AW18 constant shutdown from GTA V

Hi everybody, Im new to the forum and hope to enjoy my time here, as well as to contribute as much as I can.
I'm an AW18 user, 4930MX, 780M SLI and non stop crashes and bad performance.
last week I rebooted my laptop installed win 10, installed all drivers , and started gaming- the performance was much better than before with an increase of up to 15 fps in many of my games.

today i've experienced a non stop shutdown from GTA V, I'm sure it's due to overheating- I just moved apartments and I think the extra dust did a number on my fans.
up until now I usually just cleaned my fans, but I think it is a good time to to actually put some thermal paste, I have never done it on my AW18 and would love to know what is the best one to use? also what tools do I need besides a screwdriver and a the actual thermal paste?

on a different topic I read Mr. Fox's amazingly helpful sticky on overclocking, is all the info there up to date and safe to apply? can I do it if my bios is A10 ? I'm excited from the idea to finally get the performance I paid for!

thank you very much for whoever is going to read this and hopefully find the time to help.

P.S. english is not my native tongue I hope I'm clear but if something is not clear don't hesitate to ask me!

 

Hello, and welcome to our community. Glad you joined us.

First and foremost, I am very concerned about your installation of Windows 10 on this machine. This may end in tragedy (damaged display panel) if you do not remove Windows 10 as soon as possible.

Please see the opening post in this thread: *** Windows 10 Upgrade Warning for Alienware Owners *** and have a look at the multiple posts about disastrous consequences that some of us have experienced with machines just like yours. I recommend formatting the drive Windows 10 is installed on immediately and going back to Windows 7 or 8. Until the cause of the problem can be identified and corrected, it is not safe to have Windows 10 installed on an Alienware laptop, especially an SLI model.

A screwdriver is the only tool you will need to perform the GPU repaste. You will want to have some cotton swaps and alcohol (or a thermal paste cleaning kit) handy as well. I recommend using Liquid Ultra for the CPU and IC Diamond for the GPUs. While you have it apart, take care of the CPU repaste at the same time. Liquid Ultra is the only thermal paste that will provide adequate CPU cooling if you plan to overclock the 4930MX. Haswell CPUs run too hot at stock clock speeds and overclocking the Haswell Extreme CPU without challenging thermal issues will be a next to impossible using anything except for Liquid Ultra thermal paste. You will also want to use HWiNFO64 for manual fan controls, because the stock fan profiles are junk. The fans don't kick on soon enough to keep the CPU temperatures at manageable levels. It takes far too long for the fans to react.

The information you saw in the thread for overclocking the 4930MX is still valid.

Bookmark the following links and refer to the information, as you may find the information very useful:

**Alienware 17 (Ranger) /18 (Viking) Owners** - How to 'Un-Brick' Your Mobo

[Death Match] Thermal Paste Showdown: IC Diamond vs Noctua NT-H1 vs Liquid Ultra

*Official* Alienware 18/M18x Owner's How-To Instructional Video Thread

 

Thank you very much for the kind reply Mr. Fox,
I did a mistake informing you that I have a 780M while I actually have the 880M inside, I forgot that I upgraded it a year ago-
Also- Is it the same process to put the thermal paste on the CPU?

Because of economical reasons I was wondering if I could use liquid ultra for the CPU and GPU , without having to order IC Diamond also- will that work?

Thank you for creating the How-To instructional as it is so helpful.

So to summarize what I need to right now:
1. downgrade (or actually upgrade ) back to win 8.1
2.apply thermal paste on CPU and GPU.

this order I'm not sure on now :
3. ?? Tune CPU for maximum efficiency through BIOS settings and XTU ?? (will there be a need for a cooling pad?)
4. ? throttlestop ?

are these steps in the right direction to finally "unlock" my Alienware 18 ?

Thank you for all replies kind people.

 

@ErezMi - Sure, you can use Liquid Ultra on the GPUs. I am using Liquid Ultra on the GPUs in my Panther. Just be very careful not to get any on the surface mounted components near the die. You can cover them with strips of electrical tape. That's what I did and doing so worked nicely. Everything with the process is the same for 780M and 880M.

Yes, use BIOS, XTU and ThrottleStop. Looks like you are on the right track for everything.

Unfortunately, there is no unlocked BIOS for the Alienware 18. We can overclock the CPU mighty fine the way it is with the stock BIOS, but we don't have access to all of the important settings, a number of which are not even related to overclocking.

 

Had to wait unreasonable amount of time to get my liquid ultra from amazon but I finally got it!

While opening my AW18 to do the repasting job I was in shock, the condition of the paste, the heatsink- and well, overall it seems like the hands that put the machine together had zero finesse.
It was my fault of course that I havent repasted since I got the machine , yet I got shock none the less.

IMG_2651 by ErezMi posted Sep 21, 2015 at 2:32 AM

IMG_2650 by ErezMi posted Sep 21, 2015 at 2:32 AM

IMG_2649 by ErezMi posted Sep 21, 2015 at 2:32 AM

IMG_2647 by ErezMi posted Sep 21, 2015 at 2:32 AM

IMG_2643 by ErezMi posted Sep 21, 2015 at 2:32 AM

I did my best cleaning both GPUs and the CPU and repasted with the Liquid Ultra.

One question I was having is- besides Mr. Fox's Bios settings on the turbo clocking big thread- do I need to use XTU, throttlestop, or both at the same time?
I'm quite new to overclocking and I'm trying to understand how all these softwares work together ?

Thank you very much for your answers, and I apologize for my English!