PC overheating/rebooting while playing games

[DarkSorcery]

I have an Alienware X51 that I got 3 years ago (I guess it's an R1) that will reboot when I play games. I take it that it's overheating because the system will go to a black screen, the fans will turn up to 100%, it will do that one or two more times then sometimes will reboot itself afterwards. It's happened on games such as Path of Exile, Warframe, and Marvel Heroes 2016. On Warframe the fans will turn up higher after loading screens for a few seconds, and for the other two, the fans would turn up seemingly at random times. The PC has even overheated/rebooted when playing an easy to run game such as Age of Empires 2 HD, when the system is just as quiet as it is at the desktop. I've cleaned it out a few months ago, still does this. I don't have anything overclocked either. I've also never updated any drivers, if that could cause any of this to happen. My specs are:
Windows 7 64-bit
Intel i3-3220
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
6 GBs RAM

Any solutions?

 

[greens]

I have an Alienware X51 that I got 3 years ago (I guess it's an R1) that will reboot when I play games. I take it that it's overheating because the system will go to a black screen, the fans will turn up to 100%, it will do that one or two more times then sometimes will reboot itself afterwards. It's happened on games such as Path of Exile, Warframe, and Marvel Heroes 2016. On Warframe the fans will turn up higher after loading screens for a few seconds, and for the other two, the fans would turn up seemingly at random times. The PC has even overheated/rebooted when playing an easy to run game such as Age of Empires 2 HD, when the system is just as quiet as it is at the desktop. I've cleaned it out a few months ago, still does this. I don't have anything overclocked either. I've also never updated any drivers, if that could cause any of this to happen. My specs are:
Windows 7 64-bit
Intel i3-3220
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
6 GBs RAM

Any solutions?

Sounds like a bad or low quality power supply unit in my opinion. black under load almost always points to a loss of power to the GPU, cuasing a partial system failure - some rigs recover, some do not.

Again, i would start with the power supply.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there DarkSorcery,

Have you reapplied thermal paste?

Also, you can use some software tool, so we can see if your system is indeed overheating (temps of CPU and GPU when under load). It sounds like it. Can you turn it on right after it shuts down?

As greens suggested, it could be PSU related as well. Yet, my advice would be to take a look at the overheating possibility first.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[DarkSorcery]

I've never reapplied thermal paste.

I do have MSI Afterburner so I'll have that on while I run one of the games. These x51s use a power brick so I guess I'll have to get another from Dell if that's the cause.

 

[greens]

Another from Dell is just going to have the same exact problem. What you need is a better brick. Whats the wattage on that power brick? Probably 90? I know for sure you can get as high as 150W without any issue, and i'm sure with some effort you could find some closer to the 300W mark, which, in reality, is what you need to power a discrete GPU.

 

[DarkSorcery]

The power brick should be 330 watts.

 

[greens]

The power brick should be 330 watts.

Wow that is larger than i thought it would be!

Can you source a bigger one maybe?

 

[DarkSorcery]

I think that's the highest they have. I wouldn't think it would be the power brick not having enough power, since I've had the PC since summer of 2013 & this problem never happened until July of this year.

 

[DarkSorcery]

Finally have some temperatures.

After 2 hours, the hottest the CPU got was 72°C, & the GPU's max was 66°C.

I did update the graphics driver beforehand & the system never overheated or rebooted.

 

[DarkSorcery]

Another shutdown happened. The hottest CPU got was 71°C, GPU's max was 67°C. The shutdown happened when the fans were low & the fans never turned up high or anything, just a black screen out of the blue. After the screen went black, the system stayed quiet for a few minutes before the fans turned up to 100% & stayed that way for 2-4 minutes. PC did not reboot afterwards.