Alienware M17x-R2 Overheat Problems to the MAX!!!

Hi, when I bought my Alienware, it had everything best of the best. Unfortunately, I spent 3k on a 18lb brick... Everything I do and one of my video cards is overheating (specifically the left one). I have the dual HD 4870, and the 920xm processor. I get through about 10 minutes of Dragon Age II and shut down! I just reinstalled CCC, made sure the crossfire is enabled. I'm thinking about undervolting it, but I have no idea how to do that. ANY programs or help would be beyond awesome as I'm at the end of my rope. I love that laptop, but eventually it will melt something inside. Oh and I'm not sure how hot it's getting, but the vent is so warm I feel like my hand gets burned when I touch it and my keys get really warm...

 

It should not get hot enough to shutdown.

There is a problem with the cooling system, maybe not correctly seated or there could be a sticker on the heatsink or something else getting in the way.

Either you or dell need to open it up and check what is wrong with the cooling, re-seat the heatsink and re-paste it (check to make sure the paste spreads well and that there is no gap).

Are the fans working?

You should not have to undervolt, the cooling was designed with the stock voltage in mind. In fact once you get your cooling sorted out, you should be able to overclock and overvolt while still running at decent temps.

 

Get HW monitor http://www.cpuid.com/downloads/hwmonitor/1.17-setup.exe
Play a game for like 15-20 min. a game that you know wont cause your computer to shut down, then post your results... it will help us get a baseline

 

When's the last time you cleaned your vents out?

 

Cleaned them out yesterday. I took off the entire bottom guard, it was already clean, but I cleaned it even more. All fans working, I had a busy day today, but I'm going to install that program and run Fallout 3, it worked fine with it.

 

I might not be running CCC correctly, because everytime I run any diagnostics test such as the one on systemlabrequirements.com it only comes up with one video card. But CCC recognizes the second one, especially when I'm on two separate screens.

 

So I dloaded that CPUID HWmonitor program and there aren't any temp ratings for my video cards. This is it at the desktop w/o any gaming programs.

 

run GPUz for GPU temps.

 

If that is just idling and not doing anything; those temps are high. Should be in the 30s and 40s

 

This is everything at idle speeds. Looks like my GPU is running hot, the other one is running at 44C. How do I lower all these?

 

repaste them or get new thermal pads. If that doesn't fix it, you have a problem in bios (unlikely), or the cards are defective and dell needs to send a replacement

 

Is there anyway to run the fans faster? According to that GPUz program the one video card fan is running at 30%. I'm going to repaste/new thermal pads and all, but the fan can be run faster.