Aurora R4 overheating problem SOLVED!!!

There is a great program for testing your graphics card. When they tested my card they said the temp had to go to 98 degrees max. During the testing my liquid cooling fans started sounding like a helicopter cranking up, so it turned out my graphics card was fine, but they had to change out the liquid cooling system. That program is called "Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0". It is a free download and works great.

Thanks for the suggestion. I gave it and try and it brought the computer to that halt state after temperature reached 110 with Min 45% & Max 96% GPU. The fan didn't sound any different during that time. I'm attaching the snapshot I took before the monitors went dark.

Glad that program worked for you. Looks like you are due for a new graphics card. I have the GTX560Ti which works fine for me, but I am not a heavy gamer. Newegg and Amazon show a lot of graphics cards, just depends on the needs and what a person wants to spend.

First issue with this desktop in 5 years so no complaints at all.  BTW, not a gamer either but really like multiple monitors..may go for the GeForce GTX 970 which can do 4 but need to review the specs more closely. Thanks again

My Grandson just built a computer and installed the MSI 970 card. He says it's the best he has used so far. He is a heavy gamer so I know the card gets a workout. His only comment was, it runs a hotter than his 660Ti did. Good luck as there is a lot out there to choose from.

I have the R4 and also have the 970 installed since Dec 14.

I had the 560Ti as well and couldn't believe how much better the graphics are with the 970.

Got Farcry 4 with the card as there was a deal at that time for the free game and it looks beautiful !

Wayne/GGCan, thanks for this feedback, I'm encouraged. I came across some tutorials to clean the video card so it cools better. Will give that a try, worst case I'll totally break it and end up buying the new card either way.

One thing I found with the 970...it runs much cooler than any other card I've had previously.

Re-applying thermal CPU paste didn't help. I swapped the cards and now the card that was running cooler is also a bit hot (thought not as hot as the card it replaced). Will run on one card for a while, just not sure if the card heating up may be a side effect of something else at this point.

Also, why does one card appear to run at higher GPU/memory speed than the other? Temperature on it is also higher while running valley benchmark tool.

just to close the loop, officially shopping for a replacement card. Someone suggesting reverting driver version, as newer versions could have been a factor, but the temperature still hoving 67-70 after the downgrade. Only noticeable improvement, preventing the system from halting, was swapping the cards.

Thank you for this topic! And for the replays on it! 

I did have the same problem, Cleaned the Liquid cooler for as good as possible. But it still felt like a peace of junk so instead of putting it back in i got the corsair h80i, and sofar its really doing alot better than alienware's liquid cooler. Its also half the price of a new dell cooler, wich will break again after a few years.

Alienware is nothing more than a fancy name, a good looking case and logo. 
In the 3 years ive had my system my motherboard and cooler died. 
I did buy my alienware cause i didnt want any problems for a long time and thats why it was worth extra money to me. But next time i build my own pc since it seems i can do better research on hardware than dell do's.

I agree with what you are saying. I really like my R4, but I had trouble with it from day one in some form or another. First time I tried to start it, I got nothing but a cursor blinking in the upper left corner. That was on a Friday so couldn't get anyone out till the following Tuesday. Turns out it was trying to boot to a non-existent hard drive, so much for any QC and testing.. Two weeks later the graphics card had to be replaced. Then the DVD/CD drive went out. I didn't even call support on that, I just bought one a BB and replaced it myself. Then the door wouldn't come down on the front to expose the card reader etc. Again I didn't call and fixed that myself. All the fans except the ones on the motherboard have been replaced, it goes on and on. I had to have the liquid cooling system replaced because of the over heating and 4000 RPM fan thing. They did replace it with the new, what they call deluxe model cooler and radiator. Have a friend who bought his Grandson a Alienware Area 51 for a graduation gift and has had many problems with it. The thing that is really upsetting to me is, I bought a off the self computer before the R4 and used it for 3 years without a problem, Gave it to the neighbor who has been using it for 2 1/2 years and still no problems. It doesn't make sense to spend 5 times more for a computer and have nothing but problems with it.I have 5 more months of warranty on my computer and when something goes wrong after that (and I am sure it will) I will be buying another brand computer. Maybe my computer was one of those late Friday builds you hear about, but non the less, very disappointed in Alienware.

DUTCH-VERTIGO, curious, do you have stats to share for before/after? Would be good to see.

If you are referring to the times the techs were at my house, then yes. I can get those off of history in my Dell account. The techs that come out never left any hard copies or for that matter, made me sign anything. If you are talking about the things I have done myself, then I have the receipts for out of pocket expense. Never kept track of time it took me to fix the problems.