M17x r3 microstuttering and insane fps drops ever since dropped down to windows 7.

Specs:
GTX 580m
16 gig RAM
i7 2760QM
3D vision enabled monitor.

Alright so I was having problems with windows 8 on my laptop and decided to downgrade back to windows 7 x64 to go back to a familiar environment. Ever since, every game has a problem where it would run smoothly at 120 fps and then drastically drop down to around 15 fps for around a minute before returning to 120.

On the micro-stuttering issue, it does this even when I just click to a new page, the mouse starts micro-stuttering till the page loads. Very annoying issue but it could be due to me. My last hardware change was when I tried out the 7970m. Would really love to get this beast back on its feet before I have to waste more money on another laptop :c, please advise?

 

Have you looked into temperatures? Logged CPU/GPU activity at that time? Looked at background processes?

 

Hmm, what would be the best way to log this?

 

GPU-Z and CPU-Z or use HWINFO64, MSI afterburner is good if you want it on screen during a game too. Easiest would be GPU-Z + CPU-Z though, they are pretty simple.

 

You could be experiencing a throttling issue, definitely temps would be the first thing to check.

Alienware Laptop: Computer Overheats

 

Got these three monitoring programs, will run em in the background and see what happens. Anything out of the norm showing now?

 

Just an update, literally just now my laptop was making this sound: Vocaroo | Voice message
and the game I was playing crashed. looking at how the game was on that drive and it seems as though that drive has dissappeared from My Computer, safe to assume fubar'd HDD?

 

Not seeing anything out of the ordinary at the moment.

I would suggest getting MSI Afterburner and monitor your clocks and temps while in-game. Make sure you are on the Nvidia card not the iGPU, and latest drivers perhaps

 

That sounds weird, have you tried Alienware™ ePSA?

See if it gives you any error code

 

62C is a little on the high side for idle, will be interesting to see the load temperatures.

 

This is true, why don't you select to log the temps on a file and run a game and take a look at that log afterwards.

 

idle temps are a bit high and yes that sounds like a dying hard drive. back up everything you can asap. its probably too late already though.

 

That's possible too, though it may not be too late to backup, even if the OS did corrupt you should be able to get important files off.

 

A horrid update to this, typing from phone. While mid-game tonight, fps and fan noise seemed fine, instantly the laptop turned off. Smell of gunpowder wafted in my room. The back plug light thingy turned off as well.

Took it apart, battery is fine, lights indicate full charge and it doesnt stink, neither the harddrives. The really thick smell is either gpu, cpu or mobo in this rig, couldnt figure out which :/. Evrry time I tried plugging in lighted charger cord, a popping noise sounded and the smell grew again.

The real kicker is I live on a lovely island known as Bermuda, 24 miles long and no legit looking dell technicians. How do I go about getting this sorted without paying another fortune? I think it still under warranty but I dont know what that means with me here.

 

Just saw a number for warranty support in bermuda, will try them tomorrow. Wish me luck!