Last night, I loaded Vista Ultimate on my laptop (Alienware m9700, Turion ML-44), and my system began to overheat, making my system auto shutdown. Now, the longest uptime i can sustain is 10 minutes (even when idle) without using a real fan to blow at the base of my laptop.
 
 
The thing here is, I had managed to play World of Warcraft on Vista at the start of this year for at least 8 hours straight, when Vista was just released. I reverted to XP though because my video card drivers were not very compatible at that point of time.
 
I ran a speedfan check (www.almico.com/speedfan.php) and three fans were detected. Temp1 is probably the graphics card, Go 7900GS.
 
Fresh boot from a cool machine:
HD0: 36C
Temp1: 50C
Core: 58C (red flame, danger)
 
After 10mins with no fan blowing:
HD0: 37C
Temp1: 75C (red flame, danger)
Core: 60C (red flame, danger)
 
After 4 hours idle with fan blowing:
HD0: 42C
Temp1: 83C (red flame, danger)
Core: 62C (red flame, danger)
 
 
I have already opened up my system and cleaned the fans of dust and dirt, any idea what else I could do?
 
Oh and by the way, I experience no lag and whatsoever, but the fan just gets overworked until system dies >.>  

try checking the power options. power options > change plan setting > change advanced power setting. i particular the cooling options. i have a toshiba laptop and had to install a toshiba vista power options addon to access the special power saving and cooling features.

did you download the chipset drivers?