M17xR4 High Temperatures While Playing Battlefield 3

I bought an Alienware M17x R4 with i7 3840QM processor and AMD HD7970M around one and a half months ago. While playing BF3, one or two of my cpu cores reaches 88C(190.40F). After posting this in a thread on this forum and asking if this was normal, Alienware-Luis_Pardo replied saying that, this is not normal and asked me to provide my service code. After pming with him back and forth, I have updated my bios and changed my thermal paste with thermaltake tg3(btw I am running my laptop with a zalman zm-nc 2000 laptop cooler) but doing all these dropped my laptop cpu's temperature to 85C and I am not satisfied with this result. I ran Alienautopsy tests it says my hardware is fine. I contacted Dell Turkey and ran diagnostics as they prompted and my hardware passed all tests. Is this temperature value normal or am I right to be concerned? Can someone with a similiar hardware share their temperature values while playing bf3 please?

My idle temps

 

Well your idle gpu temps are good. What is room temp? Also, elevate your laptop for better airflow. Make sure you did a good paste job, both too much/too little can be bad.

 

That temperature is high but it is definitely not overheating. What's the environment like where you use it?

 

I use it in my home on a desk with its cooler, there is nothing extraordinary. Room temperature should be around 25C.

 

That is normal. But I personally do not like to have anything near 90C. If I were in your position I would re-paste the CPU. It's very easy to do with the M17x.

 

Btw, the Zalman 2000 is a rubbish cooler for our machines, imo. I have one my self and it serves as little more then an expensive stand since the airflow is directed onto the front portion of the laptop's base, nowhere near the intake vents for the GPU and CPU.

Get a Cooler Master U3 for better cooling. You can position the fans directly under the intake and provide much better cooling.

 

And now the "Alienware" leds are dead and I cannot configure them from the AlienFX

 

I play BF3 all the time on my R4 and have been monitoring the temps often. When I had a 7970 I was hitting around 77 max with laptop flat on desk (no cooler and not raised), and my room temp was about 25C when playing. I cannot check with the 7970 anymore as I have a 680m now, but I now hit a max of 71 (room temp around 21C ...winter temps .

I would try different drivers as this might shave a few more degrees, and also consider the CPU (echoing what has been suggested already). The CPU may also be running a little hotter as it's more powerful and likely producing more heat. On another note, I ran my old ASUS G51 with an Nvidia gtx260m hitting 100 for over two years playing Bad Company 2 about three days a week and it's still running strong today. I've heard that consistent heat will kill things early, and I don't like temps over 80 personally, but as far as my experience with the 260gtx I have certainly been impressed with how it handled the temps. Hope this helps a little.

 

In reality all Laptop coolers really are rubbish, under extreme loads. Honestly that is just a spike temp and not the Average, you need to run a log and average out the overall temp over a hour period, XTU for example will monitor real time temps and log it up to 1hr. That spike of 85, only lasted maybe a few seconds at best.

 

My CPU temps on my AWM17xr4 goes up to around 90 when playing BF3. That is on full OC at stock voltage on the CPU in my sig. It can (I stress CAN) go up as far as 115-120 and still be within op spec. T-case max is 130c as far as I know. So while I also keep 90c as a psychological max, in reality this baby can go 40c beyond that.

 

i dont know why my CPU is hotter than my GPU when im playing Battle Field 3

CPU: 81-83 Celsius

GPU: around 64 Celsius

has anyone the same problem like me? Is it normal or my CPU overheats? some suggestions?

My system:Alienware M17XR4 I7 3610QM, GTX 660M 6gb DDR3 1600

 

I think that's normal as my CPU also get's hotter than the GPU (similar CPU temps).

 

thank you very much!

 

I dont know battlefield 3, but if it uses on or 2 cores to the max, yeah then this temp isnt really off I think.
When i stress one cpu is goes berserk in temp, but when i stress 8 cores (4 cores) it wont hit the 85.....

 

CPU being hotter than the GPU is absolutely normal, but again that temp is only reached on one or two cores at any given time, it is not straight across all cores. I would be concerned if I saw any spikes over 90+ that would be out of the normal range.