Please Need Help!! Asus G51vx crashing

I just received the Asus G51vx with Windows 7 64bit preinstalled on Wednesday from a purchase I made on eBay and the PC works fine until I try to play a game or do anything that requires use of the video card. I cannot figure out what is wrong. When I try to play WOW the screen freezes and then the colors all change and then it either ends the game and I get an Nvidia failure message or I the system locks up and I have to restart it.

I have read through the forums and done a pretty good bit of research over the past several days and haven't been able to find a solution.

The nVidia 260m driver is up to date according to ASUS website. The current driver is version 8.15.11.8640. I know there is a newer driver from nVidia's website and I have tried to update to that but it made things worse.

I have also checked to make sure the system wasn't overheating because I know this is an issue with this model. The odd thing is that GPU-Z says that my idle temp is around 60C and even when I try to play WOW the temp only peaks at around 75C before it crashes. The highest I've seen the temp go is 77C. But from what I can tell the fan doesn't kick on until the temp is around 75C.

The configuration I received had windows 7 64bit preinstalled and a backup image is partitioned on the hard drive to restore, but there were no utilities from ASUS installed on the system or that installed when I tried to re-image the drive and start all over again. The Bios is the current version from ASUS which is 2.05

Does anyone have any suggesstions???
Is there something other than the GPU that could be causing the lockup??

Any ideas would help


Thanks in advance

 

Does it happen with other games?

Your GPU temps are completely normal, but to be sure, try to use HWMonitor and run a game or 2 to see your max temps.
Also, check for your CPU temps, just to be sure.

 

Okay so I took your advice and tried to run another game. The only other one I have installed now is Torchlight and it seemed to run without any issues although it doesn't really need much to run.

I ran WOW and the CPU temps was 62C peak. And about 70C peak for the GPU. But it still locked up. I just got the PC so I havent installed any of the other PC games I play but if wow is skipping and locking up I don't see how Dragon Age 2, or Dragon Age Origins would work any better.

Do you think its a driver issue then???
I have the most up to date driver off of ASUS support site but I know Nvidia has newer drivers, but which ones are stable?
Also what's odd is WOW will not let me set video settings to anything higher than Fair.

 

I'd try to use Nvidia drivers, and see what happens. I insist on recommending to install some other games and then let me know your results, or you could use a benchmark like 3dmark to stress your system a little.
I use the latest Nvidia drivers on my G72, and my GF does on her G51VX without any trouble; don't worry about using Nvidia's drivers, with Asus you aren't stuck with their official site's drivers.
Also, your temps are completely normal, CPU and GPU, so that's good.
BTW, are you on the latest BIOS available?

I hope the newest drivers solve your problems!
Cheers, Kindjal.

 

okay i will give that a try and see what happens.

My current AMI BIOS is (this is from Bios)
version 205
VGA BIOS version: 62.92.83.00.12.1N300280.02
EC BIOS Version: 2000190001

Is this the newest BIOS?

Also in BIOS
Intel VT-d is set to "Disabled"
DTS-based Thermal Management is set to "Disabled"

Shouldn't these be enabled?

 

You have the latest BIOS, so nothing to worry about there.
About those options, Intel VT-d is for processor virtualization. You don't need that enabled if you are not using a virtual machine, and DTS-based Thermal Management refers to DTS, that is a Digital Thermal Sensor，when the option is enabled, BIOS can get the CPU temperature data through DTS. I really don't know what difference could it make, but I don't think that enabling it would harm your system in any way.

 

Okay thanks for the info I really appreciate all the help. I'm downloading 3dmark and I will run it when I get home. I guess that will be the true test to see if the card is bad.

 

Try furmark instead. Or occt.

 

Okay so here's what I've found out so far. I ran 3dmark to stress the GPU and see what's going on. It of course couldn't complete the test bf the GPU crashed. Running GPU-Z I see that the max temp is 88C which is pretty hot. So I'm guessing the GPU is throttled down and locks up so it won't overheat.

There are a few things that are odd to me:
1. The Max memory used by GPU is
256MB during the test and the nvidia 260m has 1Gb memory.
2. The max memory load and max video load is 0%...shouldn't there at least be some load on the memory?
3. The fan never kicks into high gear to cool, i feel heat coming out so it's running but not very fast.

Any ideas????

Also I really can't do a full clean install of windows bc the guy I bought it from didn't have the original install disks. Theres a backup image on a partition of the HDD but when I use it it doesn't even install any ASUS utilities. It still has the original product key and all serials. Do u think I can call ASUS and buy a copy of the backup disks?

 

you don't need the orginial windows cds.. Look in the windows and software forum. There are online legitimate links to download windows which you can run of a pen drive or burn on a CD. You can use the key under your laptop and install it. Try that first. Than go to asus website and download all the latest drivers etc.

 

Thanks didn't know I could do that. I'll try to find it and download it that way. So the product key I have is for Vista 64bit and I doubt that product key was used to upgrade, so I guess it's back to Vista which is fine by me as long as it works.

 

Don't be afraid of 88°C on your GPU, that's completely normal. However, crashing while running 3dMark isn't.
Did you update your graphics driver?

 

Yeah installed the newest drivers yesterday from nvidia. Are there any ASUS utilities I need to have installed to make the system stable?

 

There shouldn't be any utility to make your system more stable, I guess that if you are still having problems after trying all that you have done, maybe you should use the warranty to send it to repairs.

 

Okay so I did a complete clean reinstall of the drivers from ASUS support site. I unistalled the new ones then restarted in VGA mode ran driver sweeper and deleted all nvidia data in program folders and emptied recycle bin. Then I restarted in VGA mode and installed the drivers. Now I am able to run WOW without it locking up or so I thought. It played well for about an hour with the old drivers (haven't tried new ones yet wanted to get something to work first). Wow locks up and is not responding. My GPU temp is max at 72C but the GPU is obviously overloaded and crashes as can be seen from my screenshot of my GPU-Z below.





Any ideas? I guess it could just be WOW?

Oh and if I haven't said it enough yet. Thank you for all your help!

 

Have you disabled all your plugins? WoW plugins are notoriously unstable.

 

I will try the plugins and see if that helps.

I have a question though. When I bought the laptop it had Windows 7 preinstalled and even though all of the product stickers with model number say Asus G51vx. Windows 7 and Asus support site reconize the laptop as a G60vx not a G51vx. I know they are both very similar but should I be using the G60vx drivers or the G51vx drivers??

 

The G60Vx and G51Vx are identical except for the bezels and lids. They're the same machine with different screen sizes. The motherboard is technically called G60Vx as reported by the BIOS.

 

Just a side note, I wouldn't trust Gpu-z 100%. In the past it has given me weird readings like 0% load on the GPU when playing Black Ops. I decided to use Evga Precision instead, far more accurate.

 

Alright so I think I fixed it.
I did a clean install of the new drivers and made sure that all of the other drivers were updated as well. I also uninstalled the creative audio driver bc for some reason I have 2 audio drivers and I've read that this can cause some issues.

I did find that with the Power4Gear installed the OS stopped throttling down my GPU when it was under higher temps and instead the fan kicked on and cooled it down. Previously it would just lock up at high temps and it seemed like the OS would throttle down the GPU rather than cool it. This seems to have fixed lock ups in other games and while watching online videos.

With WOW I found that I was still having issues even with the new nvidia drivers. After doing some research and a little trial and error I found that if I turn vsync off in WOW I don't have any crashes played for about 2 hrs without any problems. I do understand that disabling vsync will cause a larger workload on the CPU and GPU, but I don't have crashes and the GPU and CPU actually run cooler as well.

Still getting peak temps of around 87C so I'm gonna repaste sometime soon just for security. Also I do want to get a laptop cooler to elevate it when I'm using it at a desk. Anyone have any suggestions for a good cooler???

Also just want to say thanks to everyone who posted. This is a great forum and I hope I can help out others in the future.

This ASUS is incredible. It's hard to believe that a laptop which is 2 yrs old and at this low price range can still outperform most $1000 laptops now.

 

I'm glad that you fixed your laptop, my GF's G51VX is a great machine and performs excellently in gaming and other tasks. BTW, 87°C is quite normal for your GPU, but if you can repaste, you can shave off a couple more degrees.
Personally, I fully repasted my G72GX and my GF's G51 with Arctic Ceramique (CPU, GPU and Northbridge) last week and have been getting pretty good temps, about 5° lower under load and 3° while idling.

 

This is some major bullcrap! I have tried all of the steps recommended on this and other forums using driver sweep blah blah blah and 6 different drivers, my games still crash. The games that I am playing are Assassins Creed and StarWars the Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition. No matter what I do my games either freeze, crash to the desktop or give that damn BSOD nvlddmkm.sys crap! This is extremely fustrating!

 

Well, Assasins creed has a terrible bug where pirated versions crash frequently. As for your SOFTWARE problems, it sounds like you need to find someone to fix YOUR problems that YOU have caused.

Good luck getting someone to do that for free if you keep talking like this.