M14XR2 Throttling issues, and poor customer service.

First off, I have loved AW since they were their own entity, and the merge with dell may be the reason for the issues I have with their newer products. This isn't an attack this is strictly to get all information on the table and possibly get some solutions to the issues that have arisen since I have owned this machine.

I bought this computer 1 year ago and from the beginning I have had issues with it. From opening the box and not being able to charge it, getting it back after it had been fixed to half of my ram being defective, and now severe throttling of the Graphics card, making game play impossible 15 minutes into playing.

I am not tech savvy but I am extremely resourceful. I have taken the back panel off dusted, tried a fresh install, ran the pc checkup tool provided (with nothing wrong), adjusted graphics settings from my nvidia control panel to bypass the crappy on board Intel graphics, Updated every driver on the computer including the bios.

Start up on the computer takes around 5 minutes, no viruses present I run NOD64 which is the best AV program I have owned (Personal experience) I have noticed the rapid storage takes quite long to load and have not found a workaround on this. Also I occasionally get Program not responding AI something.

Any game play done is OK in the beginning, I say ok because It used to be excellent. now I can run medium settings. 10-15 minutes into playing I receive about 10-15 fps With it occasionally stopping for 5-10 seconds then catching up

I have an expired warranty and before that happened tried to renew it, I called spoke to someone who could barely speak English (Understandable since the tech support is located in india) and eventually got disconnected after being put on hold for 20 minutes. Before being disconnected I was quoted a nice one time offer price for the warranty renewal when I called back I couldn't get a hold of anyone so I waited till the next day. Called the next morning and was told a price which was 200 dollars more tan what i was quoted for the 3 year warranty. I was then also told that the previous price was a one time offer, and they were sorry... (Just received it yesterday)

So my current situation is, no warranty, Throttling during game play, and horrendous startup and load times.

This has never been a issue with my previous models (the models not tied to dell) and quite honestly I don't know what else to do.

Someone please provide some type of fix or workaround before I throw this thing..

Cheers


Edit: Also I forgot to note, I use a laptop cooler with a cold metal top fan in order to avoid it overheating.

 

This does indeed seems like a hardware issue, where your pc is getting overheated. I suppose replacement is needed.
I have an alienware m14x r1. It did had temperature issues even after changing the heatsink, same result because of poor cooling on this very model. But the temperature it reaches max is 98. Just barely enough. 2 More degrees higher and I will have severe problems. And I'm using it like this since the start for 3 years now. Lukely had no problem in terms of throttling or crashing. So yours seems indeed a trouble.

Now I see posts like this people having consecutive repairs, I'm scared to for stuff like that to happen to me, since I'm going to buy the next alienware 14 (if it releases within the next 2 months). I feel sorry for you mate. Try to monitor your system with GPU-Z and Core Temp. Which both show the sensor readings one of your CPU and other your GPU, it shows if they trottle the clock frequency and also the temperatures.

If the problem is caused by your CPU, you should try to disable your CPU's Turbo boost, so it doesn't overclock itself when it's under load. This will drop temperatures significantly. Hope this will solve your problem for now.

 

It runs at 68c and the gpu goes from 0 to 77 to 100 to 0 constantly

 

Have you tried repasting the GPU and CPU?

 

Yes I followed a youtube instruction when i was cleaning it

edit: That being said I didn't feel comfortable changing the thermal pads as I have dealt with the paste before and not the pads themselves

 

Ok I have the same laptop, Alienware M14 r2, and i have had it for a year now...

i was facing the exact same problem.. throttling at 68C, so what i've done was.

first... downloaded the A14 bios, install invidia's 331.65 driver.. this fixed the throttling

... after that i repasted my gpu and cpu with IC dimond and cleaned the fan which was freakin dirty.

now i can run games nromally... no throttling and temps were reduced by at least 20 degrees.

try doing this and i hope it work for you.

cheers