XPS 17 9730, overheating

Update: tried a 100$ heat sink, it did bring the temp down about 10 degrees. But when gaming CS2, it shuts down again. I need help!

im also experience the same issue. It always run at 100c even without opening my work programs or any games. Tried repaste the thermal paste didnt solve the issue. Tried disable the intel turbo boost in bios, temps still reach 100. Hope there is solution for this

@bobyhw39​ When did you start to experience this? It happened to me a couple weeks ago. Before that, I've been gaming for a year smoothly.

@erichywang​ It happens on 3 days ago. I even can run GTA 5 Enhanced Version without an issue before, and the cpu temps arround 76c-80c last week.

@bobyhw39​ Have you made any drivers update since then?

@erichywang​ yup tried update drivers and bios today, but still no luck :{

Mine is:
Core i7 13700H
RTX 4060 8GB
32GB Ram
2 SSD with 512GB each

Drivers Installed:
NVIDIA Studio Driver 572.83
BIOS version 1.18.0

@bobyhw39​ I mean, have you had any updates right before the first overheating? I checked my system log in BIOS and found there are some firmware updates before my first overheating (3/12/25). Just wondering if you had the similar situation.
I read some posts elsewhere and people ended up replacing the vapor chamber to fix the issue. Below is mine and I suspect there might be some air leak in those metals. There's definitely a systematic thermal management issue with Dell XPS. And unfortunately, we as customers have to debug the whole thermal channel, from repasting, to replacing the $100 heatsink and cleaning the fans.

@erichywang​ Same here.. started about 2-3 weeks ago.

Hi,

I am also having this issue with an XPS 17 9730 and RTX 4080 GPU.

My GPU reached 89 C about 3 minutes after launching enscape and then crashes. CPU was also thermal throttling for the first year of use until I changed some power and performance settings in the BIOS. Still not able to run essential work software with the GPU thermal issues and fans are still running full blast on startup. I unfortunately didn’t know the extent of the issue until I jumped back into rendering workflows just after my warranty ran out.

I have tried:

• Repasting with higher quality thermal paste
• Removing files from laptop
• Reinstalling Windows
• Reducing number of startup apps
• Manually updating all relevant drivers including BIOS and Nvidia
• Optimizing BIOS and Graphics settings (some improvement but not enough to make the GPU functional for enscape)
• Cleaning fans, using proper cooling settings
• Reducing screen resolution, leaving 4K monitor unplugged
• Reducing rendering quality and resolution in enscape

The only thing I have not tried is replacing the heat sink but I’m hesitant to put any investment into this machine if I’m not going to be able to use it for work.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Also, if someone has the same build and is able to get the expected performance out of it, please let me know.

I have the exactly same issue :/ Yesterday (15.04.25) it started to slow down a lot, I could not game at all because of really low fps (5-15). What is weird to me that it happened suddenly. There were no suspicious issues before. I don't know, maybe something was installed in the background.

Now, I've updated the drivers, repasted stuff but no result.

@b3rrybda3460​ please post again if you find a solution or cause of the issue.

@Archi_user​ sure mate! For now I turned off a couple of options in the Performance section in the BIOS and it's at least usable under normal load (55-65c instead of 90-100c). But when I've launched BG3 it switched off again :/

I wanted to chime in on this issue, I've had these exact same issues lately, the cooling fans crank all the way up to high and the performance plummets, even if I just have a web browser window and Word open.  Mine is an XPS17 9730 I9 WITH Nvidia 4080 and 64 GB ram.  This only recently started happening a couple of months ago, after a year and a half of trouble-free performance.  I put on new thermal paste, carefully cleaned the fans, the cooling fins, and the vents, changed the battery, fiddled with the BIOS settings, I put these little rubber stick-on bumpers on the bottom to elevate the bottom of the laptop for better cooling, I installed new cooling fans, none of this worked.  Finally I bought a new drive and did a complete system reinstallation and the problem vanished, the laptop is as quiet as a mouse, (for a week) but today it started up again, fans on high and sluggish performance.  You don't expect these kinds of issues with a $3,000 laptop.  Sorry I don't have a solution and I speculate that Dell doesn't either.  It's out of warranty so my next step is to replace the motherboard, on my dime.

@Rick94131​ that’s the same spec as mine. Have you had the heating  trigger a shut down? If so, was the GPU temperature the cause of a shut down?

I also tried to reinstall windows yesterday - but it didn't help at all, not even for a moment. In the meantime I've ordered a new heatsink so I'm waiting for it rn.

Would be great if someone from Dell could take a look at this issue...