Help plz, XPS m1710 problems

I bought my m1710 around 2.5 years ago, I was very happy about the laptop for the first few months, then things started getting nasty.


Constant overheating, (I clean heatsinks and fans periodically, and get clean installs of OS once in a while), random shut-offs, and finally the vid card gave up. I called xps customer service and they fixed it within 2 days, (including shipping back and forth), to be honest, that was really darn impressive.

Things got a bit better after that, then started going downhill again. For example, I was able to play BF2142 on full graphics perfectly when i first got my laptop, but not anymore, turned to medium graphics and still exprienced huge framerate drops when something explodes in my face or in front of me.
Then keyboard buttons and media buttons got messed up later in the time.

I've been busy in school so didn't have much time to play games, now I finally got time to play but the system just isn't cutting it anymore. Same games I used to play, (cs:s, bf2142, bf2, NFS series and etc.), games started to lag like crazy after 15 min or so of playing. (not even mentioning how it gets heated up like a frying pan). Finally I got fed up with it, the laptop is frustrating the crap outta me. What's the point having a gaming laptop that can't game... I have a feeling that the vid is gonna get fried soon again.


specs are 7950GTX 512mb, 2.0 core 2 duo, 2 gig ram, rest are standard.

I know you guys have seen lots of these problems/threads, sorry about that. I'd like to know if it's possible to exchange my m1710 for some other models that are more reliable, and if it's possible, how do i do it. I've seen lots of ppl getting their xps replaced, I'm wondering to what extent the problems have to be in order to get a replacement from dell. (i still got couple of months of complete care left)

Any help is greatly appreciated.