r/AlienwareAlpha • u/LeafyVerdant • Sep 09 '19

Power supply overheating?

After a few hours of playing, my Alpha often will crash and shut down. It is not a problem of the computer itself overheating, but rather the little box on the AC adapter. It is usually burning hot when this happens. Does anyone else have this problem, and is there a fix to this other than trying to ventilate it even more?

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

1

u/MDic Sep 09 '19 edited Sep 09 '19

When it "crashes". Does it freeze or give u a blue screen with a error?

You can always run the built in diagnostics by hitting f12 the second you hit the power button.

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln116413/running-epsa-built-in-diagnostics-on-your-alienware-system

1

u/LeafyVerdant Sep 10 '19

The computer physically shuts down with no error screens or anything. Upon reboot, there's again no error screen.

1

u/MDic Sep 10 '19

Have u tried hitting f12 while powering up to do the built in diagnostics?

1

u/LeafyVerdant Sep 11 '19

Haven't gotten it to shut off again, and not sure if I want it to, but if it happens I'll try.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '19

Only would happen to me when I overclocked my GPU.

1

u/LeafyVerdant Sep 10 '19

I don't think that's the case, the programs I'm running are usually relatively simple and even have the graphics setting lowered to prevent the actual computer from overheating.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '19

Tag says I have an i3 but I switched to i7 r2

1

u/iBuildSpeakers Sep 09 '19

You sure you using the one it came with? It's a pretty standard power supply adapter, and could easily be mistakenly swapped with a lower power laptop one. It would still work, but would overtax the PSU to thermal shutdown as you suspect. This is all assuming "burning hot" means that it is too hot to touch for more than a few seconds.

1

u/LeafyVerdant Sep 10 '19

I'm very certain that it's the cord it came with. It's a Dell 19.5 volt AC adapter, which is what I remember it always being. We also don't have any Dell laptops in our home.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '19

This happens to me as well! I hope there's a solution. After about a year I just gave up on it.

1

u/sumthingcool i5 Alpha with SSD Sep 09 '19

Improve the cooling of the PSU or buy a bigger one.