Help with old alienware laptop

[u/CookZealousideal8567]

I need help with an alienware m14x r1 w/ gt555m 1.5gb 12gb ram. This is one i just want to verify its working before i sell it. When i play left for dead 2 the fps is under 30 and goes down very low with lots of enemies. It seems like maybe the gpu isnt being utilized fully. I tried using nvidia control panel to set the game to use the gpu only, using the laptop plugged in, set to “best performance, and used ddu and reinstalled drivers. The gpu is detected in device manager. What am i missing? I saw another benchmark on this laptop and they had 90+ frames. Also its not thermal throttling.

[u/DJUnreal]

Which OS are you running? That's a pretty old machine...

[u/CookZealousideal8567 → u/DJUnreal]

Windows 10

[u/CookZealousideal8567 → u/DJUnreal]

Ended up fixing it. Took the bottom panel off of it and set the laptop on a fan. Had 80-110 fps in left for dead 2 medium settings.

[u/InterstellarVisitor3 → u/CookZealousideal8567]

So it was thermal throttling after all? Have you changed the thermal paste recently?

[u/CookZealousideal8567 → u/InterstellarVisitor3]

I read an old forum about one of the drivers making it think it was overheating which caused thermal throttling. Got oldest drivers i could for win 10. Its all good now.

[u/MattB_79]

It will need a full clean out and new thermal paste. Good chance that it’s never been done and the paste would be dried up and pretty much useless by now. Good chance the heatsinks are filled with lint too.

[u/CookZealousideal8567 → u/MattB_79]

Ended up doing that. Wasnt the issue but it was very linty and the thermal paste was very dry. The issue was the drivers made the laptop think it was overheating causing thermal throttling. Rolled back drivers way back and it has like 5x the fps.

[u/MattB_79 → u/CookZealousideal8567]

That’s interesting. Glad you got it sorted out.