I think I have a problem...(help)

I've had my m17x for about a year now and just recently my warranty expired on it. About 4 months or so after getting my laptop the upper right video card(5870)
went out and I had to have someone come and replace the card twice. One thing that I remember back then was how whenever I booted up the laptop it made a strange sound. Usually, whenever I'd push the power button the laptop would instantly respond and I'd all the fans start spinning and the computer would immediately begin to load Windows. But with the faulty video card in the past the computer would be slow to start up and whenever I pushed the power button the card on the upper right would start to spin and then come to a sudden halt followed by the sound of my cd rom spin up. Then it would go silent and a second or two later it would start up normally and begin loading into Windows. I know this sounds probably confusing as I'm typing it but I'd be willing to elaborate further if anyone has a hard time following what I'm saying.

So basically, I think I might have the same problem going on this time as I did in the past. But this time I have no warranty as it expired last month (irony, ftw). Does anyone out there have any suggestions as to how I should go about handling this? It's definitely a problem because sometimes during gameplay now (LoL, main game I play currently) the laptop will just randomly shut off and go black and will not start again for a few seconds while pushing the power button.

I'm so sad over this :[ I'd appreciate any constructive feedback.

Thanks,
D

 

Let's clear some possible causes:
You said that you hear your optical drive spin? Did you have a CD/DVD inside it? Is the Hard Drive the first device in the boot order (BIOS menu)?

What are your temperatures during gameplay? You might want to take a look as high temps can be the cause of your system's sudden shut downs.

Just download a monitoring tool like HwInfo, let it run while you play a little and take a look at the maximum temperature values. If they are anything in the high 80-90 Celsius, that's not good. You might have to either clean your heatsinks and/or repaste your GPUs. Did the tech apply any paste on the GPU die when he replaced it? (We had cases when this step was not performed,yes )

 

Apart from Katalin suggestions which is wise for you to follow, I would do this too. Get a warranty cover. Right now your machine is working otherwise right? So get a cover and then I think you are smart enough to understand on what to do next once that process is completed. You can extend your machine's warranty for a period of maximum 5 years.

 

That is true and even if it expired.