[Nuke]

my old laptop had a rather easy to get to cooling unit. all i had to do was remove 5 screws to gain access to it and 5 more screws to remove it from the machine. it was an early gaming laptop and the thing wheighed almost 20 lbs. iirc it had a 2.4ghz p4 and a radeon mobility 8000 and i used to play ut2004 on it all the time. even outside in 115 degree weather (i was in phoenix at the time). sounds like they started using cheaper cooling units in order to save some money. the cooling unit it had was a dual fan unit and it was in contact witht the cpu under a coat of thermal grease and the gpu by means of a thermal transferpad.

anyway so long as theres not a waranty void seal over it, and you dont strip the screws, you could probibly take your cooling unit out and they would probibly not notice that you opened it if you took it back. you might want to look up some articles about how to do it on your laptop, if its possible you can probibly bet some other geek has done it before and posted the results on the net. also if its not proprietary, you might be able to aquire a better cooling unit of the same form factor. also if a cleaning is all thats required, it would probibly be best to push the gunk back with compressed air and pull out the dust bunnies through the fan holes with twezers.

[SuperCoolAl]

Wow woke up this morning to see all these replies! Erm, thanks  OK:

Descenterace - Could be some kind of build up I suppose, but I'm not sure I can clean it out

GodisanAtheist - OK I'll try that too (mat_dxlevel 70  )

Stratcomm - Warranty also says 'Customer undertakes to carry out routine day-to-day preventative maintenance as may be recommended under the Customer operating instructions supplied with this equipment. Now in the guide it says to avoid putting the computer in dusty areas or near sources of heat, and I haven't. The climate here is quite cool at the moment aswell. It also gives instructions for other maintenance such as calibrating the battery, but nothing about opening the case, so I don't think it qualifies as 'day-today' preventative maintenance.

Now my main problem with calling tech support is I'm not the buyer of this laptop, Dad bought it, and I don't live with him. I doubt their going to be willing to deal with his 16-year-old son! So I have to wait till I'm there, but I'm going on Friday and over the weekend, so I should be able to sort all this out then. I'm taking some boxes  Short of impersonating him in an email (which I doubt he'll agree to!) my hand are tied at the moment. My stepdad (who is quite an experienced techie) also advises against opening the case without their instruction.

If it was just throttling they would probably have a case, at least, but half the time it doesn't throttle, it just powers off!

Evesham are actually quite a major mail-order PC builder over here, this laptop is basically a rebadged MSI chassis that they've put the components in.

WMCoolmon - As a general indicator of game performance, I never go below 25fps (40-50 is typical) in Half-Life 2 at 1280x800, all details high except AA, AF and reflections. CS:S stress test comes out at 79fps. FS2 SCP it's unusual for me to go below 50. So yeah it is quite capable of playing the latest games, if it weren't for this problem.

Descenterace - Why put an X700 in a non-gaming machine for marketing purposes when the only real advantage to having one is gaming? 

Nuke- The bottom has the serial numbers and nothing else (no warranty void seal). It may be easy to reach the cooler, but I still don't want to risk it.

Thanks for all the advice everyone so far! I'll get back to you all once I've tested games at low details...

[StratComm]

Stratcomm - Warranty also says 'Customer undertakes to carry out routine day-to-day preventative maintenance as may be recommended under the Customer operating instructions supplied with this equipment. Now in the guide it says to avoid putting the computer in dusty areas or near sources of heat, and I haven't. The climate here is quite cool at the moment aswell. It also gives instructions for other maintenance such as calibrating the battery, but nothing about opening the case, so I don't think it qualifies as 'day-today' preventative maintenance.

Now my main problem with calling tech support is I'm not the buyer of this laptop, Dad bought it, and I don't live with him. I doubt their going to be willing to deal with his 16-year-old son! So I have to wait till I'm there, but I'm going on Friday and over the weekend, so I should be able to sort all this out then. I'm taking some boxes  Short of impersonating him in an email (which I doubt he'll agree to!) my hand are tied at the moment. My stepdad (who is quite an experienced techie) also advises against opening the case without their instruction.

The warrenties I'm familiar with haven't ever been that restrictive, so I can't really help you much beyond that.  As for calling tech support, it's not at all unusual for someone your age to call in for their parents, just because your generation is so much more comfortable with the technology than your parent's generation is.  The only thing they would give you a hard time over is the contact information, but as long as you can supply them with the name of the person who purchased it and possibly your relation to that person then you should be able to deal with tech support yourself.

[Descenterace]

Descenterace - Why put an X700 in a non-gaming machine for marketing purposes when the only real advantage to having one is gaming? 

Because the average luser doesn't have a clue about graphics cards and honestly believes that 'better is better' regardless of whether it'll actually affect MS Word.

Not only that, Vista is on the way and it requires a decent card. But it won't make full use of the processing power of said card; it just needs the features. So heat won't be an issue in that case.

[SuperCoolAl]

Well I'm going to see if I can get over to Dad's tonight, and then I hope they're open, it's a bank holiday tomorrow  But I'm pretty sure they're open on Saturday.

I should have resolution soon, I hope!

[SuperCoolAl]

OK time for an update:

I sent it back. On Thursday Dad asked me to call up the techie having a look at it as he wanted to talk with me.

The techie was friendly and competent enough, but basically had a go at me for having the temperature monitoring software (because it's beta, so he uninstalled it) and also for having updated my drivers... but he put all their own 'researched' stuff back on, which is fair enough to me, if any of that affected stability. He also explained how Windows power management works (and set it to Always On even though I already tried that). He said he'd test with 3DMark 03 and 05.

Anyway I've got it back today with their configuration and has it fixed the problem? Not on your nelly! Exactly the same thing happens, the only difference now is general performance has been reduced because I have older drivers!

What amazed me was the guy said he didn't have access to the emails back and forth that had been going on before I sent it back. I don't think he knew exactly what the problem was or what to look out for, he was adamant it was a software fault but it obviously isn't. I have £1000 worth of equipment that is still just about useless.

I think I'm going to have to get back to them.

[Nix]

*hides my nelly*

And the lesson learned here should be, either buy from a reputable internationally-distributed company, or DIY.  I know it sounds difficult, but you CAN build your own laptop, even though it's hella expensive, at least if there are any problems you can tear through the machine to fix it instead of being held back by manufacturer warranty crap.  It still sucks that they will not replace your machine though.  Honestly, they shoulda taken it back without question, exchanged it for the same thing, THEN went through the machine and fixed it.  The customer's happy, and the business can get back the money for the defective parts.  (maybe)

[vyper]

and also for having updated my drivers...

What kind of ****ing retard tells you NOT to update drivers?

[Herra Tohtori]

HERECY!

Thou shalt not update original drivers of thy Machine, for those are Chosen for the Best of thy Machine!

Also, Thou shalt not install any and no alien programs that have no Support from the genuine Goodmaker, thy Grand Savior and Martyr, Microsoft. They shall mess up thy PC.