Help! Studio 1747 GPU overheating

Brand new Studio 1747 overheats and crashes while gaming after about an hour or two (any full screen game...warcraft, team fortress, even minecraft).

I know it's a heat issue because:
-If I place the laptop in a cool environment (60 F), it will never crash
-If I disable the i7's turbo boost, it will keep the computer a little bit cooler for longer, but still eventually crash
-If I alt tab the game for a few mins every half hour to let it cool down it never crashes

I'm pretty sure it's the GPU because:
-I can run stress tests on the i7 all day and the chip temp climbs up to a stable 72 C and can sit there for hours
-Only happens during games
-These games use 10-20% CPU

Ran all the f12 tests with no problems. Updated bios to A13.

Specs:
i7 Q820
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650, 1GB
4GB DDR3 RAM
Win 7 ultimate x64

 

What do you mean by crash? My 1747 had freezes were it stops for about 5-30 second and then it would come back to life and carry on. This only happens when the cpu and gpu are working hard.
I got a 130w power brick from Dell and its ok now. I also use a cooler master laptop cooler.

 

Screen goes blank and computer restarts.

How exactly did you go about getting that power brick?

I'm reading about undervolting the processor, but it doesn't seem possible with the i7's yet, right?

 

There are several big threads about the 90w power brick not been good for the 1747 (with i7 cpu). I read that I could ring dell support and get a free 130w, so I did and it runs better when under full load.
My laptop still gets hot when running bc2 for long games but it should not restart. I would try and get the 130w and see if it stops the restarts.

 

Ok I'll have to get that power brick and see, but it still seems like a heat issue.

After some more testing I'm thinking that it isn't the GPU, but something else that's failing at high heat. I've been logging sensor information with realtemp and gpu-z and looking through the data after a crash, and it seems like my processor stays around a stable 73 C and my GPU stays around 74 C while gaming at max settings without crashing. What I did notice though, was that it seems setting my processor's max state to 50% in the power options (anything below 100% seems to just disable turboboost and nothing more, verified with the desktop widget) makes the crash more likely to happen. When I do that, my processor drops down to a stable 59 C, but the computer crashes within half an hour despite running fine for hours at 73 C before. What I think is happening, is that when turbo boost is disabled and the processor cools, the fan runs less and the rest of the case heats up (especially around the touchpad, it gets very hot), causing something else to fail, maybe memory or the hardrive.

I've searched for hours and can't find a method to force the fan to run at 100% that is compatible with this laptop and Win 7 x64. I'm thinking of popping open the case and hard-wiring it to be constant full-on :/

 

I would update to the newest intel chipset drivers on intels web site. think they are newer than the dell ones, could help. I put them on some time ago so they work on the 1747. After updating everything, if the problem still happens I would talk to dell to get a replacement as random crashes are stressful.

My touchpad got vey hot when gaming but the laptop did not crash or reboot. It was not very comfortable so i got a laptop cooler for about £20 (cooler master with movable fans) and the touchpad stays cool now. Also turning turbo off reduces performance so you should not have to do it.