feel something isnt working properly. Just yesterday it shut off from overheating for the first time, i took the entire laptop apart and found a giant clump of dust stuck in the fan. Needles to say when i put it back together it worked better then before and has been on for about 18 hours straight again. Knock on wood, the dell inspiron 1525 in my mind is a tank, a tank in a plastic frame..but i have dropped mine, fried the optical drive, burnt the right rear USB's up, and completely dissected it more then once, yet it still keeps running. But my advice to keep it from shutting down from overheating...Try to take it apart and remove the fan and clean it (dust can get trapped in hard to reach spots causing resistance or failure of the fan) Or you were just unlucky enough to get one that runs hot, so check out the web for a more powerful fan.

My laptop is doing the samething keeps over heating and shutting down, because my warranty is 2 months over the 1 year they wont do anything about it... I talked to a guy at best buy he said that some dell batteries had exploded because they over heated... he said they had recalls on some of them, but i looked, and I didnt see a recall on the 1525, but it makes me mad because I will be doing something and it just shuts down... and nothing is blocking the ari vents... its actually on a wooden table tray... argh!!!!

Took that thing apart and all i can say was WOW!!! a big clump of dust.. thx 2 the advice this thing runs great i got a cooling fan thing just incase now i can get back 2 my homework with out savein it every word i type..

I have the 1721 and it just died tonight and I'm FREAKING out!

I did use it on the bed often, then got a board under it when it started getting REALLY hot! But tonight it starts to turn on, then shuts off. I don't know if it's dead or not. It hasn't been dropped or anything and it's almost 2 years old.

I'd love an excuse to get a new one but this is my 2nd dell laptop that has died on me.

I tried taking all the screws out but only 2 compartments opened and they weren't the fan area. Not sure what else to do, been searching online. Warranty is up too.

Any suggestions?? Thanks in advance!

Im also having the exact same problem. never had the issue unti about 6-8months into owning it. randomly shuts down, sometimes restarts. also restarts sometimes when i select shutdown, and sometimes, usually i think after it ran out of battery life, ill plug the outlet into the wall and it will turn on my laptop. i dont know if thats spposed to do that( i highly doubt it), but its extremely frustrating. i thought i was losing my mind one day. ill try the dust thing now. btw, it seems to happen less often when im on power saver mode. when i bought this PoS 1525, the left side of the speaker is sticking up a little, and the one day i almost took it apart to to check for dust(with no clue what i was doing) i put the screw driver in a few of the bottom screws, THEY WERENT EVEN TIGHTENED. NEVER BUY A DELL EVER AGAIN PPL!

My husband took the back off of mine as someone else has suggusted and blew the little bit of dust out( hardly nothing) and we will see if that works, but it is frustrating.... my warranty was 2 months over and dell wont do anything about it... they suck!!!

As I has replyed to Kitty My husband took the back off of mine as someone else has suggusted and blew the little bit of dust out( hardly nothing) and we will see if that works, but it is frustrating.... my warranty was 2 months over and dell wont do anything about it... they suck!!! this even happen when we keep it plugged into the wall just sitting there, we were told by a guy at best buy that some of dell desktop batteries had exploded, and were recalled, but I didnt find a recall on the inspiron 1525...

I mean the laptop batteries ( sorry)

I've been having the same problem with my Inspiron 1525. I realized it was overheating and that was because I was putting my laptop on my bed, which is the wrong thing to do. Once I moved it out of my bed and put it on a flat surface (table) it stopped shutting down. I'm glad...cause I thought it was some other problem. So the rest of you with this problem...I would guess it's because you don't keep it on a flat surface!! BY THE WAY you should all try buying a laptop cooling pad it costs like $20- 25 in Amazon

So the same thing happened to my inspiron 1525; overheating, shutting off fo no reason. Finally, it woul not turn on at all. After much stress and annoyance from Dell they came out replaced the motherboard and the graphics card and now it works like a charm!! But it was quite ridiculous to get it fixed!