Emery Pearson Posted August 1, 2011 Share Posted August 1, 2011 I have been experiencing odd sluggish frame rates, but not at the initial start of any of my games, and it would disappear for a moment after alt-tabbing(GPUs cooling I assume).rI am running two 280M's in SLI with 170.63 drivers on Windows 7 x64. The overheating seems to effect both cards, but it's the primary one I am looking at, seeing it holds at 220-228 degrees while gaming. The secondary seems to hold about 10 to 25 degrees less. I WOULD like to replace both fan units entirely, but it isn't an option right now, so I am trying to make the fans more aggressive.Right now, the only time I EVER hear my fans hit 100% is when it initially start with the computer; it's almost like they are capped at 80% or so. I recently tried everything under the sun to change any of the fan speeds in my M17, and HWiNFO64 has had more luck than the rest. I was curious if it's even possible to access my fan controls. Through HWiN, I have access to the Fan 1 slider bar, which from what I understand, should effect the other two? But regardless, I can't get any changes in the speed to save, they reset every time I close the tab.If anyone as a clue, I could use some help, my performance on my M17X is disappointing to say the least. By the way, I am freshly reformatted with my BIOS updated to A07, I can't upgrade beyond 170.63 drivers either, something about Nvidia removing Alienware from their list of supported GPUs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted August 1, 2011 Share Posted August 1, 2011 You got serious overheating issues!! I highly recommend not to use your system for gaming until you reapplied the thermal paste on the GPUs and CPU.Get thermal paste, some rubbing alcohol to clean the heatsinks and dies, and immediately repaste! Those temps are simply crazy. In case you never reapplied the thermal paste yourself, check out the guides here. It's actually pretty easy. If I'm not mistaken, the r1 and r2 are identically when it comes to the construction of the system, so check out the -cleaning-replacing-thermal-compunds-gpu-cpu-m17x-r2.html"]photoguide here.There's no need for pushing the fan speed when you have properly repasted your system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emery Pearson Posted August 2, 2011 Author Share Posted August 2, 2011 (edited) I suppose your right, guess it will give me the chance to air dust every little corner as well. Thanks for the tip, I was looking for a cheap solution like this. Any idea why the over heating became an issue? This thing made it through a Iraq deployment without a hiccup, and its quite cooler here, and in the last 6 months it's just about croaked on me. Arizona is a bit hot as well..What is normal for my 280's by the way, the second one runs fine. I knew something was wrong when the entire left side of my PC was just about on fire heh. Edited August 2, 2011 by Emery Pearson Mispelling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 Yeah, checking for dust is a good idea too! Thermal paste can degrade over time, especially the cheap stuff that Dell uses, it dries out, gets pumped out and thus looses the ability to transfer the heat properly.I don't know what's normal for the 280m, but you should be able to keep it below 80°C I guess (also depends on the ambient temperature). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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