6970M alienware FPS issues (Probably heat)

Hey there,

I bought a m17x one year ago:


Processor: I7-2720QM
Memory: 8go ram
Graphics radeon 6970M
Hard driver: Standard SATA drive.


And it was running increasly bad last months. I just found unofficial drivers that allow me to update to lastest amd drivers, and this is pretty cool.

I'm running my tests on crysis 2, and it shows up a decent 30-40FPS with 1920/extreme, which is nice. Sadly, it drops to 15/20 after a few minutes, and the fans are very noisy then. Looks like typical overheat. But when i run GPUZ and Core temp, it doesnt go above 85% for both gpu and cpu while playing (55/60 while on desktop), which i think is high but still decent. Edit: I just noticed that the fans went noisy when i was afk, with temp around 70C on desktop.Definitively too high, right?

I just sweeped all the dust in fans, and the temp at my flat is around 20C.

Do u have any ideas? I'm getting bored and i'll just send it back to customer service if i cant fix it myself.

I rly hope you will help! Thanks for your time. I can post reports or any information you may need.

PS: And i apologize for cheap english!

 

70*C is very cool for that laptop. And no, 15-20 FPS for Crysis 2 on max settings is correct. Mine does around 45 FPS on the High preset.

The 6970M isn't the top dog anymore anyway. It's about middle-ground to be honest. The only real way to improve that much is to overclock it or simply upgrade the GPU to something more potent. The 7970M is the best to be hand for the money and is easily twice as fast.

EDIT:

Wait... 70*C on idle is too high, yes. Sorry. Am dumb. Blow out the vents and try for a repaste of the heatsink and report back.

 

Well for starters I would never just blow air right into the fans from the outside. This just leads to all that dust buildup to be blown farther into your laptop. Second, if your unhappy with temps you could try repasting your card. that should drop the temps a bit. Hope this helps.

 

I called dell the other day and they said their paste should last almost 5 years!

 

Stelio, that is correct about Dells paste, as it is not known for its great heat transfer, rather its longevity for the average owner.

 

Hey there,

Thanks a lot for all ur answers. I'm gonna buy paste today and i let u know, but i'm almost sure this isnt all about heat issues. Just installed Farcry3, and the game menu is running around 5 fps, same in game, with all settings to minimum.The mouse is sluggish at hell, and this is utterly unplayable. Almost looks that's the integrated graphics are taking over (Gonna double check that).


Very weird: radeon 6970M's heat is around 60C, and integrated graphic's heat is around 80. Is this game dumb or?

Well the game runs around 5 fps, with low CPU and memory usage :/

I'll never buy an alienware again.

 

I'm almost sure there is something damaged on my laptop. This would not make sense.

 

I have same problem on every game now. Thing is, neither CPU, GPU or memory seems to be overwhelmed. How can i check what is slowing down the whole thing?

I managed to install lastest Catalyst drivers (Thanks modded drivers), but i'm going to install back old dell's ones. Supagreat.

How can a 2500€ laptop be so bad?

Edit: Just reinstalled old drivers : 5 fps on crysis :/ What's going on.. Everything is sluggish, desktop navigation is slow. Heat is low, excepted for integrated chipset - which is around 80C. Does it look like that it's using integrated chipset for games or is it just me.

Gonna call Dell today anyway. Sigh.

 

Sounds like your CPU is getting to hot and throttling due to either dust in your fans or the paste job.

 

For those who invest so much money into a system, I highly recommend they do their homework on hardware troubleshooting, or settle for Dells Depot service before raging. Now, have you tried calling Dell so they could walk you step by step to help with your issue (you will learn tons of new tricks from them, give it a try).

Please report how Dell solved your issue, as this could be beneficial to others.

 

I'm raging cuz i do not like dell. They do not update drivers, and this is a shame. I have to install unstable modded drivers if i want to use the lastest catalyst.

Yeah gonna call them today, but i did it twice in the past and they didnt help much. And i do not know what is wrong with my m17x, i only had good perfs for the first few months. I've always been unable to make it work better since then though i tried hard :/

I'll let u know Thanks for helping me.

 

have you tried the latest 12.11 beta drivers? They have been working fine for me so far. there is also some 6970m specific drivers in the same thread somewhere. Let me see if I can dig it up again.

Edit: Here it is: *NEW* AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 11 AMD Official (03/12/12) with 12.11 CAP2