Alienware M15X Fans Not Working Properly

i had somewhat of a problem with me m17x i returned it like a week ago, i got it may 19, and i was wondering why my games kept freezing, and laggin, my video card fans were not working, so they told me they will send technician, i said hell with the the laptop brand new, if im having problems now i can imagine the problems ill have in a few months, so now im ordering a new 1 tommrow, with the new 5870's, if i were you call tech support get that fixed before you really damage your system!

I have a small update to the issue. After a while of playing you can in fact feel the fans on..but barely. The only reason I can tell they're barely on was the heat coming out of the laptop was very slightly blowing. I disconnected the USB fan and let the computer play a game for a while to see the difference in temperature. After a half hour of gaming the temperature rose up over 160 degrees and the fans remained at the same slow speed. I don't know if I need a hardware update, driver update, or if there is some way to set the fans..but it is absolutely no option playing a game on this thing without the USB fan hooked cause after a few hours the computer is far too hot. Any way to reset the fan speed would be great about now.

you should not need the fan though, this gpu's should never get over 55c no more than 60c, over 60c is considered damaging, my friend his a alienware m17x also with dual 4870's he plays Crysis straight for 10-12 hours his gpu's never get over 55c, is the room your playing extremely hot like in the 80's 90's, if than its a different story but no matter wat your playing or doing should never go over 60c, unless your benchmarking haven or 3dmark06, but benchmarkin your computer is no good, its putting everything to the maxx stress, any kind of cpu or gpu should never go over 60c, over that is considered damaging, 

The only reason I got a USB fan was because it got too hot and this was in late fall last year. It was late at night around 1 am and it wasn't hot in the room. It was a comfortable temperature. This thing without USB fan has gotten up around 71c at Core #2. That core gets hottest of the 4 cores. The other 3 seem to be similar temps. The graphics card never gets near as hot as the cores do. I also NEVER use the laptop on top of cloth for it to gather unnecessary heat. I always use it on a wooden desk.

Yeah, all the cores generally run within a small margin of each other, just like you said. Core 2 runs just a tad hotter than the others. The graphics card NEVER runs near as hot as the core. But like right now, my temperatures are reading up between 65C to 69C and I'm only running a game called Flyff which isn't very demanding graphically. It is running that hot with a USB fan on, and also the temperature in this room is cool. There isn't a command in my BIOS that lets me set the fan speeds and I have never changed a setting in the BIOS. As far as I've had this computer it's been like this. I'll try to make the BIOS settings default again. Then I'll update once I see if anything changes.

Resetting the BIOS settings to default did nothing. While only browsing the web (no games or anything else running) the temp has dropped but is still in the mid 50Cs among the 4 cores.

that the thing with the cores they are all suppose to be around the same temp, maybe a minor difference like between 4-6c apart from each other, have you checked in the BIOS about fan controll speeds thye should all be automatic, and you should not have to to that all that is preset factory, or did you ever go in the bois and maybe hit something by mistake, if you did or not sure if your did try loading the BIOS defaults make your you save when you exit, i believe its F2 on the boot up same as the alienware m17x

even mid 50's just on the web that kind of high, their has to be some hardware issue, or the thermal paste is worn off, i just just at my friends how now playing crysis temps never got over 55c and he plays on just about max settings 1920x1200 everything on high 2xaa

Well a friend helped me decide that a desktop is better so he's gonna help me build one of those instead. Just gonna keep the lappy for the road and hope it doesn't get too hot and die on me someday.

i was going to build a desktop, but for me alienware is better i get crazy deals for because i have an epp acount, so i get 10-15% off, plus i get alot of coupons, my new alienware cost me 2700, i got over 700 bucks in discounts, i got 10% on the laptop and upgrades, than i got 100 dollar coupon, i opened a dell perfered account i got another 100 off doing that, than i got free overnight shipping so you really cant beat that deal, anyone else would have paid over 3500, 

I have a similar problem, fans sound very loud on startup, but not afterwards, and temperatures of the cores are ranging into the high 80s, im yet to update to bios A08, im still on A03. Hopefully that will fix the problem, or i might have to get the fans replaced or something.

Quick question, have you guys checked the cooling policy in command centre or control panel power settings? Should be set to active, if its passive it will sacrifice performance to control the temp. In active it uses the fan more, i have active set for all power profiles and my fans kick in nice and loud while playing battlefield BC. My GPU temp tops at about 65 degrees C, never checked my  CPU temp.

My M15x has the latest A08 bios, however i had no issues while running the A06 version. I don't think the m15x has any fan options in the bios, only in command centre or control panel.

Cobbie