M11x Hangs Randomly

Hi there, i have an annoying problem on my m11x - it hangs randomly and i have to do a hard-reset to fix the problem. I did not change harddisk or RAM and the laptop is in stock condition. Only installed a few games and softwares. All drivers are also stock drivers. Please help! Thank you

 

What are your CPU/GPU temps?

 

I know you mentioned randomly, but can you be more specific? Is it just idle and it hangs? When launching an app? Browser related? Battery vs AC?

Is there any pattern?

 

I suggest memtest and a temp monitor app to find out whats wrong. Overheating or a Bad RAM stick usually are the two most likely causes of these kinds of issues. By overheating I mean from a faulty fan or bad thermal application at factory, not OC.

Also, try a HDD diagnostic while your at it. The symptoms you have sometimes can be reproduced by a drive with some SERIOUS issues. (Usually you would hear a loud CLICK and then all you can do is hard reboot like you have to.)

 

I had the same problems with my new M11X, after many attempts at trying to isolate the problem to temps, memory, or data corruption, turned out to be browser related. I switched to Mozilla Firefox and have not had a reocurrence yet.

 

I called the alienware rep and he did some tests on my laptop and everything was normal. The temperature was fine and no overheating. He also did 3dmark tests to do some stressing on the laptop and its all fine. I also did test and everything was fine too, no problems. It occurs randomly like i said, it can happen while i was watching a movie or browsing internet. I use firefox by the way

 

Mort, take a look at the Windows Event Logs and see if there is an app hang or any other error being logged immediately following a hang.

 

Well, Something I noticed on my Macbook Pro while running windows (bootcamp) is that sometimes the Wireless Driver and Sound Drivers (which shared the same IRQ) would conflict with each other causing lock ups or shuttering...

Perhaps see if there are drivers available for these two items from anywhere besides alienware itself. For example in the case of my MBP, I got a realtek audio driver from their website, and the offical intel wireless driver and it fixed the issue, But sure enough, Load back in the default apple drivers and Look out! Crashes Ahoy!

(Keep in mind, just a shot in the dark, But who knows... Sometimes these kind of random guesses work!)

 

Is the cpu overclocked through the bios? If it is it might be a cpu that can't handle it.