Odd video problem

[KajiMaster]

The system I'm having issues with is a 2 year old Alienware Laptop.  The Silver Area-51 to be exact.  It has a Pentium 4 3ghz processor with a 512 Geforce video card and 1g of ram.  This system has been so awesome for so long but recently I have been having issues.  A few months back I had problems with a "click" sound that would happen every so often and only last for a few moments.  I wanted to guess this issue could be the HD but didn't want to except that for a few reasons: (1) I noticed no system problems; nothing ran slower and no data ever became corrupted.  (2) I didn't want to have to pay for a new HD just to find out something else needed replacing.  So i posted this issue on a few sites and got a lot of "of course its the HD you idiot" attitudes.  Once my refund check came in I bought a new HD and installed it.  The problem "clicks" still came around ever so often.  After a few weeks these clicks went away like it has fixed itself.  Yesterday my girlfriend was playing a game on this laptop and the screen froze.  The video looked similar to how the old NES and SNES looked when those games froze up.  When I saw it I knew it had something to do with the video card.  Probably an overheating issue.  I downloaded a program called Speed Fan to run on the laptop.  It showed 4 temperatures for my system.  Two of these temperatures where steady around 20's and 30's for the HDD and Local Temp.  The two other temperatures where not nice.  The temperature for the Remote Temp reading started at 32c and stops at 53C.  The reading for ACPI called temp1 starts out at 75C after a boot!!.  This is WAY to hot for anything in a laptop.  This is where my confusion sets in and my skills need advising before I continue.  What is this ACPI?  I want to guess its the temperature reading on my Video card.  This could have been what was making the clicking sound all along (When i first heard that sound I could have SWORN it was a fan rubbing up against something; however, i opened this laptop and checked all the fans but must have not noticed a Video Card Fan).  Are there even fans for Graphics Cards in laptops?  Would the temperature for them get to 75C that quickly?  So many questions go into this issue.  Laptops are very low on my computer skill as is many overheating issues.  Please if any of you guys could help point me in the right direction I would be more than happy.  I will provide anymore information that is needed in aiding for a solution.

Thanks,
Kaji

[DaveLembke]

Still sounds like a cooling fan issue. I have also seen in computers where the heatsinks can become dismounted from GPU and CPU's or the thermal take dries up and cause the temperature to climb Very Fast, sometimes catastrophic with a nice crackle and smell. Does your system give off any odors when it freaks out? Is it warm to the to the touch anywhere that is an unusual amount of heat? Do you hear any fans running at all during operation? If no fans running, you might have one that is lockedup, bearings bad or some obstruction. ALSO...Some of these Fans will make Ticking noises if locked up, since they are a brushless motor induction fan that converts solid DC on a smal breadboard circuit into a Pulse Width Modulated signal to control the RPM's of the cooling fan.

I'd locate your cooling fans in the laptop, and find replacements at www.mouser.com or try to find a replacement through the MFR, which will have a markup. If you know how to match up + and -, and match up the fan size, CFM's, and type, you can save yourself probably $20 to $40 per fan by buying teh fans through Mouser.

[GX1_Man]

Maybe contact Alienware and see what they suggest?