Recently my computer has started crashing on me. I have an Alienware m18x r1 with two gtx 460m graphic cards, and intel 2820 qm processor (I think). Sorry if this is in the wrong sub-forum, if it needs to be moved please do so (new here).
The symptoms:
-happens (so far) only while playing an online fullscreen game
-the computer shuts off INSTANTLY as if I'd held down the power button, sometimes it does reboot, sometimes it doesn't (last few times it has rebooted)
More info:
-I recently cleaned out all the dust from my laptop and applied new thermal paste to the CPU (about 1 week ago) but the problems with the sudden shut-downs only started yesterday ago
-SpeedFan reports that all temperatures within my cpu and gpu are within acceptable limits---below 60 degrees Celsius, and the crash often occurs within several minutes of when I start to play the game, before laptop would have heated up much (before I did the cleaning of the laptop a week ago, the laptop used to feel hot to the touch at times, it never does anymore)
-tried several different versions of NVIDIA drivers ranged from versions 3.35 to 3.30, crash seems to happen either way
-tried updating my BIOS from version a04 to a05, doesn't seem to have stopped the crashes while playing game
-tried clean reinstall of windows 8.1, without success; this severely limits the # of software-related things that could be causing the crash, because there's only half a dozen programs I've installed so far
-avg antivirus picks up no malware that could be causing this
Possibly the cause, but not sure what it means:
-using Event Viewer, I looked through every single event log immediately after a crash. The *ONLY* event that was logged *immediately* before the shut down was this; this error was being spammed, sometimes several times a minute, right up to the time of the crash. However, I have the game open in the background atm, and when I refresh the event viewer, this particular error is still being generated periodically, but the computer isn't shutting down.
- <Event xmlns="
http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-WMI-Activity" Guid="{1418EF04-B0B4-4623-BF7E-D74AB47BBDAA}" />
<EventID>5858</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-09-21T10:02:06.999784700Z" />
<EventRecordID>2214</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="1512" ThreadID="5192" />
<Channel>Microsoft-Windows-WMI-Activity/Operational</Channel>
<Computer>c2</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
- <UserData>
- <Operation_ClientFailure xmlns="
http://manifests.microsoft.com/win/2006/windows/WMI">
<Id>{CA92DAFC-D580-0004-0ADB-92CA80D5CF01}</Id>
<ClientMachine>C2</ClientMachine>
<User>c2\Cameron</User>
<ClientProcessId>4704</ClientProcessId>
<Component>Unknown</Component>
<Operation>Start IWbemServices::ExecQuery - root\WMI : SELECT * FROM MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature</Operation>
<ResultCode>0x8004100c</ResultCode>
<PossibleCause>Unknown</PossibleCause>
</Operation_ClientFailure>
</UserData>
</Event>
My theory (for what its worth): some driver/software/something is incorrectly believing that my computer is in danger of overheating, and is shutting it down to prevent damage. Problems with this theory, why does it only happen during the play of the game? Theory 2; something related to a display driver; problem, why doesn't changing the display driver version seem to help the problem?
I'm at a bit of a loss. When I last looked in my laptop, the cpu/gpu seemed to be properly seated, I checked the tightness of the screws and cables carefully as I reassembled the laptop. Plus, the problems with the shutdowns started yesterday, but the last time I was inside my laptop was about 4 days ago.
Thanks for any help you can provide! Really looking to get this solved asap, because I can't game atm without fixing this first, the shutdown happens too fast.
