G73JH-RB Restarts when gaming (Skyrim, BF3)

Hello everyone, I am making a thread since my laptop is now starting to act weird. Hopefully someone can help me out.

I got BF3 and Skyrim recently and it worked fine for about a day. Recently, my laptop starting restarting by itself when I play any games whatsoever. It runs fine when I'm browsing the internet or watching a movie. It only restarts when I start playing a game.

I installed a program which monitored my temp during idle and it was at about 60-66 C or so. I believe this is too hot for idle temps. Once I get home, I will check the temperature during gameplay, if it stays on long enough.

Also, one thing I noticed is that everything runs fine when I am using the battery. As in, I can play Skyrim for as long as there is still charge on the battery. However, when I plug the power adapter in, it restarts randomly once again. I re-charged and played with only the battery and it runs fine. Then once I plug it in again, it restarts. I'm not sure if this is part of the overheating issue.

I will try opening it up and cleaning the vents out but if this doesn't work, I might have to bring it back. Which brings me to another issue:

I bought the laptop from Best Buy in July 2010. I heard this laptop only has a one year warranty and obviously that is way past due. Am I screwed if I want to have it RMA'd?

I apologize for the long thread but I hope that someone can provide some wisdom on what I need to do now.

Thank you very much!

 

Sounds like an overheating issue to me. The reason you can probably game fine while on battery is because the GPU downclocks a lot on battery so it's cooler. Clean out the vents and if it doesn't work you will need to repaste. Repasting is not hard, there are several guides on the forum in the sticky.

 

So I just aired out the vents of my G73 and wow what a difference!

Before the temps were (within ~5 mins of turning it on)
Idle - ~55 C
Load - ~65 C

Now (within ~5 mins of turning it on)
Idle - ~45 C
Load - ~56 C

I wish I had done this sooner. Now time to test it on games. I will let you guys know how it goes. Hopefully this fixes it. I don't really want to have to open it up and repaste.

 

You know if your still having this problem with it rebooting on ac power, and yet you said it works fine off the battery, I would say it's your power support dying. Maybe time for a new black ac power brick. is it still under warranty? contact asus right away and maybe you can get a new one. don't try fixing it your self, if it is under warranty. just get on top of them and let them do the work for you. I know first hand with desk top pc's if your getting reboots on it's own 99% of the time a dying power supply. I've seen it first hand too many times so that's why I posted this.