Hello. If you've never done any internal maintenance on the laptop then this may be a good time to have a look. It's possible that the CPU heatsink is having trouble getting rid of the heat.

Since you're talking about the original 17 (2013/2014) then there's a good chance that the heatsink fins are blocked with fluff/dust. The thermal compound on the CPU and GPU die would also be dried up and just about useless at this point. Cleaning the heatsinks, fans and repasting the CPU/GPU is quite simple on the old 17 as everything can be accessed quickly by removing the two small screws that hold the bottom cover down. 

I'd try doing this and seeing how things change before anything else. 

I'm not sure why the touchpad would become unresponsive when the GPU fan would come on. I've owned a lot of the 17 R1 laptops and never come across this one. It's possible that there is a small short on the board that activates when the fan comes on and then resets but I'm clutching at straws with that one. I'll try and see what I can find out though. 

If your system has Optimus and you don't game very often then the GPU fan won't come on very often as the system will be using the integrated Intel graphics. If you don't game then the last resort would be to physically remove the GPU and GPU fan. 

Hi Garber,

I'm having the same issue with my 17 R1, and if you look on the forum there's maybe four other posts of people with this generation of laptop (17 R1s and 18 R1's) having the same issue in the last two weeks. It MUST have something to do with a recent update, but other than that I'm clueless.

Hi @garber200  welcome to this free user to user Alienware laptop discussion forum. This is not Dell Support. 

As the laptop moving parts age, they are prone to become unreliable. Making sure that fans, etc, work efficiently will extend their life. However all dc fans have an end of life rating. Invariably its the fan's thermal thermistor sensor that fails, and the fan speed is then not regulated. Replacing the old fans might restore laptop reliability. These dc fans are not expensive, so worth a try. 

I've noticed that too from the other topics on this forums. Something must of happened with an update to make this happen. I'm using the HWiNFO download and my CPU is running on average at 50C, which according to that software the fans should be running at 3000rpm, but here I am sitting at 4700-5000rpm. I can temporarily get some relief by manually adjusting the fans, but then out of the blue they go back to full with no change in temperature readings.