"Randomly" Crashing Laptop.

**Nevins** · April 27, 2011, 12:08 AM

Ok, the specs.

I have a P-7811 FX gaming laptop, which I purchased refurbished off ebay around 2 years ago. Other than a slight problem with the inverter (if there is to much black on the screen extreme tearing results, I just have to reseat the connector to fix it) all else is fine. I keep the grills clean with a can of compressed air, and use a book to elevate the laptop off my desk, allowing the side/bottom vents to actually do there job.

The problem:
In certain games, I get hard crashes, which require a hard reboot to resolve. I will be playing one of these games (typical candidates are R:TW, TF2, and now my newly purchased copy of ARMA 2). After a certain amount of playtime, varying from several minutes in ARMA to sometimes hours in RTW, I will have my screen flash a bright green and then go black. If I was playing music in the background sometimes it loops, and sometimes ambient sound continues to play (think about the distant gunfire in games).

I know what you are all thinking is the likely culprit - overheating. This was my first guess as well, but if this was true I would see it in all of my games (for instance, I have probably over a thousand hours clocked in Company of Heroes maxed out on this machine. I cannot recall a single crash. This is also how I eliminated steam as a possible culprit, as it runs in the background while I play CoH as well.) and so I am more than a bit puzzled as to why I am getting these strange crashes. If you need any more information than this just let me know and I'll provide it ASAP, this one just has me puzzled.

Note: I am running Windows 7, 64 bit. I also run Ubuntu on this machine, but the problem occurred before I installed ubuntu, and I have never had a crash while in ubuntu. I am considering a clean install of 7, but I would like to avoid it if necessary.

**PoleCat** · April 27, 2011, 10:52 AM

Actually my first instinct is either a memory problem or possibly a driver issue. Rome has issues with a memory leak if memory serves me. I have no idea what TF2 or ARMA 2 are so I can't say there.

Are you sure you haven't installed a new GPU driver recently? What type of card are you using? Have you ever used Memtest?

Good luck!

**Nevins** · April 27, 2011, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by PoleCat

Actually my first instinct is either a memory problem or possibly a driver issue. Rome has issues with a memory leak if memory serves me. I have no idea what TF2 or ARMA 2 are so I can't say there.

Are you sure you haven't installed a new GPU driver recently? What type of card are you using? Have you ever used Memtest?

Good luck!

I'll fire up memtest, but yes, I am running the latests drivers for my Geforce 9800 M GT. I will check again (haven't updated in about 2 months, but the problem started cropping up a long time ago) but I almost hope its the memory, far easier/cheaper to replace.

**karamazovmm** · April 27, 2011, 03:08 PM

I would still open the laptop, clean it, repaste everything and retest. Did this with mine and I dont have throttling issues anymore

**Omnipotent-Q** · April 27, 2011, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by Nevins

The problem:
In certain games, I get hard crashes, which require a hard reboot to resolve. I will be playing one of these games (typical candidates are R:TW, TF2, and now my newly purchased copy of ARMA 2).

Note: I am running Windows 7, 64 bit. I also run Ubuntu on this machine, but the problem occurred before I installed ubuntu, and I have never had a crash while in ubuntu. I am considering a clean install of 7, but I would like to avoid it if necessary.

Is your BIOS up-to-date? What other games do you play on it? Company of Hero's runs in OpenGL as I recall - the others don't. If there's a problem there, a Bios update may well have fixed the issue.

Rome Total War in Windows 7 - 64 bit is always troublesome - crashing, sometimes lag - all known issues with it. Have you got it running in a compatibility mode for an earlier Windows OS?

TF2 also has had issues with Win7/64bit combo but they're more or less fixed now.

**Nevins** · April 27, 2011, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by Omnipotent-Q

Is your BIOS up-to-date? What other games do you play on it? Company of Hero's runs in OpenGL as I recall - the others don't. If there's a problem there, a Bios update may well have fixed the issue.

Rome Total War in Windows 7 - 64 bit is always troublesome - crashing, sometimes lag - all known issues with it. Have you got it running in a compatibility mode for an earlier Windows OS?

TF2 also has had issues with Win7/64bit combo but they're more or less fixed now.

I am running a full memtest on the system right now (hurray for netbooks!) and came up with zilch at 47%. I'm going to let it finish, then update BIOS, double check video card drivers, and while sniffing around I came across this thread with a potential RIVAtuner fix, although apparently it doesn't work for everyone.

Update: Memtest gave me a clean bill of health,so that wasn't the issue. I just reinstalled the chipset drivers but I have been unable to find a current/updated BIOS, in fact I found a number of people asking for a bios update dated over 1 year ago

. I am installing new video drivers right now, as well as RIVATUNER to try for the performance lock fix. Another note on games: I remember that the only other game that crashed this hard was Dead Space 2, another game that I do not believe supports OPENGL

**PoleCat** · April 27, 2011, 10:45 PM

Do what Mr MM suggested and clean out the case if you can. What temps are you reading in your system?

**Nevins** · April 27, 2011, 11:46 PM

Looks like its fixed. I installed Riva and then enables forced 3d performance. Apparently the problem was that my comp was trying to save power in the middle of games (happens really often in DirectX only games) but because it was under a load it caused the whole system to hang. I played 1.5 hours of Arma earlier, we'll see if it stays fixed.

**karamazovmm** · April 28, 2011, 01:09 PM

Well arma is still a very intensive hardware wise game.

I would do what I said.

**Nevins** · April 28, 2011, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by Mr MM

Well arma is still a very intensive hardware wise game.

I would do what I said.

I plan on it, its just that I'm at school and I don't have any compressed air. Ill do it when I go home in a week.

**PoleCat** · April 28, 2011, 03:17 PM

Something I learned here - a hairdryer works just as well. Good luck!

**Bolkonsky** · April 29, 2011, 08:39 AM

Sounds like it could be a driver issue as well. Also, I doubt TF2 has any memory leaks, so I doubt it's memory. (Unless it's physical, though the memtest would have shown that.) Anyways, it's a good idea to make a habit of cleaning it out every once in a while.