Wireless card overheating?

Has anyone ever had a wireless card overheat?

Suddenly the left side of my laptop is getting stupidly hot...like boil an egg hot. It seems to be focused around or on the wirelss card but I have never heard of a wireless card overheating. It also seems suspicious that I just had issues with the GPU dying. The GPU is replaced and the laptop did seem to be working fine again but now I am starting to worry that there is something wrong with the MB.

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? I was using the Broadcom 4352 card that came with the laptop but I am swapped it out for my Intel 6250 now in hopes that the problem goes away.

If I press my skin against the HDMI port that is also getting very hot....

 

I have seen this before, but the wireless would either be not detected at all or disconnected at random intervals. Wifi card was getting hot to the touch. Replacing the wifi card would instantly solve this issue in my case.

 

Maybe PCH temp is affecting the wireless card? During hot days, with the AC off Wifi disconnects more often, I have to disable/restart the adapter to get it working again.

 

I replaced the card with my spare and it did not solve the issue

Ambient temps shouldn't be an issue. Were currently sitting at about 7 celsius outside and I keep my house cooler then most so that should be a problem....I am going to open the case back up and check connections and what not...maybe I missed something, or did something wrong when I had it apart to reinstall the 120hz screen for the GPU upgrade....

 

Might have found the issue.....

I have had this thing apart so many times lately with the failed 780m and pulling that out, and pulling the screen out to get 60hz back to use the iGPU and then putting it all back again when the new card got here that it looks like the wireless cables were making direct contact with the CPU heatsink ....oops....so I have re-routed those back into their trays and hopefully that will solve the issue. We will find out as soon as I repaste and put it back together .

 

Nope.. that didn't solve it...so I pulled the palmrest/keyboard off and looked around and everything looks fine. I re seated the ram and mSATA and put it back together minus all the palm rest screws for easy access again should I need it. Fired it up , ran a CPU stress test and everything is back to normal...no more overheating WiFi or HDMI port so I am completly lost as to what is causing it. The mSATA isn't THAT close to the HDMI I wouldn't think if it was causing a problem. I will throw the screws back in later and do some final checks, gotta head out for a bit.

 

I am starting to lean towards a southbridge problem.....but I honestly have no way to know for sure. I re-installed Windows and it does seem to be better...so fingers crossed.

 

It's not the wireless card...I have ruled that out...I am at a complete loss at this point.

 

Did you double check your PCH thermal pad/heatsink?

 

I presume that would be the small heatsink off to the side of the CPU? If so there is not much to check, I can't remove it without prying it up and everything appears to be in place. I don't see anything else in here to check. Everything litteraly looks fine

In a last ditch attempt to solve this I am pulling the mSATA drive and will test again.

 

Oops, I forgot that the R1 has a different layout than the R4,
The Wireless card in the R4 sits almost below the PCH, in the R1 it's far from it so I doubt it's the PCH.

 

Pretty much sure it's a board problem at this point...

Heat is centered on the board from where the power jack plugs in to the HDMI port and everything in that area. I don't know if I really want to start replacing MB's at this point for fear even that does not solve the issue so I guess I am stuck at this point. If I had to guess I would say either something on theboard went and took the 780m with it, or when the 780m went something also went on the board. Either way the new 980m seems to work just fine...cools nicely and everything else, but when the wifi card is reading 120c with a infared temperature sensor ( this could be off , but it is to hot to touch ) I don't imagine it will take to long before something else fails completly and I would rather not take the new $900 card with it. I should also point out that it only gets really bad under load, when I am gaming on the laptop. While it is idleing it feels a little warm but nothing I would have been worried about. Presumably when it draws power is when I run into the problem. I have two adapters and both are causing the same problem.


(FYI this pic is an old one of Mr.Fox's , I didn't think to take any of mine while open)

 

@Mr. Fox

Any ideas? Your pretty much the guru among guru's in these parts

I am leaning towards a defective board....unfortunately. It figures that it couldn't just be the GPU. I should add that when I unplug the system and it runs on battery it seems to go back to normal.

 

Yes, as a matter of fact I have encountered this with the Alienware 18 involving the Samsung mSATA and WiFi module. Both actually burned themselves up and died a couple of months apart from one another. The mSATA died first. They were getting scary crazy hot, just as you noticed. I replaced the Sammy with a spare Mushkin mSATA I had in my spare parts stash and got a Killer 1202 on eBay to replace the original Broadcom piece of trash that came in it and never had another problem. I never replaced the motherboard and never had any more problems.

 

I have tried the system without the msata and with a different wifi card and it is still pushing heat unfortunately


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If the PCH is in that area, try taking the two screws off the tin heat sink and replace the TIM underneath it with IC Diamond. If you have enough clearance for it, get some of the self-adhesive copper RAM heat sinks and stick one on top. If that resolves it, remove the RAM sink and clean off the adhesive tape and reassemble it with thermal adhesive. (The tape will eventually turn loose and you don't want a piece of metal floppy around in the chassis and shorting things on your mobo.)

If that doesn't solve it, maybe you do need a mobo. But, it doesn't make much sense to me. It does not really seem like a motherboard problem.

I read your previous posts, but I don't remember... does this problem go away running in IGFX with your 60Hz screen?

 

That is about the only thing I have left to try at this point (going back to 60hz iGPU). the PCH is up by the CPU and it isn't anywhere near as hot so I don't think that is the problem. I have a new AC port coming but that is a few weeks out. I am literally at a loss

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Very odd problem. I hope you can fix it without a mobo. Let me know if you solve it. If I can think of anything else I will post another suggestion.

 

The 980m shouldn't pull so much more voltage that this would be expected should it? I feel like a little more heat would be expected but not 120c around the charging port.

 

Yeah, that doesn't seem quite right. It's a strange issue.

 

If you can get an IR Temperature gun It'd better to pinpoint the cause, I guess..

980M wattage doesn't seem to be the cause, I had seen on my system about 137W Power pull from the 980M and system was running fine and only heat was at the Exhaust vents, iirc MXM3.0b slots can deliver upto 150W without issues.

 

I used an IR temp gun yesterday

the heatsinks are predictably hot, but the board around them is not. the whole right side of the board and everything in the middle is fine as well. it is literally in the area I circled on the pic above with temps hitting 120c on the wifi chip and areas around where the AC port plugs into the motherboard.

all temp sensors that hwinfo can monitor are well within norms.

I have a friend that I am going to see later this week who is an electrician. he has the ability to measure how much power the system is actually pulling but I presume it will be within norms.

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Really have no idea why that's happening at that point. I've been through some weird battery, screen cable and the Blackscreen issues as well. They are really hard to pinpoint..hope you fix this soon m8, Good Luck.

Edit : Did you give a try to NVRAM reset ?

 

not sure how to do that one. I presume using the Nvidia flashing tool?

If I put the 60hz screen back in I can run that. I am running pure UEFI atm.

EDIT:NM I looked it up haha...yes I have reset defaults. I could try to reflash the bios I guess , nothing to really lose at this point.

 

Just figured I would toss in that is is getting warm while charging as well, so again pulling more power. Once full charge is reached it cools down. I am heavily leaning towards the AC port or where the port plugs into the board.

 

Ahh, that picture you uploaded helped. I forgot the R1 had a removable DC inlet cable, I was getting it confused with a R2/R3.
I'd try replacing the DC inlet cable, I've repaired quite a few of these and had to replace the DC inlet cable in a significant number of them. I think I have seen this happen before, but a few years ago so can't remember exactly
It's only a cheap part so no biggy

 

The new inlet cable is on order last seen in New York so it is on it's way, just a matter of time. Basically I have scowered the internet for the last week now looking for anything that resembles this but couldn't find anything, you would be the first one who even vaguely remember symptoms like this haha. I am hoping that the inlet cable is all it is although it is odd that it would suddenly go bad like this being that I have never taken it out of the system or touched it at all and it was seemingly working fine before. I guess there is a possibility something went wonky there and possibly took the 780m with it. I don't want to drop $300 on a new MB if I can prevent it and this AC cable is a $12 solution if it works.

 

I really hope it fix's your issue.
I remember a little more of what happened a few years ago now (I think)
The DC inlet has a small piece in the centre were the adapter pin inserts, the small centre piece was partially broken or the pin from the adapter had snapped off inside, either way it was causing the laptop to get extremely hot around the DC inlet cable and adapter insert connection.
From memory I think I may have even ended up replacing the adapter as well (I think the centre pin was gone)

 

do you remember if the voltage was off? or did you have a chance to check it ? I am getting 19 volts on the adapter and the DC jack which would seem completely normal.

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Quick question: Do you have quick charge or standard charge set in the BIOS? I always use standard charge on my Alienware 18, quick charge is prone to killing batteries and making everything run warmer than it needs to.

 

Good point - I mentioned this last night to someone in a Alienware Arena thread

I don't think there was anything wrong with the voltage, but to be honest I didn't check as after I had replaced parts mentioned before issue disappeared

 

def set to standard charge. I never use quick charge

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Just read this thread regarding wireless issue...I was having same issue regarding the wireless card just going poof while playing a game or just surfing the web...Normally a restart would bring this back and then wait for it to happen again...I called tech support as 3yr old system is still under warranty and let him take over my laptop and he said my wireless drivers were not properly installed from when I reinstalled Win 10...I disagreed as I'm a tech myself and have installed many versions of windows over the years...He stated there is an issue regarding Win 10 doing this to drivers and I didn't question him on that because after all he is the Alienware tech...Needless to say after he installed 3 drivers and restarted my laptop 2 times I haven't lost my wifi or card again...Just giving you my solution, not saying yours is a driver issue...Good luck...

 

I wish this was just a case of drivers

I am fairly confident that the AC Jack has failed or is failing and is generating heat which is being transferred directly to the motherboard which is kicking out the WiFi card when it reaches temps in excess of 110 celsius. It is like clock work, the laptop heats up and then poof within 30 seconds the WiFi drops. This dropping is heavily dependant on which game I am running as some games don't pull as much power and therefor don't heat the board up as much. I can play games like LoL or FF X remastered on steam and have no problems , but if i load up something like ARK the temp spikes FAST and the card drops. Drivers unfortunately are not the cause in this case

Thank you for the suggestion though!

 

You and I play alot of the same games it seems....

Again, I find it hard to believe your jack is the culprit. If you physically look at the board and don't find any burn marks around the jack area, it is unlikely the jack is the culprit. I would try to wipe the drivers and re-install latest intel wifi driver

PS: The intel 6250 has never been my favorite card...i've had 2 fail in my lifetime, and I've handled dozens of wifi cards. I would switch to 7260 or 6300

 

The original problem started with the Broadcom card, that one trips if the heat jacks up. I am running the Intel card now as that one does not seem affected by the heat. I have a 7260 on order , it is on it's way.

I fresh installed Windows awhile back , so it isn't the drivers

 

Whelp..it wasn't the AC jack...so I am at a loss...I will let you guys know when I figure it out...if I ever get there.

 

Dam, sorry about that, it was worth a try though.
What about the coin cell battery, have you tried removing that (or at least partially lifting it) and see it that makes a difference.
I think those batteries are Li Ion, and they are know to get hot, the latest Samsung phones have been catching fire from what I have heard and most airlines have banned them.
If you lift one side of the battery with a small screwdriver that should be enough to disengage it without having to remove the entire motherboard

 

I shipped the laptop back to Alienware, they replaced the GPU/Motherbaord and apparently gave me a new 120v power cable lol ( I didn't send that end....because really if they didn't have on at the main repair depot ). So this SHOULD....SHOULD....fix the problem as I am almost 100% certain there was a short on the MB causing this issue.

I have to give them credit for the turn around time. I received the shipping box less then 24 hours after the request was submitted and the box cam from Ontario to BC. I shipped it out 4 hours after I picked up the box and they had it at the depot about 16 hours after that. About 36 hours after they received it , it was diagnosed, parts swapped and shipped back out to me. Supid weekend will keep it from being delivered until tomorrow at which point I will be out of town lol...but I will test it and update the thread with the outcome. For all I know the techs broke the laptop in half, shoved the screws through the palmrest and smashed the screen but here is hoping it all works lol.

 

Well ladies and gentlemen , I promised a resolution to this so here it is

The laptop is back and up and running properly with the 980m in it finally. Seems that it was more then likely a bad board as they replaced the dead 780m and the motherboard. They did however only get a 50% successful repair as the "new" 780m they sent back to me does not work lol....the laptop turns on with it installed so that's good, but as soon as I install drivers for the card and restart I never see Windows again. I get the Windows 10 loading circle and then either a black screen or the logo freezes and I can hear Windows loading behind it but I can never see it. I pulled out the 780m, and stuck the 980m in and Windows happily loaded and everything was fine. The 780m will work on a format /reinstall but as soon as drivers are installed....POOF....gone.

I have sent off another email to my support agent and he can look into it, but with the 980m working properly at this rate I don't really care all that much either, they can fix the GPU whenever. I have not had a lot of time to test but when I fired ARK up ,which was causing the major heat almost instantly, and ran around for a few minutes both sides stayed the same temp with no more super heated HDMI port or side casing.

On the down side...Trump won last night so....uh....I am sorry Americans, my condolences

Thank you to everyone who submitted ideas for me to try. Hopefully if this ever happens to anyone else they can find this thread and get some info

 

Great to hear some relief for you...My wireless still drops out once in awhile but fixes after a reboot...I ordered new 17'' so not going worry about it much longer as plan on selling it on ebay...

 

Alienware is replacing mine with a new R4 as they can't sort out the GPU and they keep sending me dead 780m's. I am not all the excited about it because I don't like the new BGA stuff but it would be nice to just have a new machine that I shouldn't have to worry about.....That being said the new ones seem to be a hot mess of uneven core temps and thermal problems so I will have that hanging over my head.

I will see what they offer me for specs next week but I am both excited and afraid at the same time....

 

At any rate, you can sell the new one for almost full price and get what you want if you don't like it.

 

Please don't get the BGA @MogRules , I can understand that the warranty offer would be quite good and much rewarded & helps you with this mess they made..but that's BGA there are so many disadvantage s than the purported advantage.

 

Unfortunately it isn't up to me as this was their solution since they can't seem to find a working 780m. I won't send it back to the depot again as I am quite honestly amazed it came back semi working from the motherboard replacement. I am on 780m #3 if you count the original that lasted just short of 3 years in the laptop, 2 of which have been DOA after being shipped to replace the original.

Well I guess I shouldn't say that I have NO choice, but the only alternative is to accept the dead 780m , keep using the 980m and be out a GPU that they can't replace as they apparently don't have any working ones left. I am honestly right with you on the BGA front ... I really am, but I am also just sick of dealing with this one as it has been headache after headache for the better part of two months now. I already know the new R4 is a hot mess of thermals and uneven core temps so I am going to have to repaste it right out of the box and possibly do some alteration of that third arm BS design.

I don't know what to do anymore really...

The only company left ( Sager / Clevo ) that isn't BGA is probably more then I will get selling the new one to buy the Sager / Clevo. I hate BGA just as much as the rest of you though probably for different reasons. I am not a heavy OCer at all and I rarely if ever push for that upper limit, but I am a firm believer that parts should be user interchangeable so that the if my CPU dies I can change it and I don't have to buy a new $3k system.

I am still reviewing my options, and the tech told me that there will be a shipping label in the box with the new machine to ship this one back with.... wut? I seriously doubt the brand new machine that was assembled in a Chinese plant it going to come with a shipping label to return the old one in , so we will see how long it takes them to get in touch with me when they don't get the old one back. The last replacement unit I had sitting on a shelf for months before someone noticed and called me after I sent multiple emails and made many calls because they kept saying they were sending me a label and I never got it.

The new specs are shiny, but I would be lying if I said that I was as excited about this as I was about the R1 I am using now, or the M17XR4 I originally started with. The new GPU's are nice but they come with BGA which kind of really kills it for me...but that being said, almost everyone has swapped to it and I feel as much as we despise BGA it is only a matter of time before the last hold outs adopt it as well

On the extra kick in the balls side, from what i have read none of my bags will fit the new one...my SSD from this laptop is useless as the new one is almost all M.2 drives and all of my 3D stuff is garbage now ... not that I used it much anyways.

 

I won't mind picking the BGA model up after having the 15R3 for 2 weeks.

This is the most balanced laptop out there from all aspect of performance.

 

I have heard many people say the same thing as I moderate /r/Alienware but I would be lying if I said non interchangeable crucial components didn't scared the crap out of me.

If you don't mind me asking, how are your core temps? Was it bad to pull apart and repaste?

 

It's not about the performance or the warranty swap option ($$$) or even the build, Anyone in mog's position shoes would accept the offer (the other choice being using the old hardware with mods) since it's a significant hardware update not upgrade because of the BGA aspect that puts the advantage which is <timed>, It's all about the choice. Next is the replaceability of the components ultimately the anti liberty that the BGA brings with it, the ultra crap binning (OEMs realized the poor silicon yield that comes whit the desktop HW and they decided to line their pockets instead of improving), If they get more people jumped to the BGA choice limiting trainwreck the future is doomed, already witnessed the first wave of terror (3.0b going extinct, LVDS, 2.5" bays, limited RAM slots)...the negative aspect list never ends for this tech !!

I myself just cannot accept BGA hardware nor support that tech which is a huge regression & Anti-consumer for the above reasons. Even if the Kabylake 6 core mobile BGA hits. I'd happily use the quadcore - 4930MX or a 4790K/5775C or the 6700K with the existing MXM Maxwell/Pascal laptops over a BGA'd Volta+Kaby machine. At this point it's an OCD If I find a High Performance BGA machine near me, High Performance and BGA LMAO !!


Look at the Clevo's 7 & 8 Series laptops with light effort any user can make those machines scream without any compromise or half-measures, To note you will also have access to the superior sBIOS & vBIOS in the world.

I would chose a Ford Mustang with RAW Power over a Gimped Ferrari.

 

Yeah, Dellienware use binned BGA chips From the best batch
First!!


Then!!

 

It's pretty tedious to tear apart, you need to remove the mb to pull of the heatsink (save the AW13).

Just pay a bit more warranty on the replacement machine and you'll be good for the next few years or so.

BGA isn't that bad, I've had my share with the AW17R3 (970M), G752VS (which I think johnksss managed to unlock the power limit on his) and the AW15R3 (two of them) and I'd say they're very capable of 'hardcore' gaming and whatever you can throw at it. Though I like the 15R3 much better.

AW made some fatal mistakes with their Echo line (optimus, less storage option), but the Cassini line improve on that regard.



Is a Clevo better? It is, in the aspect of cooling and overclocking (+Prema support) to compete in HWbot rankings. But you have to consider the QC issues that @Mr. Fox pointed out on the feedback thread. Plus you need to put in a lot more effort to making the system comfortable to use. Rivaled only by MSi GT + SVET bios.

In the end the Clevo is a PORTABLE DESKTOP-LAPTOP, and the BGA machines are made to be true laptops.


You need to understand what people need, we all would like P870Dx performance but not everyone has the money and or willing to put up with the compromises that a true DTR brings. I use the AW15R3 primarily for schoolwork and it's absolutely fantastic in terms of daily usage, the cooling system is still sufficient for gaming (bear in mind I hardmodded the GTX1070 power limit) between breaks while keeping the temps in check.






You win some, you lose some, can't have everything. In the laptop world, nothing is perfect (except for a desktop).






TL;DR the BGA Cassini AW's = totally fine to use, probably won't trump the HWbot leader boards though.