Hey guys Im having some trouble with my shit alienware, and I don't think dell would help me because I changed the computer slightly. When I get into a game, my titan x will heat up to 83 degrees Celsius, and stay there, and then after a while of playing the computer will just shut off completely. I don't know what the deal is, the power supply is 875W so i think that isnt the problem.

If th GPU is hitting 83c it is already running hot. I could imagine it is hitting a set point shut down temp, like 90c for a few seconds and by hitting that set point it shutting down.

So the solution could be two fold
a) raise the setpoint to a higher temp so it doesn't shut down
b) figure out a way to keep that mother-truckin' GPU cooler, because 83c is a bit too high if you ask me

Keeping the GPU cooler could be as easy as cleaning out some dust; or changing your fan profile to have the GPU run its own fans faster; and/or speeding up your case fans while trying to keep positive pressure - move more air in and out.

This is an extraordinarily bad idea. The thermal limits are set where they are to protect the hardware from damage.

@mike: Which is why you read the rest I wrote....

83° in any game or just one specific game? Have you checked if the gpu fan is running? Also what is the idle temp?

@monkeyking1969: I did read it, and it doesn't make any sense. There is no situation in which preventing thermal throttling of a GPU is safe, which is why I don't understand why you would even suggest such a thing. This is the first time I have ever seen someone recommend bypassing a GPU's set thermal limit so it doesn't throttle when it gets too hot.

Dude the set point he has is ALREADY ABOVE 83 c...correct? Correct. If its set currently at 84, 85, or even 90 it can still be set at 91. And, sorry, but you are wrong to think setting the set point to 91 is any more or any less in danger than 84 or above for a test. As, I said 83c is still too high, but why the computer is shutting down is an unknown...that has to be nailed down.

The idea of a set point is to trip, this person needed to know what the set point is, and needs to know if the computer LASTS LONGER at a higher set point. If that doesn't help...well fuck...that removes an easy solution or fix from a possibility.

Why?

Because if its NOT the set point of the GPU it is something else that IS an unknow which is worse because running hot is fixable whereas power issues or spikes are harder to diagnosis. The original poster needs to see if the set point for the GPU is getting tripped just as much as they needed to go down the list of what else is being tripping. Nobody is saying to run the system hot forever, we are saying see if THAT is what is tripping. Running your GPU hot for an hour is worth it to see if that is the issue. Running you GPU at 90 c or even 91c won't hurt it any more than 83c for MONTHS. As I said twice in my original post 83c is a bit too high for everyday temps, and I gave the poster advice for lowering it. But, all the same raising the set point higher to see if the computer doesn't shut down is key to remove it or pinpointing it from the punch list of possible problems.

@oursin_360: The gpu idle temps are in the mid 30 range, so that is normal... but I just looked at some benchmark forums that the titan x is very good at staying pretty cold for the games its running, its normal temperature in crysis 3 maxed out is 83 C so i dont think that the titan is the problem, and yes the gpu fan is running. Im still not sure what would cause this... could it be the 8gb of ram?? running a game like arma 3 or the witcher 3 maxed out in 4k plus steam, skype and teamspeak open at once could cause it to go over and crash? is that even possible?

Yeah what is your ram usage looking like with all those running? If the ram gets up to 99% then it could definitely cause a crash. You could run the memtest to check your ram is faulty as well, but also is your cpu overclocked at all? If so it could be an unstable overclock(also if the titan is overclocked it could be unstable as well), i had an issue with my computer freezing and it ending up being a cpu overclock that was unstable. But yeah just start testing everything, checking temps etc, making sure everything is at stock settings when testing. Also what exactly did you change in the computer?