Alienware M17xR3 freeze/locks up

My new ( 3 days old ) Alienware M17xR3 is freezing/locking up frequently, only solution is to restart.

I think it might have something to do with overheating, since it gets very hot in a specific place and it rests on a wooden underground, but I'm not sure.

Basically it sometimes freezes when something special happens in a game ( playing the Witcher 2 ). For example, today it froze when loading a new area or when I tried exiting the game. Never during normal gameplay.

However it did also sometimes freeze, when I left the laptop alone for some time and it turned the screen off. I couldn't turn it back on so I assume it froze. I have since disabled the turn of the screen after x time function but it still sometimes freezes after some non use.

Any suggestions on how I can better identify the problem?

 

Freezing/lockup is most likely due to overheating.

Install HWinfo32 and monitor your temps. Post your temps here after you have installed HWinfo32 so we can determine if it is overheating.

 

Will do, thanks for the fast reply!

 

I fear it isn't overheating.

I was watching a movie and after some time (1 hour I think), the movie got stuck and the rest of the laptop unresponsive. I could still move the mouse, and click things, but the clicking did little to nothing. Trying to restart caused the laptop to freeze entirely, requiring me to hit the power button.

Afterwards, I continued watching the movie without a single problem, and temperatures (of the GPU or CPU) didn't rise above 60 degrees, so it can't be overheating I think.

 

All drivers up to date??

Do you have a SSD??

 

No SSD. I think all the drivers are up to date ( the one for my hd6970 certainly). How do I check for certain?