Help! Alienware m14x is lagging horribly!

I hope someone on these forums can help!
So basically i've had my laptop since Christmas specs - 6g of ram, intel i7 @ 2.20 GHz Nvidia gt555m ect.
Bottom line is i should be able to run games like cod4, world of warcraft, skyrim even. I can't run them on lowest settings. This problems came up about 3 weeks ago, it just started acting slow. After obviously no help from tech support, I wiped my harddrive and the problem hasn't been resolved! Any help? Bios? Drivers? Over heating/ thermal paste? I'm at a loss. Thanks

 

is your boot up slower/slower than a normal re-installation of win7?

check out coretemp to look at your cpu temperature
use msi afterburner to see temps of 555m gt and tell if it is being utilized

 

The boot isn't bad, just a little sluggish once i've first logged in for a minute or two. As for temps i have looked into this a LITTLE, i have had it when i was playing KoA the laptop shut down to prevent damage from over heating. However games lag when it's still very cool.

 

edit* I've been playing wow for about 5 minutes now and cpu cores are hovering just below 100C and nvidia gpu is around 84c

 

those are both way too high. wow is not a game which should push your system to the limit. also 84 on the gpu without an oc? even with an oc i hit 75 at most.

i'd get a repaste.
in the meantime, buy a can of compressed air and clean your fan/vent.

 

Just contacted alienware support, they are sending a technician to replace the fan and repaste soon. didn't expect that, but hope it helps.

 

WAIT!!!

The technician will show up at your house with that crappy cheap stock paste.

Before he comes (re-schedule it if you can), buy high-grade paste like IC24 Thermal Compound (or anything high-end) and get the technician to paste it for you once he shows up.

Just don't tell Dell because they might make a big deal out of it. Say you want to reschedule your appointment and time his next visit to when you can expect the paste to be delivered. Explain to the technician that the paste you're holding in your hand is high-grade and if he uses the paste Dell gave him, it will only cause more heat problems. Tech shouldn't say no if you're kind and polite about it.

High-grade reduces temps by up to -10c. What Dell uses doesn't even come close.

 

You would think that a high-end vendor like Alienware would use higher grade thermal paste in their computers. Hell, I wouldn't even mind paying more for the knocked up prices.