u/Chiamook

Hi again, different question.

So I recently redid the thermal paste and pads on my Alienware 17 R5.
I haven’t played a taxing game on it for about a year because I’ve been too unwell to do the repasting etc myself until about 2 weeks ago.

Loaded up Rainbow 6 Siege on usual high settings as before, just a few days later.

Then noticed on the live performance via task manager that I was getting these sudden very high power usage spikes from the System that lasted only a second or two but kept reoccurring.

As it did this, it was disconnecting my Steelseries Wireless pro headset which the TAC is connected via a USB.

I’ve learned how to prevent the automatic shutoffs from happening to my USB in this situation, but my question is what possible causes for the sudden spike in System power usage could there be?
Did I mess up something when repasting? Can anything like that cause System spikes like that or would it be something else entirely?

I will reply when I can but I truly appreciate any suggestions of what it could be and how to test for any of them.
Thanks so much in advance and to those who read my nonsense problems!!

So, as per the title I have an Alienware 17 R5 laptop.
My first question is SSD related (I’ll post the second separately as it’s a different query)

I already have the 1TB one that came with it and a HDD.
I know there’s additional slots for more SSDs as long as it is the PCIe variety.

Does it matter what amount of storage a second SSD can have? I watched a video recently where they said Alienware only recommends 1TB SSD additional drives for my particular laptop.

Is that true? Or can I crank the second one up to 3-4tb?

Thank you in advance. Very new to upgrading and terrified of messing up such a pricey bit of kit 😭