If you want to use your warranty (for free parts and install labor) you have to go through phone support.

Tell them your radiator fan is running 4000 rpm at idle (instead of 1600). They should replace your whole Asetek cooling system,  re-apply new thermal compound, and get it on there properly/flat.

Search forum. Lots of newer Aurora R4s with bad Asetek coolers recently.

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/p/19516339/20410651.aspx#20410651

Yeah going with what Tesla said it is pretty obvious your cpu is overheating most likely due to a watercooler failure of some sort or poorly applied thermal paste. I would launch core temp and have it running while talking to the alien ware tech over the phone to show them the abnormally high temps and system fan rpms. This is something they should be replacing and doing all the labor on. It can be one of two things faulty- the water cooler (most likely given the previous R4 track record, or the mio board not reading the temperature sensors correctly, and therefore not communicating with the water cooler correctly. If your lights are still working, it is most likely a failure of the water cooler. It's not a difficult fix, but will require a tech to come out and put the new water cooler assembly in. Also I would recommend getting two 120 mm fans, with one being put in front of your radiator for a push pull config to help with the air flow and one being put in the back top corner to pull  cool air in. Search the forums and you will see how you can improve the R4 cooling specifically. Good luck

Glad to hear that tech support finally came to the right conclusion about what was wrong with it. The Aurora R4s have been known to have this problem unfortunately. The good news is down the road you can always upgrade the water cooler to one that is more efficient and do other tweaks to your case to improve the airflow.

Thanks for the responses. I did check the core temps with that link provided. all four cores were at the max 100C. So I followed your recommendation and called dell tech support. they got me to enter the F12 boot function and ran a test. found the temp at 104C and it shut down almost instantly. They are going to be sending a tech tomorrow to replace the cooler. and hopefully everything else is ok.

Thanks for the help, greatly appreciated. still quite disappointed things need to be replaced already, not even a year old yet.. but at least its warranty.

i am having the same issue with the pc i have sadly im not under warranty anymore and dell will not help with the issue. powers down. everything is cool had a tech look at it and told me the water pump is not working replaced it and then i get it back and yet again it is the same. can someone help me plzz

Hi thanks for your response i have had no end of problems with my aurora fans to the extent that i couldnt play fsx they were spinning up to 5000 rpm during game play. So i got on to dell they went on to my computer remotely and discovered that my cpu pump was over reving and the cpu cores were too high so they sent me out a new cpu pump and so far it has been quite as a mouse. When i look into the case now i see that it a different kind of pump it has the alienware head but a slightly different shape im no expert on the alienware but if i had to guess id say its a differnt model of pump. I will keep my fingers crossed because i have had numerious problems with this machine with my hard disc and motherboard problems which dell also replaced i have to say that dell have been very good with there tech support and hardware replacement.The pump was changed only a week ago so ill keep this site posted if any problems reaccure i would suggest to anyone with the same problems to say it to dell and see if they have a fix.  

Update:  I have always used and loved Alienware and had incredible service from them.  The sad fact is that Alienware is gone and all that is left is Dellware. My issue was identical to the original posters and started one month after the warranty ran out.  Dell not only would not help but tricked me into buying an extended warranty and "they would fix me right up". As soon as I paid, they told me "they would fix me right up" but I had to pay for the repair.  I finally spent a fortune to have a private tech do the replacement. I got the pc home and within an hour it shut down twice.  Fresh start the pc was cool long enough to run scans for virus, spyware etc, I also scanned my external hard drive.  The tech said he did this already using Panda but Kapersky found all kinds of Substitute character removed as per TOU>.  Surpise, my pc stopped shutting down but I was still wracked with horrendous lag so I changed out my ethernet wire and I run at a fairly steady 100 FPS, slightly lower when playing WOW.   The fan still is extremely loud when I am gaming which I still don't think is normal.  Any advice would be appreciated on setting adjustments.

Hi im just wondering when did you buy your computer dell replaced my pump just under the 2 year guarantee I didn't take out an extended warranty although dell try to sell it to me a few times. I only realized when I contacted dell that I have a 2 year guarantee on all hardware parts its an Eu law so as I am In Ireland I am covered im not sure if its the same in the usa. As far as the pump goes from day one it was very noisy when playing fsx I only had sim city also but it was quiet playing that although I know sim city is run by the nvidea processor so wasn't using the core processors for that game. Two weeks before dell replaced the pump every application was running the pump from 2000 to 5000 rpm even in explorer and in sim city also that's when I knew that the pump was defective the cores were idling between 50cc to 80 cc which is way to high. If your pump is doing the same Id say you have the same problem I had. If not id say its the older model of pump you have that is not as quiet as the new one dell installed for me. As i said im no alienware expert but the new pump is a different shape its rounder and not hexangler its also has a reflective surface. I would query dell and ask them if the pump they installed on the auroras 2 years ago have been improved by now. I hope this answers some of your questions I paid 3000 euros for my machine and im only really enjoying it now I hope you get yours fixed also but with this machine every time I turn it on im wondering what will be the next problem fingers crossed.   

In the US there is only a 1 year warranty so it was up 8/1/13.  The new pump works well but it doesn't take much for the fans to get loud. The new ethernet cable cleared up the lag too.  Dell is a horrible company.

I'm not sure if you've managed to sort out this issue but I had a similar problem. When taxing the system with applications (not so much) or gaming I experienced the system fan revving up to several thousand times per minute, then quiet down but still remain high. At this point I though it could be my CPU water cooler or heat sink playing up.

Turns out in Windows 7 the power settings were set to maximum performance profile which among other things has a processor power management setting which has a sub setting for "minimum processor state". In this profile that is not allowed below 100% ("maximum processor state" can stay happily at 100% unless you REALLY don't want any excess noise from the fan. I put my minimum to 5% just like the balanced profile and the maximum at 85% - 90% and that seems to keep the fan speed at the same RPM as if the system is idle on the desktop around 1250 RPM). 

So as soon as I set this I no longer had the fan spin up to take off speed.

Not sure if that'll help anyone but I hope it does. I traced the culprit software to AVG Tune up (very good so not taking anything away from it) which set the power profile for me.

Rob.

Exactly how mine looked today when I opened it up. Thanks for the tip. The system works much better now. Cores almost 20 degrees cooler, and my computer doesn't go off like a jet engine each time I open up an app. Cleaned out the goo, reseated with fresh thermal paste, and should be good to go until I replace this  Substitute character removed as per TOU> cooling system dell included in the system. My only concern now is any lingering heat damage this may have caused, but at current there aren't anymore indicators of issues. Thanks again.

I'll add that the alcpu program for reporting on core temperatures was also the key to me realizing the truth.  Do NOT rely on the temperatures provided by Command Center.  The "ambient sensor" temps reported were in an acceptable range, and my reliance on those reports allowed me to prolong the overhearting issue.  I'd say it was misleading at best, and not relevant to the temperatures of concern.

The core temps were around 55-57 degrees C at idle (Windows 7 running with default startup apps; me not doing doing anything), upwards to 87 to 92 degrees C (not good).

If you think you're having overheating issues, give this program a shot before you take a look at the cooling system.  And if they're high, there's probably a decent possibility you've got a gunk cloggage.

Hi, my desktop had the same problem lately. But I couldnt find the part in picture, can u tell me where it is? and also,where did u purchase the replacement part?

Thank you!