Alienware M17x-R2 gpus overheating?

ahhhh..... so many posts you got ....

well if you only had an R2 for 2 months means either you bought it used... or got it certified refurb from an outlet store.... meaning used or refused delivery or sent back ...etc......

50C idle temp isnt uncommon since lower temps fan revs down, (seems to be average) in 22C temp  and going to 70 isnt uncommon either if running windows areo,  since it need power  to run and used primary but i dont know your setup:(

100C while stressing is normal and will throttle itself down to lower temp....

if looking @ keyboard left side is primary card right side is secondary and center is cpu

so biggest question is whats room tempurature and has the dust been cleaned out fo the fans.. i did mine like every 2-4 weeks pending on how much gaming i did...

when i had My R1 room was 16C~ .. my 3 R2 was same thing, cooler under it and never had overheating issue i was lucky to get over 80C~, but again i kept my room cold and always cleaned it out ,as to protect that investment :O

Here is some recommended troubleshooting for the overheating on our laptops.

Is it something to do with the drivers cuz now i use the dell ones.when i use 12.8 i see descrease performance for example with dells on 3d mark vantage i get 15000~ but with the ati 7000~which i also experiance in descreased game performance.What drivers are the other m17x r2 users using ?

I'm not sure its normal for the video card to get past 100 C on lowest settings of guildwars 2.Also how can i check my video cards VBios if I havent updated it shall I ?

I'm not sure its normal for the video card to get past 100 C on lowest settings of guildwars 2.Also how can i check my video cards VBios if I havent updated it shall I ?

Not normal. Please send us an e-mail to AWSocialMedia@dell.com and we'll take care of you. We need the tag and phone number for this laptop.

If you need to check that you can do so using GPU-Z. It'll show your current vBios version.

well updating bios  can brick the card  very easily let alone your system,  been there , useless tech's but thats another story.lol  100C is not abnormal to hit, when its 30C  ambient temp with no airflow, under system or dust in the cooling,  which can happen fast, i should show you my desktop after 6 weeks ,  

If you feel comfortable opening up your case, another thing you can try is to re-paste. That can significantly drop the temps of the system.

I am comfortable opening my case, I did re-paste using Arctic Silver. I also thuroughly dusted out any dust that was in the system I even went as far as to replace thermal paste & padding on both video cards and CPU. This did not help enough, so I have upgraded the video cards to ATI HD Radeon 6900m's. Even after this I have the same issue, so again applied the arctic silver paste only to have the laptop overheat within 2-3 minutes of gameplay with normal-high settings. I have called and was told I am supposed to fork out $700+ to fix a problem seemingly evident of Dell/Alienware manufacture's mishappes & shortcomings. Is there no possible free/cheap fix that your company can provide us users? We spent large amounts of money for a WORKING system. NOT an ultra-expensive personal heater. I myself would start looking elsewhere if you're unable to fix the issues at hand. Thanks for your time.

- Jack

P.S. Also using a dual cooling pad, which doesn't seem to help much. Even with an actual high speed commercial fan blowing into that.

After ALL of this, I ran Borderlands 2, and couldn't even choose a character, let alone play the game before the system shut off for overheating.

Please note, I have looked up the following information on the Dell support site, which advices the Alienware Laptop owner to do the following in the case of Computer overheats, shutdown when running intensive applications:

1) It is recommended to use the Laptop in a Room with temperatures between 0°C to 35°C (32°F to 95°F) with a Humidity level no greater than 90%

That's fine, I'm in an A/C room at 75°F

2) Check the vents on the computer to see if they are covered with dust and not allowing heat and air to pass through.

Disassembled the laptop so I could even fully take out the motherboard, and used "Dust Out" within the entire machine including all fans.

3) Update the System BIOS... An out of date BIOS can cause heat issues by having an outdated temperature table for the system. 

Just re-installed Windows, all drivers, and flashed the newest BIOS, all provided by Dell Support.

4) Running 3D Benchmarks and CPU tests - Ran all the mentioned tests with the video cards quickly excelling 100°, at which point the BIOS is instructed to turn the system off.