7720 Overheating After SSD Installation

A week ago I purchased a 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD to use as a boot/OS/games drive for my laptop. Installation and formatting went smoothly, but the first time I booted from it the computer got past the BIOS splash and shut off. I didn't think much of it since the second time went fine and installation of Windows and all my programs went awesome. The drive also checked out fine in Samsung's Magician software. Normal usage is great and snappy as I expected from the SSD but I've noticed that when playing games (GTA IV and Skyrim thus far), the laptop shuts down after a time, something that never happened before installing the SSD. Suspecting the drive may be overheating, I tried switching the SSD to my secondary drive slot that has a vent under it to see if that would alleviate the problem. Again upon first boot after swapping bays, the laptop cut off right after the BIOS splash but booted fine afterwards. I was able to play a bit longer on Skyrim than before but then the same issue occurred. When the computer shuts down, it's not an immediate total shutdown like when the CPU overheats, first the screen shuts off followed shortly by the computer itself. The area around the heatsink isn't unusually hot, only where the drives are. After letting it sit for a few seconds the computer will start up and boot into Windows fine with no issues, no error messages, nothing in Event Viewer either.

I also tried booting from Windows on the HDD and playing games from the SSD. During this I was able to play both Skyrim and GTA IV for 30 minutes each with no problem and no excess heat. 

Due to my last laptop having a severe overheat issue, I keep a temp monitor running all the time on this system. While gaming my CPU temps never rise above maybe 70-75 (unless it's a heavy game like Crysis 2 then it hits the low to mid-80s). I've been using HWMonitor to check the SSD temps and noticed that normal  usage stays about 50C. When I checked it after booting into Windows after one of those sudden shutdowns, it was at 60C. I also checked the temps while running Windows from the HDD and playing games off of the SSD and the temp after exiting Skyrim was 55C and it only took a few minutes before it began slowly cooling down until it settled at 43. The drive never cools down like this when I'm booted into the Windows installation on the SSD. 

The only other work done recently on the computer was having the mobo replaced under warranty due to a faulty power connector but again the issue wasn't present before the SSD.

I've ensured that the air vents are always clean and even blew them out again last night to make sure and no dust came out. I also tried reflashing the BIOS (A16) but nothing changed. 

Also on a probably unrelated note, I've noticed my fan staying on more than usual. It used to only come on when needed but lately it starts up shortly after boot and goes constantly. It's not blowing hot air (in fact quite cool air) and CPU temps check out at about 40 degrees which is around normal idle temp. While running the Windows install on the HDD and gaming from the SSD, the fan seemed to spin faster than it does while running games on the SSD installation of Windows. 

Also I have Windows 8.1 64-bit installed on both hard drive and SSD.