M17X R4 CPU Thermal Problem, AW Rep Please Read And Respond

System details as delivered from AW: M17X R4, A12 Bios, Core i7 3820QM, 16Gb DDR3 1600, Samsung PM 830 256Gb SSD, GTX 675m, WideFHD 1920 x 1080 120Hz NVIDIA 3D Vision, Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW

Note: I use a Coolermaster NotePal LapAir laptop cooler at all times.

Over the last three weeks have been seeing a disturbing increase in my CPU temperatures. The best example is World of Warcraft. I raid ToT twice a week for three hours each night with my guild and during the hottest parts of July my CPU never exceeded 72c-74c and GPU 68c with both fans whirring away. However for the last three weeks I have been seeing CPU temps of 87c-88c during the same three hours raiding ToT. Also temps during general use, web surfing etc have been going as high as 76c.

I contacted AW support a couple of weeks ago to express my concern about this shift in temps and the fact that while raiding the CPU fan does not appear to run above what I would consider idle speed. There is a barely perceptible amount of air exhausting the left vent despite max temps reaching 87c-88c. While in contrast the GPU fan is spooled up at 100% keeping it at a happy 68c. I was told unless the CPU reaches 90c and I experience a shut down there was nothing to worry about @_@ and that “these temperatures were normal and within spec”. After some polite disagreement and stating repeatedly that my real concern was the significant increase of temps for no apparent reason we ran the built in stress test and saw temps of 84c-85c shortly after starting the test. I was again told do not worry unless you experience a shut down at 90c.

We also tried at the AW tech’s recommendation “two programs they use all the time” HW Monitor Pro and Speed Fan to monitor the fan speeds but neither would display any fan speeds. When I asked why this was the tech said”well on some machines they just don’t work” O_O

So I have removed the stock TIM and repasted (twice) with Prolimatech PRO-PK1, the fans and heat sinks are spotless(no dust, lint clogs etc… and still no improvement in temperatures.

My observations. are that despite the unusually high temps the CPU fan never spools up past what seems an idle speed with very little air flow out of the left vent. Also my CPU is consistently running in Turbo mode at 3.4 to 3.6Ghz even if the machine is just sitting on the desktop with HW monitor open (maybe this is normal)

Now while I enjoy a quality 1-2 hours on the phone with AW tech support as much as the next guy I am quite put off when I feel that those 1-2 hours have been a total waste of time with what seemed like a tech reading from a script and no resolution, explanation or solution offered ;-/

So what do I need to do or say to these guys to get a resolution for this?” At the rate this is going I will see that 90c thermal shut down sooner rather than later, maybe Monday night during raid. :-(

I am open to any suggestions on other steps I can try to fix this.

 

Until you get an official response, the best advice is to call and focus on a single issue - my CPU fan is not working properly. Strip out hwinfo (it has a service as well but the uninstall will sort that.)

Just follow the steps, stay cool and if he asks about cleaning then you have already blown out the heatsink but you're not hearing the fan spin up to full speed when gaming, and it is getting too hot. Far better to play dumb with a first level tech when you know a lot more than them - only going to P them off

He'll want to install his own monitoring stuff so let him go ahead.

Good luck

Edit: And default the BIOS before you call....

 

90C won't shutdown. Thermal shutdown on i7 Sandy / Ivy in mobility units is 105C AFAIK However it does start throttling around 95-100.

Have you played around with overclocks recently in BIOS for the CPU? Check just incase something has been changed. Ensure that the CPU VID Flex is set to 0, As with anything overclocking; setting higher numbers will cause a temperature shift.

It also may possible one of your fans has started to die / fan, can you hear it working?


@ Mickey I don't think I could ever let someone do something like that! I've always been aggressive and straight to the point with my problems, stating the issues directly. That way techies know that not only I'm competent but the issue gets solved much faster. You must be pretty patient haha

 

Thanks for the responses.
Bios is A12 and set to optimal defaults, I never overclock.
The CPU fan (while gaming) does not feel like it is running above an idle speed when all four cores are reading 87c-88c Like I said it is spinning but air flow is minimal
I realize T junction for the CPU is 105c but I was under the impression it was not so good to always have them running so hot? My concern is this has been a very progressive rise in temps which appears to continue to keep rising each time I use the machine for gaming.

 

Try stripping out HW info, it can cause fan issues, once I had it stop my fans altogether

 

I am not using HW info. But I will uninstall the HW Monitor tonight and run a few wings of LFR. Any suggestion on what to use to monitor temps other than hand behind vent ;- ) to see if this helps?

 

Core temp might be worth a try, has no control of fans from what I've seen.

Mines running slightly quieter lately, I think this BIOS A12 has a slightly different fan table vs A05/A08 I think.

 

nah, it's a bit tricky. I use msiafterburner's OSD to display things like FR, GPU voltage, GPU clock speed but it's useless for the CPU. You can tie in HWinfo to the same component rivatuner so the in-game display can be all sorts of stuff but I never used it (although Mr Fox's game vids show this ).

I find it strange that you are not seeing min, max, and average for the CPU fan speed in HWInfo. Says something weird is going on but after a new MB

 

LOL. Well......20 years, 10 of then in PC/Network support, then 10 years at the top of tree. The American dream opened up for me and I grabbed it! I ended up running the help desk in four countries, multiple TZ's and even outsourced 1st level support to India (corporate dictate I might add), along with a fair sized budget - no more spending weeks justifying investigations to the Finance Dept. RAD came alive!

So it does give me a psychological edge when dealing with 1st line support guys - know a fair bit about their lives and cultures, don't focus in their intellect, nobody likes that, and it goes downhill from there. Can you imagine the total rubbish I have to do to get a part replaced . But I also know the ticks that guy needs to move the issue to the next level, 'don't think just now, you're not good enough at it, stick to the script' is the mantra.

 

Have you tried using a cooling pad? I know they don't do much but they could help dropping the temps a bit. 88C is high for me and if you are within the US/CA I could set up a replacement for the fan/heatsink/paste. Have you tried updating the BIOS and manually setting the fan to higher speed with HWInfo?

Heat TS here.

 

Luis,

Thank you for responding.

I always use an active notebook pad/cooler, currently I am using a CoolerMaster NotePal LapAir.

Bios is updated to A12

I tried HW info and I can manually if controller set the fans to 100%(4000 RPM) and get the GPU fan running at 100% but the CPU fan remains at what seems to be an idle.

Fans and heat sinks are cleaned regularly and dust free, I am meticulous when it comes to preventative maintence.

All drivers are current and up to date.

I would like to take you up on the offer of setting up a replacement for the fan/heatsink/paste as a start to see if that resolves the issue.

Please let me know what we need to do to get the process started

 

Here is a question, could you try reapplying the BIOS update and see if that cpu fan actually starts up? You know when the chip is being erased and the bios ramps up all fans? Does the cpu fan actually turn on in this phase.

 

I tried.
I flashed it back to A08 with no change, then back to A12 and still the same. My guess is a bad fan or motherboard but I need to convince the AW team to take action to replace one or the other so we can get this fixed. I raid tomorrow night so it will be another night of running it up to max temps of 88c or higher :-(

 

Hi.

I'm having the same problem with the CPU Fan and Temperatures. I've got 3820QM CPU Also, Have you found a solution?.

I've configure the fans to max rpm using HWINFO, and when i stress the CPU with prime95, the temperatures reach to 95 Cº in almost every core. Without the fans forced to max rpms, the cpu throttles down to 1,2 GHZ, and the CPU reach to 102 Cº. I'm very dissapointed with Alienware, this is suppoused to be a high end laptop,and there's problem after problem with it, after 3000 € this is absolutly unacceptable.

The next week i'm gonna contact support and ask a solution.

If i found a factible solution i will post here.