Skfire Series 17.3 - Help! Hardware issue?

[Subrak]

Hi guys - maybe someone can give me some advice on this...

Earlier today, a laptop I ordered from PC Specialist arrived - like a kid in a candy store, I've been anticipating this for a while now...

So, after verifying everything was present, I decided to have a game of Stronghold 3 - The game runs it just fine, smoothly no matter the graphics setting... But I got very concerned when the sound of the fan hit such levels that it could be heard over the TV.
Then, without even a warning, the entire computer instantly shut down... I've seen this happen before with laptops when something gets too hot. I guessed it may have just been Billguard resetting the laptop, but it happened a second time with nothing but the game, and steam running.
So I've started searching for the problem - and think I've found it... Nothing too fancy. I downloaded Speccy - it allows you to monitor information about hardware.
(I don't want to damage the laptop in case it needs to be sent back, so I lowered the game resolution and took it out of full-screen mode just in case - so it's actually worse than this...) I have similar temperatures with other games too.

This was taken with only the title screen open!
No wonder the entire laptop can't play the game for more than a few minutes at a time before shutting down. Right now (As I type this), I'm using less than 5% of the cpu, and the graphics temp is sitting at 70c. With nothing other than this screen and speecy being open.

I'll paste the laptop specs below - but my question is... Does it sort itself out after being left on for a while? A gaming laptop, that can't play games, is useless (As you can probably all agree!!)
Also: I live in Scotland, it's bloody cold up here, and I like it being cold. The room temperature is rarely above 19c . The Laptop is on a cool wood table, and the wood remains cool to the touch (As does the bottom of the laptop) even when the temperatures reach this high.

Either way - to whoever replies... Thanks for giving me your time!

I appreciate it!

- Simon

Specs: Showing Order Reference 656666
Chassis & Display SkyFire Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4810MQ (2.80GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 8GB)
Change to: 16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 770M - 3.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - Hard Disk 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
mSATA SSD Drive 64GB Plextor PX-64M5M mSATA SSD (upto 540MB/sR | 160MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 6x BLURAY WRITER, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card ASUS™ XONAR-U7 Compact 7.1 USB soundcard and headphone amplifier
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0
Wireless Router/HomePlugs NONE
USB Options 3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery SkyFire Series 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 8.1 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Professional DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Laptop Cooling Stands NONE
Carry Case Targus XL City Gear 16
Stand-Alone Monitor NONE
Keyboard Language BACKLIT MSI UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Additional Keyboard NONE
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Gaming Mouse Pad NONE
External Speakers NONE
Webcam INTEGRATED 3.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

 

[vanthus]

I would give PCS a call come Monday,does look like an overheating problem.
Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm (Saturdays 9am - 1pm).
View waiting times here, http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/call-waiting/

 

[mantadog]

if the fan is spinning up then I presume the fan unit itself is fine. I suspect your going to need a RMA, the most likely cause is a damaged to the heat sink that connects the GPU/CPU to the fan. probably got knocked loose in transit.

if you want a quick opinion what you can do is undo the bottom panel of the laptop (PCS allow you to do it and will not void the warranty just don't physically touch anything) take a picture and post that.

 

[Subrak]

Thanks for the Input Vanthus & Mantadog!
I noticed after another examination, that there's a 2nd air-vent on the other side of the laptop that is currently not open (The Vent is covered by, what I can only presume is the factory-cover for the laptop chassis.)
Would anyone know if this is meant to be like this?
About unscrewing the bottom and taking a picture - I'll do that in the morning, thanks for the suggestion! (I need to go buy a non-magnetic screwdriver set first)

Thanks for the late-night responses. Talk later

 

[Subrak]

I've decided against taking the back panel off. The screws seem unusually TIGHT - more so than I've seen in any other laptop I've had. So to avoid murdering the screw thread... I'll just contact pcs tomorrow, and hopefully send it back so they can fix whatever it is - they can handle dealing with awkward screws instead of me. It's a win-win situation

I had it on this morning - same problems. All this is quite sad to be honest.

All my previous orders have gone without a hitch though! That said, they were always desktop towers, not laptops haha.

 

[mantadog]

Well if your happy to send it back in then no problems. Let us know what it ends up that's wrong with it anyway.

 

[Subrak]

I don't have much choice... I'm loving EVERYTHING about it! But there's no way I'm going to pay so much money for something that's going to burn out within a month of doing what it was built to do

Just going to cross my fingers and hope they'll fix it... Here's hoping pcs will It wouldn't be fun to go through the entire process of returning it, that's for sure!

 

[mantadog]

They may ask you to do some of the checks before you send it in, but you can just tell then you would rather not and send it in anyway. PCS are realy good about letting you fiddle with stuff and not voiding the warranty, but see what they say anyway.

 

[Subrak]

Asked for the return - but if they're willing to help me with diagnostics... Thats even better

But i'm beginning to think it may be a faulty temperature sensor. At 90c -ish - you'd expect the air coming out to be REALLY hot - but it isn't. Speecy and smc both read the same temperatured though - so i'll try reinstalling the gpu driver i have on the utilities disk. It's worth a shot at least!! What type of driver would govern the temperature sensors - would you know?

 

[mantadog]

It's more likely to be the motherboard drivers, would be rare for a fault to be those giving a temp misread like that.

The air coming out wouldn't always be hot, here is why.

See this image for reference. http://www.intel.com/support/processors/mobile/pm/img/REMOTE1.jpg Yours will have a 2nd "recess for thermal interface material" the 2nd one will be for the GPU

You see the copper pipe runs from the CPU to the fan?. It takes the heat generated by the CPU/GPU to the fan assembly where it transfers the heat to the air with the help of some fins like in a car radiator (to increase surface area). Now imagine the copper no longer making perfect contact with the CPU, air draws heat away much more slowly than copper so the components get hot, the copper stays cool so the air is still cool upon exit from the vent.

That's how that can be explained, so I think it had a rough delivery and something to knocked loose. But without opening it up its not easy to say.

 

[Subrak]

Your explanation actually does make quite a lot of sense now that I think about it!

When the storage starts hitting temperatures of 40c too - without even being in use... It really must be a cooling problem. I'll wait and see what they say back to me - and let you know how it goes. Thanks for all your help so far!

- S

 

[mantadog]

The HDD isn't cooled by the same system so that's a bit of a red herring im afraid. In fact its probably not cooled at all. My desktop HDD is sitting a 35 degrees at the moment, 40 for a laptop HDD isn't bad at all.

 

[Subrak]

Quite happy to hear that to be honest. Less to be concerned about - either way, that's it off unless they need anything before seeing it. Crossing my fingers for the best!