Hi Michael,

I've owned a few M18x R2's over the years but I've never come across this issue. Was the diagnostic you did through the F12 Boot menu? If not, give this one a go. Unfortunately, the diagnostics don't always pick up a hardware error and it's possible yours is software/driver related.

You could try booting in Safe Mode and see if both issues are still there. 

Other than that, I'd suggest to open her up and clean out the heatsinks and fans and repaste your CPU and GPU's just to completely rule it out, even though your temps seem ok. If you haven't done this in a few years it's a good idea anyway. Unfortunately, the M18x isn't as easy to maintain as the smaller laptops as disassembly is more complicated.

I'm not sure about the cursor issue either. This could be caused by the CPU acting up or even a RAM or a Windows error. You could try removing all but one memory stick and seeing if there are any changes.

If all else fails then I'd suggest removing your dedicated GPU's and see what happens when it runs just off the Intel graphics.  

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

Support for Alienware M18x R2 includes Diagnostics and the option to run the 40 minutes Full Test to thoroughly analyse your PC and this can detect hardware problems. The erratic touchpad behaviour suggests power fluctuations, please run Windows Reliability Monitor to look at event reporting timeline.  How to use Windows Reliability Monitor to identify software issues | Dell US 

Thank you for your advice, I will have a friend check it out using your information provided.

Cheers, Michael

I too have an Alienware M18R2 and have the exact same issue that started around the same time as yours.  Is yours on Windows 10 and did it update recently?  Mine seems to have updated around the same time as my fan issue.  I know this because I never had the little advertisements in the windows search bar prior to the update. 

Same symptoms as yours in that all temps are low, all air passages are clean, yet the fans run at full speed after a minute or two after booting up.  Hopefully someone else has seen this as well.  

Thanks very much for you advice will have to get a friend to help me sort this out will try what you have recommended then...

much appreciated

Hi there, yes it is windows 10 and it did update recently also when I watch videos at times it distorts into colours like the screen is damaged and the sound distorts into a scratchy humming sound and the cursor jumps all over the place but the cursor may not be related as it was doing it before..

Anyway did you find a solution? can you tell me what update it was so I can check it out for me it was the last one a few weeks ago and would dearly love to fix this...

Thanks much appreciated...

I have windows 11 installed, these days it started to give a problem with the update, I tried with linux on another ssd and I have no problem with the FAN

I uninstalled the latest updates, after uninstalling windows update of June 16, 2022, the problem was solved

Hi, was it a cumulative quality update KB5014699 windows 10 as this is the only that installed itself on the 16th June?

Cheers

Michael

Hi, try uninstalling the updates until the date that I indicated, at the time I was not writing down the version, but I remember the date

Verifying in my registry the last uninstalled update package was KB5013889 in windows 11 Pro.

Check to see if you have Dell SupportAssist installed.  It's useless for our old laptops, but once I uninstalled it, the fan issue stopped.  It was updated June 26th.  That was when I noticed the issue.  Hopefully it works for you as well.

Just adding reply here. My Alienware M18x R2 started revving fans to full speed around the same time as other posters. It was nearly 10 years old so I repasted CPU (i7-3840QM) and GPU's(680M) to no avail. Rolled back bios(A14) on Friday and installed unlocked A11 to see if I get some additional control of fans but again this doesn't seem to fix issue. Something else is triggering fans and my mouse/keyboard freezes while it is doing it. Clicking "System Auto" inside HWInfo does reset fans back to "Bios" Ec control. Uninstalling latest windows updates does not do anything to improve situation. Wasted too much time on this already!

       Cheers

      Phil Lewin

Update: Reinstalled last two windows updates dated after 22nd June that I had previously removed. Restarted. Noticed I updated SupportAssist on the 24th June 22. Uninstalled support assist and some legacy Alienware support assist os recovery programs. Restarted and my fan has been silent for past two hours. Bit too soon but will confirm in 24 hrs.