m17x R3 580m Defective Design not Overheating.

I know many users with m17x r3 580m video card had experience black screen issue and a lot of ppl/techs are telling you it's cause it's overheating, suggesting to reapply thermal paste, put it on a cooling stand etc etc. None of these will work cause it's the card's poor design that is causing it to burnout no matter what kind of cooling you got on there.

I bought my m17x r3 directly from dell on oct/2011 and 8 months after that i started experiencing black screen of death (gaming/multimedia/downloading around 8-10 hours a day). Since I had warranty, Dell tech came and replace the card for me. After the replacement, i started to clean my vents with compress air every other week and have cm storm cooling pad whenever i used the laptop. I've also game a lot less since the replacement and just decreased overall usage on the laptop.

It's now 10 month later, I am having the same black screen of death on the replacement 580m. My temps are 48C(min)-63C(max) so now after researching extensively and trying all the driversweeper/reinstalling os/cleaning/repasting/flash vbios/bios/alienware diag, list goes on, i can conclude that it is the 580m design flaw that is ruining alienware experience.

I am now out of warranty, Dell wants gazillion dollars for a 580m replacement and even so, they're out of stock forever on them. I've gone ahead on ebay and purchased a NEW 6990m (i know you can get 7970m or 680m in it but needs tweak and some ports might not work) for replacement.

This is my first alienware and hoping it would have better gaming experience and it didn't. I won't be buying a alienware again, i'll go back to my clevo/sager/asus gaming laptop in the future.

My specs are:
2860qm
580m
16gb hyperX
240 kingston hyperX SSD
3D 120hz screen

 

6990m and 7970m should both be plug and play. I had a 6990m before upgrading to 7970m and the former definitely runs hotter!
I was able to run Tomb Raider on ultra (no tressfx) with the 6990m though

I think you had a bad experience with the Nvidia card rather than Alienware. Things like warranty renewal costs are there to catch you with your trousers down.
I hope your experience is much improved with your new card.

 

I've had other gaming laptops such as Asus ROG that didn't burn out nvidia video cards. The design of heat dissipation and component placement/design is why we paid more for a Alienware. However, after owning couple of gaming laptops i find Asus ROG series had the best ventilation system and component placement design. You would think Alienware would up that a notch but it didn't. This is why i am blaming Alienware and not the graphic card cause doing some research online, it seems the Clevo/Sager with same nvidia 580m in it don't have this very same problem.

 

I'm sorry to hear about those issues, if you had extended warranty we would be able to replace the card again, at least you now changed to the red team and it might work better. Did you try repasting the VC?