Critical Temperature Shutdown at 75C - Please Help

Hi all,

I'm having a frustrating issue and I hope you can help, I'm pretty desperate at this point. I'll try to be as detailed as possible about the error, system configuration, and what I've tried so far, but please let me know if there's any other data I can provide. I've spent a long while googling around and talking to tech support, but nothing has helped.

I bought an XPS 15 9550 (i7 6700hq, GTX 960m, 16gb RAM, 512GB SSD, 4k screen, Microsoft standard edition) from a Microsoft Store on March 1.

When playing the Witcher 3 my laptop will crash unexpectedly. No BSOD, no freeze, just straight power off. This happens intermittently; sometimes after an hour or two, usually after about 15 minutes to half an hour, sometimes after 5 minutes.

My first thought was an overheating issue, so I installed HWMonitor, GPUz to log temps prior to crashes. The logs seemed well within normal operating parameters for a game that's chugging: 65C averages, with spikes up to 75C, slightly increasing average over time.

My next step was to check the Windows Event Viewer. The crash was accompanied by a Event ID 41 Task 63 Source Kernel-Power error. This was always preceeded by error Event ID 56 Source Application Pop-up, something to do with ACPI 5, and another warning Event ID 36 (I think, will check tonight) source ACPI, saying the device sent unexpected data to or from the BIOS. These errors led me to suspect a power supply issue, that the PSU wasn't supplying sufficient power to the GPU or something.

My next step was to call Dell, which was a pain and a half. They had me run their pre-boot diagnostic program. This threw an error "Hard Drive Not Installed", which is totally bizarre as I've had no problems accessing my SSD.

In the pre-boot diagnostic tool's event log, all my crashes were registered as "Critical Temperature Shutdown". So, the BIOS thinks the laptop is overheating, even though the HWMonitor programs doesn't show unusually high heat. Looking at some of the other heat related posts on the forum, users can easily get into the upper 70C, lower 80C range without crashing. Plus, my laptop is never hot to the touch, pleasantly warm at worst. So I suspect there's something wrong here, not just that my computer is actually overheating.

Dell tech support had me download and reinstall the BIOS from their site, which didn't work. I haven't yet tried uninstalling amd reinstalling the GPU drivers, but I did upgrade them with the NVidia Experience tool. So that's a next step.

In addition to the "Hard Drive Not Installed" and pseudo-overheating crashing, I also get severely distorted/stuttering audio during gaming, and not just on the Witcher 3. Again, this issue is intermittent; sometimes it takes hours, sometimes right away. Strangely, at least for W3, this only happens during actual gameplay. Menus are all fine. I tried reinstalling W3 (both times I installed I got BSOD errors and the install had corrupted files Steam had to fix), and uninstalling and reinstalling the RealTek drivers, with no success. Again, this naively seems to be related to overheating, but I don't know.

Any ideas where to turn to solve these problems? I'm at my wit's end here, very frustrated by my experience. Did I just get a lemon, or is this an issue I can fix? Any and all help is very appreciated.

I have the extended warranty from the MS store, but they'd need to take it for a few days to run their own diagnostics, and I'm worried I'll start shaking and seeing pink elephants without my laptop. The XPS is a gorgeous machine, and I really hope I can sort this all out without having to return it and buy something different.

Thanks!

 

Download the service manual, open her up and put some decent thermal paste on the heatsinks.
Also consider a vented laptop stand to raise the back up a bit to allow better air flow, A stand with a fan isn't needed imo.

 

Thanks. Will reapplying thermal paste void my warranty at all?

Also, why would I be crashing at these lower temps? Is that to be begin expected, or is this unusual?

 

Who says it is the CPU causing it, you will probably find it is a combination causing one of the sensors on the motherboard to hit 75, even the memory as that climbs very high in synthetic benchmarks.

CPU/GPU & RAM all being hammered in game will no doubt be the issue.

And no Dell do not void the warranty for removing and refitting parts. They happily sent me a new trackpad and keyboard for my 9530, that involves a total stripdown

 

Did you check the temp of the other components? CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD, etc? Are you undervolted?

 

No, I'm not undervolted. GPU and CPU are both at around 70C when gaming/crashing, which is ridiculous. I'm not sure how to measure RAM and SSD temps, but motherboard seems to be around 40C.

I'm so sick of putting time and stress into getting this thing to work right, when it's a week after purchase. At this point I'm considering just returning it to the retailer and buying something with less quality control issues, since I can't seem to figure it out.