M14x R2 ivy bridge shuts down randomly when playing D3 and MW3 while running onbattery

I just receive this laptop six days ago and I'm facing an issue whereby the laptop shuts down while I was playing Diablo 3 and Modern Warfare 3.
The first time it happened, I was playing Diablo 3 about 30 mins into the game.
It just happened the second time when I was about to play Modern Warfare 3, except it shuts down during the cut scene.
I do not believe its an overheating issue as the problem occurred when I just booted up the laptop with the battery fully charged (and not connected to the AC adapter).
The only solution to reboot the laptop was by plugging it back to the AC adapter, else, it refuses to boot.
It also once hang on me when I was playing D3 at one time, such that I have to press on the power button to reboot the pc (causing me to lose my entire D3 progress).

I did not download any program that could help overclock this laptop (I'm a total IT noob to be honest) nor make any changes to the bios, neither did I do a clean install of Win 7 whatsover. I did however try to download the latest drivers on to my laptop but it appears mine are already up to date. I am unsure about what version my bios is though.

Frankly, I ignored the problems I faced as I was hoping it was a one time issue until the laptop shuts down on me the second time this week.

So, after a lengthy post (sorry about that), my question is, is this a common problem for the r2? I did do a search and realised its a common problem with the r1, but I don't see any reported issue with the r2.
Should I call Dell up and request for a change of laptop or tech support? Today is the 6th day I've got this laptop. It can be too much of a hassle having to reinstall my games and Microsoft office though.

 

Sounds like a battery problem, it's hard to diagnose with little to no data and just rough guesstimates but at any rate it's obvious this issue is impeding your game play and you should definitely ring Dell tech support. Get them to inspect it.

 

Does both of the game you list above are play on battery? Because most battery on the Alienware laptop doesnt really meant to be play on battery because of the power it draw during gaming, So I wondering if you try them while plug in, to see if it still shut down.

 

Yes, on both occasions, the problem occurred when I tried to play on battery. The games works fine when running on AC adapter.
It does seems a little contradictory that Alienware advertises their laptop as portable gaming but I can't game on battery though.

 

Does disabling turbo boost help? could be drawing more power than the battery can discharge.

 

Okay, that's tell me enough, like everyone say here, I think your battery is faulty because I knew of a person who have a R2 and he can play on battery fine without any shut down except for the frame rate problem which is inevitable when it is on battery. So I suggest you call Dell for a battery replacement.

About the advertising, never trust any brand that say their laptop can play on battery, well technically yes you can play on battery but practically you will experiencing problem such as framerate issue, and those shut down issue, usually after 45-60mins, your laptop would shut down as the battery run flat, that would be even faster if you play on the dedicate GPU - NVIDIA GPU.

 

Thank you all for the advice. I will be calling dell tech support asap.

 

I have encountered the same problem. The battery would be fully charged and I would try to game later just on battery. It would shut down without notice when I played BF3 (ultra settings) and/or browse the internet. After it shuts down like that, it goes to this 'safety boot,' which requires you to boot with the AC adapter. That's why you couldn't get it to boot without the AC adapter. The safety boot shuts down the battery even if you have fully charged it.

After updating the BIOS and drivers, it only does it when I try to game with high demanding games -- not browsing the internet (at least not yet). I need to try BF3 in lower setting to see if that helps, but I'll keep you guys updated later.

mystiq, let me know what you find out after speaking with dell support.

 

I think most of the laptop have that problems because i have seen an hp dv6 and Asus GX55 run games that those laptop shut down during the launch of the games of middle of the heat of the battle. HP dv6 wont load up games when it is on battery.

 

update definitly not a battery issue... i had this happen when i was playing bf3 1080p last night and was running from batt and my battery is fine.

It doesn't really bother me though, i dont plan on gaming without the brick.

 

Thanks for the advices and tips everyone, I have been busy lately, but I will be ringing Dell up tomorrow just to make sure things are fine. (the laptop just hanged on me big time when I played D3 again, I had to press on the power button for a few seconds to reboot the laptop).

I will definitely post here the replies I get from Dell.

P.s. The laptop hanged on me twice while I was gaming D3 on the AC adapter, not battery.

 

Update

I spoke to Dell tech support earlier. They had me run some diagnostics (which all turn out fine), reinstall my games, namely D3 and MW3 and also reinstall my graphic driver.
Ultimately, the advise given is that, both D3 and MW3 are graphic intensive games that was never meant to run on the battery (as some of you have mentioned here).

Case closed!

 

For graphic intensive game, D3 yes, but not MW3, wait until you try it on BF3 on battery, I bet it would drain your battery 2x faster than MW3's. However like I said in my previous post, the laptop never meant to be play on battery (Especially on higher setting) without lag, shut down or performance dip. Even simple program like Minecraft I still having fps problem whenever I try it on battery.