Need some help with my m15x

Hi there im a new member here but noticed alot of the already helpful posts on here about problems with the m15x.

I seem to be having quite a broad array of problems if any would be able to shed some light on my situation it would be great.

I bought the laptop refurbished as im not rich and cant afford a brand new one . Its been working great up until the last few months. Now sometimes my laptop shuts off, then when I press the power the lights flicker but nothing happens. I have to give it a good 5 minutes before I can turn it on again.

I did however notice that the gpu which is a GTX 260M was running at near to 100 degree's under load so wondered if it was the thermal paste?

Another problem is that sometimes it just freeze's and then i have to hold the power button in to shut it off and then start it back up again.

I do remember updating a graphics driver to the one on the dell site but i think i installed it wrong without uninstalling the old driver, then i tried to re-roll the driver back to the old one and then used nVidia drivers to update it.

Looking at this post it seems like my machine is falling apart haha any help would be greatly apprieciated.

Forgot to mention that in games i get fps drops where im running at say 60 fps then it will drop down to 30 fps for a few minutes then go back up to 60, sometimes turning stealth mode on and off fixes this.

Im running and intel i7-720qm
Nvidia geforce GTX 260m
4Gb of samsung ram
And using bios A05

 

bios a09 is out
and maybe you should clean the air intake

 

You need to start by blowing out the fans and heat sinks. 100 degrees is way too hot and what you're probably finding is that the computer is shutting itself down due to excessive heat.
If you don't see any temperature improvement, it's time for a repaste. I would also recommend updating to the latest bios as it fixes a lot of issues.
Good luck!
Oh I forgot to mention, I'm assuming that when you purchased it you got some form of warranty. If it is still under warranty Dell will be able to take care of the repaste for you.

 

Ive heard all this about changing your bios but was just wondering wether it was worth it? Cant it damage your system?

 

People say its risky, you need to be careful when updating it. But i didn't know about that when installed mine. I did just like installing a soft. followed all instructions and made it on first attempt. The easy way i did is.. burn it to CD and installed on boot.

 

First I would repaste. Dell does a poor job of applying paste I've taken apart a gpu that came from the factory with only half the die covered with paste. Then update the bios to a09 or a08 just use the cd method and burn it with the drive that is in the m15x since it's going to be read from the m15x and you shouldn't have any problems, boot it up and fallow the commands and wait for the scary beeeeeep!!!

 

Haha well i've updated my bios and it seemed to work absolutely fine to a09, now im jusr preparing my self to repaste the gpu, I've got a tube of mx-2 will that be sufficient? and any good advice when doing this ?

 

Mx-2 should work fine. Heard of ICD7 resulting in lower temps.

 

after my liquid metal pad cure up my 5850m's temp are around 58-65
50% loading
can look for that too

 

65 @ 50% load is kinda high, i get 68 tops 71 @ 100% load and i use mx-4 and premium pads

 

the onlinegame i play usually use 40% of the gpu and its about 62c，sum times raise to 50% and will on about 65 i guess
what's the clock speed you on?mine's @ 800/1000

 

750/1050/1.05v

 

y r u increasing your volt？i didn't increasing any and im very stable on 800

 

not all are created equal elf... especially when it comes to computer chips.

 

Thru months of testing i figured that this is my gpu sweet spot..... Higher is not always better, and like spy dude said not all are created equal