m17x shuts down for no reason (think is overheating)

Hello guys,

Lately my m17x shuts down when I run Starcraft 2; Left for Dead 2. It worked fine months ago with games that demanded same resources. I didn't experience any shutdowns surfing the web etc.

I cleaned the fans they look like they work I can hear the noise, Ive installed HWinfo32 and HWMonitor and speedFan I attached some screen shots of these programs just before i rebooted the laptop after one of this nowhere shutdowns.

Please advise. Thank you!

Adrian

 

those temps look normal. nothing above 80...

 

Your solution is to change the thermal pad on the chipset or just seat it properly,the 9400's temps are high and that makes your laptop shut down.
The exact size of the thermal pad is 20mm x 20mm with 1mm thickness.
somebody that came to me had the same problem and this fixed it.
Have you/somebody removed the CPU heatsink recently?

 

No, I never open/ make any changes to the laptop. I have it for a year now.

Can you please elaborate what you wrote about the thermal pads?

Thank you,

Adrian

 

Before replacing the thermal pad on your 9400m (on board chip) I would try disabling hybrid in your bios so you only run on your 260M.

See if you still get the same problem or not.

It is still a good idea to replace it (if you know how) with a better pad and you will have to replace your cpu paste while your at it (the on board gpu and the cpu share the same heatsink)

I use this pad here EK Thermal Pad Sheet - 160mm x 155mm x 1mm - FrozenCPU.com and just cut it to size.
I also use that to replace the thermal pads elsewhere (on my gpu) but that is for another day

D.

 

It's the thermal pad under the heatsink where i marked with red (see attached).
you're getting pretty high temps for the Integrated GPU that may cause the shut downs but you should try as stated above dissabling it in BIOS and see if it'll still shut down.

 

Thanks katalin and debaucher, really appreciate your help it guys.

I disable the hybrid from bios and played Starcraft 2 for one hour no shutdown, these are the temperatures I get. When I touch the laptop its not hot at all like when it was running on sli.

What are my options? (im not skilled in repairing/ changing parts on the laptops)

Adrian

 

Glad you did not get a shutdown but your 9400m (reads as nVidia MCP in HWInfo32) is still really high (max temp of 80.4C in your screen shot).

I would really look into replacing the heatsink with a new thermal pad or if you are under warranty tell dell how it is shutting down after gaming when you have the 9400m enabled.
They will either replace the heatsink for you or replace the motherboard (maybe both).

I would take the dell route first if you are under warranty (especially since you said you are not too skilled with working on laptops)

Good luck and keep us posted

D.

 

IF you're out of warrenty(no Dell support on this) you can go in a computer shop and have somebody do it for you.
IF finding somebody to do it for you is a problem than i sugest you watch these 2 teardown videos of the m17x as many times as you want and also if you have the option of running them on another machine so you can go slowly and be confident, and do it yourself(we all started from scratch).

m17x teardown VIDEO 1
m17x teardown VIDEO 2

Remember: don't take anything appart if you have warrenty and can get Dell's support!

Good luck!