Help w over heating video cards!!!!

Hi again gents, here is the deal. I have a Area 51 m17x with twin 9800s up to this point it has been beyond great. But now something is causing my cards to overheat even when im just surfing on the net and the system in stealth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This occurs while the computer is sitting on a tray table where plenty of air can circulate in, around, and below it.

There are no any crazy programs runing in the background. The m17x now shuts down the second I begin playing a game becasue the main card hit 90 (might be damaged along with my slave now ....)

I performed a driver sweep, installed the original 174 series driver, and w in 4 minutes the main card was up to 84 degrees!!!!!!!!!!! This was while I was surfing the net.

The computer has been cleaned, no dust blocking any of the vents, fans work.

What can be causing this?

Please help.

 

make sure you apply thermal paste and apply it evenly make sure nothing is obstructing the heatsinks and that nothing is on them. I sent you a fan as well in your order, with the Card.

 

The card that is overheating now is the master card which I have not had an issue with. Ive never even removed it fro its slot so why would it need more thermal paste?

 

Yeah re-do the thermal paste pal. It loses some of its properties over time and use. Just order some arctic silver from Amazon or somewhere similar and read up on "re-applying thermal paste" there is plenty of stuff about it on the net.

Good luck mate!

 

Thanks for the tip. But if I put my computer on stealth shouldn't the two gpu's be turned off?

 

you can try using mx3 paste aswell it is a few bucks more but works great. Also check to see how you computer is throttling the gpu's it should not be in performance ie gaming mode when you are just watching something on youtube or checking your email. If you have either riva turner or atitool installed check to see if they are running in the background and if they are especially with rivatuner check to make sure that it is set up to let the card scale properly and is not just maxed out all the time as that can cause issues. Hope this helps

 

The best way to clean the m17x is to remove the cards. and blow them out. The problem with the gpu are drawing air from the top not the bottem of the laptop. This is also ture for the cpu. So get a small flat head screw driver and on the top of the keyboard are 4 tabs. A how to guide is on Alienware.com under Knowlagebase m17x keyboard removal. IF you have the keyboard lighting there will be two plugs that go into the laptop from the keyboard. There a plate below keyboard that can be removed to get access to the top of the cpu fan so you can blow it out.

 

Dust Bunnies be the devil, btw I sent you a PM