Mass Effect heat issue

So, for those of you who looked at my thread about my monitor, I got that fixed. But now I'm running into a different issue entirely.

I run... Pretty much all the big name games. Crysis, GTA4, Dragon Age, etc. I run all of them at the highest settings (or in the case of GTA4 and Crysis, the highest the game will run smoothly on) and never have any issues with performance or temperatures.

So I started playing Mass Effect for the first time the other day (this is Mass Effect 1, mind you), and I keep running into what I feel is a very strange issue.

According to HWMonitor, my GPU temp generally doesn't get over 80 C, and my CPU generally doesn't go past about 65 C. But in some heavy-duty situations (like exploring a planet with sandstorms, for example), the GPU will sometimes creep up to the mid 80s and the CPU will get into the mid 70s.

I've already had my G73Jh repasted by Asus (thanks Gary and Mason, you guys are the best!) with ICD7 which I provided myself, so I can't imagine my paste being the issue?

Now here's the really strange part. Sometimes when my GPU hits the mid 80s, my laptop will go to sleep.

It doesn't actually shut down, it just sleeps and I have to open the lid and wake it back up (I keep the lid closed because I have the laptop hooked into my 22" LCD monitor).

As far as I know, the thermal shutdown threshhold is somewhere above 100 C. So I have absolutely no idea why the laptop would decide to go to sleep when it hits warmer temps that are still well within safe range.

I'll also note that I've gone into the game's ini files and disabled the depth of field effect (this is a personal preference, I really dislike depth of field). However, the problem was cropping up before I ever did that.

Has anyone seen anything like this and is there a known cause or solution?

EDIT:
First, I'd like to apologize for making a new topic about this. I was frustrated by the issue and posted this, then found a solution about five minutes later.

Second, I'd like to invite mods/admins to lock this topic, as my question is no longer relevant.

However, I would like to offer my solution to anyone who's curious:

Apparently the problem wasn't my GPU at all. By default, Mass Effect 1 is set up to do all the dynamic shadow processing via the CPU instead of the GPU, and the result is that the CPU works much harder than it needs to.

To fix this, open the BIOEngine.ini file (found in Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect\Config) and look for the [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] heading. Under this heading, you'll fine the following line:
DisableHWShadowMaps=True

Simply change True to False and the game will use the GPU to render dynamic shadows. This allegedly makes the dynamic shadows look better (I won't vouch for this effect), but more importantly it takes the load off the CPU and puts it on the GPU, which can easily handle the shadow rendering. Since I did this my GPU temp hasn't passed 78 C and my GPU temp has been back within its normal range too.

Once again, I apologize for starting this thread unnecessarily, and I hope this information helps someone.

 

You should never keep the lid closed while gaming.

 

I was wary of that at first too, but I've tried it with the lid open and seen no difference in temps. On top of that, I've read numerous times on this forum and elsewhere that the lid doesn't matter because the air intake is along the gap where the lid meets the body.

As such, I've never kept it open past initial temp testing, and it's never given me any issues whatsoever. In fact, I can tell you from personal experience that when I open the lid there's barely any warmth on the keyboard, let alone the screen.