M17 Crashing - Help needed

So here is my deal...

I have a M17X with
Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000
2x NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX
4.00 GB RAM
300 GB HD
It was ordered 15/08/2008

It crashes within 20min on average when playing high graphic games.

I know after doing benchmarking and hardware monitoring, i have deduced that overheating is my issue. One of my 8800M GTX is faulty and reaches ridiculous temperatures before shutting down to prevent melting everything.

Anyone have any solutions to this problem? Are there any Graphics cards that will working in place of the 8800M GTX or does any have these elusive graphics cards sitting around?

Any help would be appreciated. I have not attempted to solve this issue in several months because i have been crazy busy. I am now at a point where i can devote time to solving this or simply raging on alienware until i feel i have vented thoroughly enough.

I believe i am currently in possession of a Super Mario Bros3 Level 4 version of a netbook. Because all my alienware can do at the moment is play flash games...

 

if you wish to keep the SLI function, you will need to have another 8800GTX. However, I believe a Radeon 36XX and Geforce 9800M are options for you as well. Hopefully someone else will chime in with more specifics.

 

If you're simply overheating you'll have to remove the heat sink on the overheating GPU, clean throughly the GPU die and heatsink, reapply thermal paste, and reinstall the heat sink. Sounds like the GPUs are working, but the heat sink is not soaking the heat properly.

 

Thanks Lozz, and Marvie for your replies.

Lozz, Do you know of an online store where i could by the cards you named as replacements? Are you sure that they fit the same slot as the 8800M Gtx? It is exciting to know that i could possibly have a working computer again rather than a very expensive paperweight which is what alienware lead me to believe the last time i talked to them.

Marvie,
While i have experience with hardware i do not have experience with cleaning GPU's or appling a new heatsink. I believe someone told me that it wasn't a heatsink issue but a faulty soldering issue. Hence the need of a replacement.

 

Cleaning and replacing TIM on a GPU requires a screwdriver, 90%+ isopropoal Alchohol and cotton ear swaps, besides your paste of choice. If you haven't tried so already, I would try this first. $15 is < $100 for a new card.

normally, a soldering issue results in the card not booting at all, although it's possible it will heat up too, I would attempt the cheaper fix first.

ebay, this forum and besides that there are 1-2 other parts depots that can be found searching the forum via google. For 100% compatibility, you should verify with the seller which laptop it came from.

 

Why nvidia's chips are defective - The Inquirer

This is pretty much what is happening with at least one of the GPU's. Will cleaning and replacing the TIM solve a substrate bump and die issue? I guess i should just try and it and see. I get the feeling that the cards are close to fried... so cleaning the heatsink and such might buy them some time, but i foresee failure...

 

there's no reason to speculate about anything right now until you get the HSF off and eyeball the die. it's far more likely you need to reapply the TIM than the die is toast, and it's a lot cheaper. That's not to say that the 8800GTX isn't one of the failure affected cards- because it is, but If $15 is too much of an investment however, by all means.