I have an Alienware Aurora R9 purchased in late 2019. About 4 days ago when I booted it up, I got an error message from SupportAssist during startup:

Dell SupportAssist has detected a failing component on your system that requires immediate attention. Go to http://supportassist.dell.com/ and enter the issue description below:

Service Tag: [not sure I should post this here]

Error Code: 2000-0511

Validation Code: [also not sure I should post this here]

Fan - The (CPU FAN) fan failed to respond correctly.

I continued booting up the PC, and the temperature reader said the CPU was at 100 degrees celsius (212 fahrenheit), and the fans were running at close to 100%.

I immediately turned the PC off again and followed the SupportAssist’s instructions. I opened the case to give it a thorough cleaning with a can of compressed air, focusing especially on the inside of the CPU-case and the fan.

Then I updated my BIOS from version 10.0.23 to 10.0.25. I rebooted it, no change, same error message and the fans were still going crazy.

I turned the computer off for 8 hours to make sure it was totally cooled down, gave it another cleaning of dust just to be sure, and booted it up again. Same problem. The temperature read 100 degrees instantenously on start-up, but never changed from that temperature whether the PC was idle or I was running really intensive programs and games. I tried to test different programs on the PC for several hours, and the PC kept working fine. (But I did notice the CPU seemed to be throttling as my programs were really slow to load.)

I had the same problems the next day, but mostly left the computer turned off. Just brief tests and opening the PC case to make sure the fan was working properly and the CPU was dust-free.

But then on the third day, I booted up the computer, got the error message that the CPU fan was malfunctioning, but when the PC booted up it was back to normal. No heat problems, fans working fine and quietly. I used a lot of really intensive programs and the CPU temperature hovered around 30 degrees celsius the entire time. I faced no problems using it for several hours for the whole day.

Now on the fourth day, I’ve booted up the PC again, and it’s back to claiming the CPU is at 100 degrees and the fans are freaking out.

I’m really not sure what to make of this. I’m suspecting the CPU isn’t actually overheating and there may be a sensor misreading the temperature, but I have no idea how to actually fix this. Besides the noise, the CPU throttling is an annoyance. (And of course I’m still afraid the CPU is actually getting cooked)

When I feel my hand over the PC’s fan ports, it’s just blowing very cool air, and the case never seems to run hot at all.