Alienware m14x R2 Performance drop

[Alcyonestus]

So, as you can see in the title, I'm having issues with my Alienware m14x R2 (I bought it when I didn't know much about PCs, and it came with flashy lights). I've tested this on Skyrim, Minecraft, modded Minecraft and Valley Benchmark 1.0. Skyrim's load screens have gotten significantly longer, and I've noticed stuttering and general fps loss. In Minecraft, I'm getting 150-200 fps where I used to get over 1,000, so it's a very significant loss of performance there. Finally, my Valley benchmarks scores haven't dropped too much (From 660 to 600 on the Extreme Preset).
I've cleaned out the fans, re-installed nVidia's and Intel's drivers, but to no avail. The performance I'm getting is equal to what I'd get if the games were running on the Integrated Graphics, but I've checked, and that's not the case. Being 14, I really don't have enough money to build myself a nice rig right now, so I could appreciate any help.

Oh, and Specs:
i7-3630QM 2.4Ghz
nVidia GT 650M
16GB of DDR3 1600Mhz RAM.

Again, all help is much appreciated.

 

[DarkSable]

How long ago did you get it?

Your computer is going to get pretty cluttered over time, and Alienwares start out pretty cluttered, so if you have a whole bunch of background programs running, that's going to affect things.

 

[Alcyonestus]

I got it right around a year ago, but if that were the case, why is the performance dropping all of a sudden? Shouldn't it slowly decrease? (I Was running modded Skyrim at perfectly playable frame rates up until a couple days ago).

 

[DarkSable]

I got it right around a year ago, but if that were the case, why is the performance dropping all of a sudden? Shouldn't it slowly decrease? (I Was running modded Skyrim at perfectly playable frame rates up until a couple days ago).

True. So that means that there are three issues that might be happening.

1) The fan got a strand of hair wound around it and isn't actually spinning, even though it's clean. See if you can hear noise from each fan when gaming.

2) There was a driver update that screwed something up. Try reverting back to older drivers.

3) You got a virus from something. Download Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials, run full scans with both of them..

 

[Leonhardious]

Hi, I have a M14x R2 and i use it a lot for gaming. The problem with it is that every 8-12 months it has problem and decrease fps in games. But with a general cleaning of the laptop (mainly fans) and most important...a change of the thermal pastes, is like new again runs the games just as new.

Hope you understood me i am not a native speaker.

Also check the solution of this thread, it is the same (or at least a part of what i tried to say):
http/www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2359065/low-performance-alienware-m14x.html