GPU overheating problem m15x

Hello all,

i recently had another painfull experience with AW. My video card (8800M GTX). died a few months ago. Ofcourse it took them about 3 weeks to send me a new one, and then they forgot to send my the mounting bracket, without which I could not instal my card. That took another weak to resolve.

So, today I got everything I needed. I applied Arctic Silver thermalpaste (preparing the surface for the thermalpaste first), fitted everything into my laptop.

The problems started when I instaled video drivers. 190.xx refused to work. 186.xx worked but with errors. I finally managed to get everything to work with AW beta (176.xx) drivers. I did all the necessary registry cleans etc.

But the video card is now overheating like hell. I get about 85 degrees idle, going up to 100+ in seconds during stress tests. I figured out that the GPU fan never spins faster than 2600rpm and thermofan always shows temperatures below the ones rivaturner is showing.

I tried reflashing my x36 bios, did not help. The only thing I can think of is that there is some comflict between the drivers. When I have more time I will try to reinstall Vista, but do you guys have any other suggestions?

Cheers,
Impressive

 

welcome to the club.

 

lol thanks . So no suggestions guys?

 

Nope. 10char

 

Wow this is the first time no one knows what to do in these forums . But I'm used to puzzles with this laptop by now.

 

its a issue with the driver

something didn't go right with the driver and it sounds like its going full blast the whole time

also the fan isn't kicking in .... I would try a format and reinstall. That will for sure erradicate any issues.


Also how much paste did you put on ?

 

The first time I put a very small layer, but since the temps were high I checked it and saw that the layer was too small - there was no thermal paste on the heatsink. So I added a bit more.

But since the fans do not kick in even on high temperatures I think there's a software problem involved. I should probably try formating windows and then if the issue is not resolved chech the thermal paste again.

 

Yea you don't need more the a few peices of papers thick paste


Format today n try n lemme kno

 

Thanks for the answer Moo, I will format today in the evening, but since I'm in Europe and ur in USA, you might be unreachable at that time

Anyway, I will update this thread with the results after I format.

 

you would be surprised

I am always here watching and waiting

 

I wouldn't reformat yet. Call up Alienware and see what can be done first.

 

Did you make sure that the fan is plugged in, it could have came loose in transport or something. Also the newest driver (186.81) from nvidia works great, just get powermizer switch from here on notebookreview and enable it, so it will downclock when not in stress, thus using less power and heat.

 

My fan is plugged in for sure.

Ok, so now I'm really puzzled. Just reinstalled my Vista. Installed hte 186.81 drivers. The driver seems to be working absolutely fine. But the temps havn't changed.

I am using ThermoFan, RivarTurner, GPU-Z and HWmonitor. All of these, except ThermoFan show high temperatures! At the moment, thermofan shows 72 degrees, while all others record 80. Strangely enough, my graphics card does not seem to be hot at all (I remember that at temps like this the area under my right palm was really hot, but it isn't now. It actually looks like the ThermoFan is the only one recording real temperatures.

I tried video stressing with all programs on. Thermofan showed a slow increase, while all others recorded rocketing temperatures. 80 - 87 in two secounds. I wanted to see if the fans kick in when temperatures reach 80 on thermofan, but was afraid and aborted the stress test since all other programs were reporting 100 degrees, and the temp was still rising...

There's something really wrong here and I can't see what.

 

EDIT: windows just reported that there is a problem with the driver (windows problem and solution centre popped up)
EDIT2: I downloaded SpeedFan, but when I press the "Fans" tab, an empty table comes up.
EDIT3: I am now positive that the driver failed to instal properly. I only have one idea left. My hard drive is split into Drive C and Drive D. Vista is located in drive C, so I formated it and left Drive D as it was. Could it be that there is something that is conflicting with the drivers in Drive D? I never instaled any OS components there though...

Anyway, Mr. Moo is not here so I'm off to sleep if no one has any more ideas, it looks like I'll have to call AW. Might even start a war with them demanding for a refund, this is like the forth time something serious happens to it.

 

If the newest drivers do not work revert back to stock drivers and see if the problem still persists. If it does continue on with trouble, then call Alienware. At least stock drivers are specifically tested on the system.

Oh and there are no programs that can control the fans on the m15x!

 

only thing left is their is to much paste

or the fan is broke but it works but it doesn't

 

The fan works, but it never kicks in! I do not get more than 2600rpm. Moo, do you think I should format both of my drivers? Because I only did that to the one containing Windows.

 

????

i meant format windows and start clean


( i am not understanding what you are talking about )


i had the same issue with my M17x and it was a driver issue that i fixed with a format

 

What I am saying is that I have my hard drive split into two partitions - Local Disc C and Local Disc D.

Local Disk C contains windows
Local Disk D has everything else, like games, programs, films, music

Now I only formated Disc C, but left D as it was. Now I'm thinking that maybe there are some viruses or something in Disk D which are causing problems.

UPDATE: my newest suprise - I just tried to instal the very first official driver for m15x by AW. I have it on my support CD. And I can't instal it - the setup either says that my Windows is not Vista 32 bit, or that there are no compactible devices for this driver! Now I'm 110% sure that I have Vista 32 bit

 

lol

which one is the driver installed on ?

 

of course its on Disc C - the one I formated.

 

hummmmm ......

try flashing your BIOS

somethign is causeing conflict with the fan


for me i fixed it by flashing then reinstalling windows

 

hm, I reflashed my x36 before, but will try to go to the older x32 bios and see if that helps.

 

EDIT: flashed to x34, nothing changed. I'm calling AW later today.

 

good idea......

like i said i had the same issues and i told you what i did