Alienware 17 CPU overheating?

[12ansan 10]

I have Alienware 17 laptop with i7 4930mx 3.9 ghz.

I bought this 5 months ago but since a month, it overheats and shuts down.

I took out the CPU fan and heatsink and cleaned them but didn't solve.

Any suggestions how to solve this?

[LordGMLP 13]

Go to Dell Support website, enter your service tag and download the most recent BIOS revision (A10 as of now) and flash your machine man. It's a well-known BIOS problem.

[12ansan 10]

Go to Dell Support website, enter your service tag and download the most recent BIOS revision (A10 as of now) and flash your machine man. It's a well-known BIOS problem.

I tried but gives me-

"Failed to retrieve system BIOS information, BCPSYS block signature was not found. Error code:-100"

[jasondaniels10 10]

Try calling dell, I had the same issues with my 780m and they immediately came and fix it without any questions asked and also upgraded my warranty to 3 Years after I said that if it is a lemon out of the box I want a compensation so they increased the warranty period.

[12ansan 10]

Try calling dell, I had the same issues with my 780m and they immediately came and fix it without any questions asked and also upgraded my warranty to 3 Years after I said that if it is a lemon out of the box I want a compensation so they increased the warranty period.

For me its 4930mx cpu not gpu

[LordGMLP 13]

Make sure you select the correct BIOS version for your system. The error message looks like a mismatch between the flash and the hardware.

[jasondaniels10 10]

I know but the same customer care will apply to your cpu

[dl1298 11]

Try to decrease your CPU voltage a little bit, if still like this after repasting, try to mod the fan with 10.4CFM fan for M14X R2.

[coolitic 14]

Makes sure that the intake has space to pull air into the laptop (meaning, put it on a hard, flat surface). Disabling Hyper-Threading in the BIOS also helps.

[cammac66 10]

Will a laptop made as of last week have the most update to date BIOS?

[yourdoom107 10]

It never hurts to try.

Also, you could try using HWiNFO64 to speed up your fans to avoid overheating (if it supports the Alienware 17 yet, I have no idea)

[pimpdaddyscoot 12]

I had a similar issue on one of the 17r4's i sold. I turned out to be a fault 7970m card not reporting gpu temps (i know you said cpu, hear me out)

The fans are controlled by the EC thingy. Its the same circuit that controls the lights and such. Very unusual. But the EC reads the cpu temp and the gpu temp and controls the fans for them.

As yourdoom said, run HWinfo and go to sensors, then click the tiny fan icon and force it to 5000 rpm.

If this solves the issue (as in your fans were not ramping before) you probably have a faulty cpu or gpu.

I cant recall however if the faulty gpu was reporting temp in HWinfo... i have a feeling it *was* but only at the graphics card part, not the EC part. which was what made me initially misdiagnose it as a EC fault.

GL.

[AizenAwakened 10]

I have the same-ish problem with the overheating. I think you might need some of the modded bios and HWiNFO64 thing and NV inspector.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img41/4936/sqfa.png

[lftft 10]

A long shot, but re-pasting the processors (CPU GPU) may help. Personally, I haven't ever been able to significantly improve cooling by reapplying thermal paste, but it is likely that I never had paste that "needed" to be replaced.

[PJko66 10]

I decided to re-paste my R3 after 3 years of use - I realized, that I cant play games on flat surface without getting marginal temps on GPU after 30+ minutes of playing. Had to put laptop on a stand. (dust was not the issue). I checked CPU temp before re-pasting and it was not overheating, but 2 of the cores got significantly higher temps during the test. So I decided to re-paste CPU as well. After re-pasting all 4 cores were getting almost identical temps (only 1 degree difference). Not sure about 5 months in your case... if possible, I would recommend contacting Dell first - really fast next-day service. Mainly because if it shows that CPU or GPU (or fans or whatever) is faulty, they will replace it without a word. When they find out you were "experimenting" with it, they might have a problem with it (although Alienwares are allowed to be manipulated as stated in manual, but re-pasting is not one of the mentioned operations ).