Alienware M17 issue?

Hi I'm new and have had my M17 for about 2 very happy weeks, again a very well made laptop overall IMO. However just today, I was spectating a 1v1 in a game, and all of a sudden the screen cuts black, the keyboard still illuminated, then 30 seconds later the laptop completely shuts down. I restart it and the screen is almost pitch black, I could make outlines of the startup and was able to nearly blindly log back in. Low and behold after logging back in everything is completely normal again?! Do I need to send this back for repairs before it cuts out during a 10 page college paper??

 

sounds like you gpu over heated. where you blocking your vents and was your fan on?

 

Hmmm I guess that's logical, I just didn't suspect overheating because of the strange pitch black startup where all the type and login window were much much smaller then norma, the startup box was so small I could barely click it with the pointer.

 

But I digress, I don't know if the fan was on or not and the fans were probably partially blocked, is there a specific command to turn the fan on?

 

no BIOS controls them.... but your start up being differnt then normal after it shut down is werid but i still suspect gpu overheated.

easy way to tell if its overheating is to find a gpu stress tester and see if it goes on the fritz again

 

Hmmm ok, I'll check out the issue with a stress test. If it's mere overheating I plan on deleting this thread but until I get a defintive response about the weird startup screen I'll leave it up. Thanks for quick responses, and BTW thanks for the warm welcome I got from you from my first post Mr. Moo!

 

I've overheated the M17 GPUs on a couple of occasions...the screen doesn't go blank, and the laptop doesn't shut down. The card(s) throttle, and your frames per second plummet.

Get HWMonitor for monitoring your GPU/CPU temps. Put a good load on the system with whatever your most graphically-intense game is, and see what your temps are. Report them back to this thread.

This is odd, because even when I've had my ATI drivers crash, the laptop still doesn't do what you're describing. Just for kicks, you should make sure you're using the most up-to-date drivers. A forum member named E-Wrecked has modded the most current 8.12 driver with some nice options/tweaks. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=347611

Also, there were a few cases of Alienware leaving the plastic on the GPU heatsinks, but that's something that HWMonitor will reflect if your temps are in the boiling water range.

 

ohhhh no not the tape on gpus's its a killer

i forgot all about that instance ....

just for reference
my idle temp is 45-49 c and full load is 75-85c