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Alienware 17 r3 freezing while gaming

frozensun
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Hi guys.

I own Alienware 17 r3 6820HK GTX 980M.

I purchased it recently tried some gaming (Rise of the Tomb Raider, Serious Sam) and after 10-15.min games freeze, but I could hear audio from game.

Now I am not yet at home, but when it happens I do get separate window error message and will post it later.

Then again there are moments when I could play for like an hour and no errors.

From my experience reading about this issue, this means my GPU is dying, correct?

I installed most recent nVidia drivers.

Temp of GPU while gaming is max 76 C, but usually around 72 C depending on load.

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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You have that damned 240w adapter no?

 

Those things are mega ubstable and will just lock up a system asking a fair bit of power.

 

Else check for a repaste those temps are low for a system aged like that so I think a repaste happened already and it may not have happened properly

 

Else have you done a full fresh windows reinstall and just installed the gpu driver FROM THE NVIDIA SITE and not really anything else. Then tried to game?

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2 hours ago, jaslion said:

You have that damned 240w adapter no?

 

Those things are mega ubstable and will just lock up a system asking a fair bit of power.

 

Else check for a repaste those temps are low for a system aged like that so I think a repaste happened already and it may not have happened properly

 

Else have you done a full fresh windows reinstall and just installed the gpu driver FROM THE NVIDIA SITE and not really anything else. Then tried to game?

Yeah but gpu temp is not high, it goes high as 76 C max..I don't think that is high foe 980M.

I will post error message later.

Repasting, dunno if it's done or not.

I read this freezing is common for this model, lots of threads on internet, guys tried all possible things even repasting.

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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26 minutes ago, frozensun said:

Yeah but gpu temp is not high, it goes high as 76 C max..I don't think that is high foe 980M.

I will post error message later.

Repasting, dunno if it's done or not.

I read this freezing is common for this model, lots of threads on internet, guys tried all possible things even repasting.

Thats what I mean. The temps are low and for a laptop this age that isnt normal if it has stock paste on it so I am also suspecting a bothched thermal paste change from the previous owner.

 

Even if not used ever the paste is going to be pretty much dry and that gpu should be running hotter. Hence why I think this is also an option.

 

Freezing is common and its usually linked to the power adapter.  A check for that (unless its really gone gone) is to downclock your gpu and cpu to make it use less power. If say the cpu only running at 3ghz and the gpu running at 400mhz less on the core games fine its either psu is cooked or the dreaded vrms/power delivery is damaged.

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2 hours ago, jaslion said:

Thats what I mean. The temps are low and for a laptop this age that isnt normal if it has stock paste on it so I am also suspecting a bothched thermal paste change from the previous owner.

 

Even if not used ever the paste is going to be pretty much dry and that gpu should be running hotter. Hence why I think this is also an option.

 

Freezing is common and its usually linked to the power adapter.  A check for that (unless its really gone gone) is to downclock your gpu and cpu to make it use less power. If say the cpu only running at 3ghz and the gpu running at 400mhz less on the core games fine its either psu is cooked or the dreaded vrms/power delivery is damaged.

Any tutorial on how to undervolt both?

I have 2 power bricks and the issue is happening with both.

So, what should I do, to resolve the issue?

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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2 hours ago, jaslion said:

Thats what I mean. The temps are low and for a laptop this age that isnt normal if it has stock paste on it so I am also suspecting a bothched thermal paste change from the previous owner.

 

Even if not used ever the paste is going to be pretty much dry and that gpu should be running hotter. Hence why I think this is also an option.

 

Freezing is common and its usually linked to the power adapter.  A check for that (unless its really gone gone) is to downclock your gpu and cpu to make it use less power. If say the cpu only running at 3ghz and the gpu running at 400mhz less on the core games fine its either psu is cooked or the dreaded vrms/power delivery is damaged.

I asked previous owner he did not change the paste, but he is a second owner.

Are you sure that replacing thermal paste would solve the issue?

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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12 minutes ago, frozensun said:

I asked previous owner he did not change the paste, but he is a second owner.

Are you sure that replacing thermal paste would solve the issue?

It is only one of possible solutions.

 

These laptops suffer with a poor power supply which causes many issues over time.

 

The least impactfull thing to test is just as I said lower the clockspeed of both cpu and gpu a good bit and run a game.

 

 

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okay.This is the error message I got when game froze.

 

Screen Shot 04-14-24 at 06.03 PM.JPG

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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These are temps only 15 min while gameplay...and I do have cooling pad under laptop (5 fans).

 

flir_20240415T184332.jpg

flir_20240415T184356.jpg

flir_20240415T184419.jpg

flir_20240415T184423.jpg

flir_20240415T184511.jpg

flir_20240415T184532.jpg

flir_20240415T184607.jpg

20240415_184638.jpg

flir_20240415T184659.jpg

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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Last night I played game for a like an hour, no freezing luckly.

It is strange that happens sporadically.

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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And it happened again...twice.

Second time it happened in a change of game scene.

I guess as you said I will have to find tutorial to undervolt.

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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Is not harmful for GPU to undervolt it?

It could work unstable?

I will not damage it?

The only thing I can do is to take it to local repair shop, but guy who does from his experience for many many years told me that cleaning and repasting would probably not help, freezing in games is a bad sign of a damaged gpu card which in my case is not socketed.

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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This to use?

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/topic/6729-nvidia-maxwell-vbios-mods-900m-series-overclocking-versions/&page=45#comment-173998

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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Just played game for like 1.5 h no issues.

How it is possible that even if it is hardwware issue (mosfet, failed ram memory chip) thay freezing sometimes it happens sometimes it does not?

I wish it could be just something else but doubt it.

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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Naaah.I can forget about gaming, twice happened again even when lowered settings to medium.

Should I test GPU with mats and mods?

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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So even it started issue (freezing) very soon after launching Unigine Heaven which was not the case before.

Now I did messed up something from one website advising what to do in case of this error, I believe I did add some reg value.

So one last thing to do is that I did removed latest installed nVidia driver with DDU and installled version from Dell website some older 4xx... version, and I ran Unigine Heaven and will leave it for an hour...wish me luck, so far so good.

Quote

 

 

 

Please do not take offence for my apparent confusion or rudeness,it's not intent me to be like that,it's just my BPD,be nice to me,and I'll return twice better,be rude and usually I get easly pissed of...I'll try to help anyone here,as long as it's something I dealt with,and even if you think I'm rude or not polite,forgive me,  it's not me it's my BPD.

Thanks for understanding.

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