Alienware M14x temperatures extremely high. (Help on options)

Firstly, I'm going to state that my running temperatures when idle are 50-60 degrees Celsius. If I run a game they jump to 95-99 degrees. This is off the cooling pad.

Now I hear people saying theirs runs at 30-40 idle and gets to 80-90 when running games. And off the cooling pad or they don't use one.

I think mine probably needs a re-paste but I am afraid to do it. As I remember reading a post where I guy did his entire dis assembly and reassembly and then found that he the motherboard was reporting that it had failed. He had voided his warranty. He was lucky as it started some tries later, but the threat is there of me destroying something. It also seems all very complicated to disassemble and then reassemble remembering to plug every component in again.

Any ideas? Should I buy some Arctic Silver and re paste sometime? Or just stick to the cooling pad whenever I want to play. (Means bringing it with me)

I've done some work on my M14x before. But re-pasting is the ultimate task. I'm sure I could do it. But I'm concerned I might screw up. Has anyone else done it successfully and thought it wasn't as bad as I put it?

 

First thing first, have you also disable Turbo Boost found in the BIOS? Because that would reduce the heat generated by the CPU significantly, now for the teardown/disassembly guide, I can link you an excellent thread for that and you can ask question should you have one: Alienware M14x Disassembly/Teardown and Upgrade Guide.

You can also ask Dell to do it however you will have to make up story to make it sound so serious because they will not sending a technician just for the repasting job. So if you have any other problem with the laptop, say you broke the Sub woofer then I can say you can bring this repasting job to the conversation and make it sound serious too.

 

Another one of these threads....

I blew some compressed air into my rear vent, took off the bottom panel bunch of dust came flying out made my CPU go from 90c and up, to no more than 75c while playing BF3 for a couple of hours....I also did this to my cousins M14x and it did the trick, no extreme temps, real cool.

 

Alright cool. I can check my vents but they shouldn't be to bad I generally try to keep them clean. I'll do what you recommended. As for CGS I'd be a bit cautious about calling Dell since I already replaced my hard drive with an SSD. And I don't know if that voids my warrenty

 

Hello guys....

So, I see everyone saying that Turn Turbo Boost off improves temperature.... but here with Turbo Boost ON I have 50-55 degrees iddle
With Turbo Boost OFF is absolutely the same.......I bought my M14x 1 month ago.....

Sry for bad english

 

Yes, 45-55c is the normal temperature when idle, the fans do not turn on so often and turbo also does not kick-in often during idle. I think many people want to lower temperatures at load by turning off turbo. Do you have high temperatures at load?

 

Just yesterday I put in new ram and did a repaste of cpu and gpu. Took a a lot longer than I thought it would. However, temps prior to repaste were 45 to 47 at idle. Now, they are at 40 to 41 at idle with chrome running. So that part is good. There was a BUNCH of thermal paste on there from factory. I mean. WOW! I have not yet disable the turbo boost.

 

Doesn't look like you even need to disable your turbo. What's your temp while gaming?

 

While gaming I am around 65 to 71. Just played a hour and never got over 61

 

We're talking about load temperatures; Turbo Boost increases load temperatures on my M14x from ~75 C to ~85 C while gaming.


@OP - You seem to have the same problem I had, I had similar temps before my repaste with IC Diamond 7. Does your M14x lag a lot while playing not extremely graphics-intensive games? This is probably due to the CPU underclocking itself.

The only solutions are to take it apart, and either clear out the dust, if it's there, or do a repaste.
Repasting isn't that hard, you just need to be patient, and careful. There's an excellent guide on disassembly on the forum:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-m14x-disassembly-teardown-upgrade-guide.html

 

I have the same problem right now with my M14x. My i7 2860QM runs at 65-75 idle :O and runs up to 99 while gaming . i do have turbo on. with turbo off its 60-70 . Should i consider doing a repaste . I did it for my M17x and its reduced my temps by almost 20C. I used MX-4 .


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Probably. I'm going to do one in the next few months. Although it is becoming winter here, so maybe the overall cold temps will keep my laptop in good limits

 

My CPU temp didn't crossed 70 degree C and GPU never crossed 60 degree during winter, but now my CPU temp goes 80 plus nd cpu goes 70 plus. should i be worried. M using a hopeless cooling pad with turbo boost turnd off, I am from india so its in hot here now..!!! And also... as soon as i stop gaming the GPU comes down to low 60s within few mins (3-5 mins) and GPU comes down to 60

 

If those are your gaming temps, they are great. No need to worry.

 

Yes these are my gaming temps, idle are awesome...!! anyways thanks for your support. Big relief, I got a bit worried....!!!

 

I had the same problem; was having idle CPU temp of 65-70 and in gaming was going upto 95, with GPU temps just under and performance seemed to decrease a lot at those temps. I followed the advice to blow compressed air into the fans, however didn't have an air can, so improvised by blowing into them. A surprising amount of dust came out and also my idle CPU temp is now 45-55 and in gaming has not reached 80 so far. I'm very pleased with this change, but its still early days i guess.