A teeny weeny little problem

I'm stumped. As my sig shows, I own a Z70Va. Except for this one lil' thing it works perfectly. (Pictures below.)

This first started happening after I installed games lik WoW, City of Heros and Sims2. What appears to happen is after I play a game, turn off my computer, and come back several hours later these "ants" appear. But only if I play a game (even Ragnarok Online!). If I don't play any type of game, no problem.

Naturally my first thought was something is wrong with my graphics card. So I went to ATI and got their catlyst driver thingy. I thought things were better, but alas, the moment I started playing games it happened again.

At first I had to manually shut down the computer. But since I got all Windows Updates (I use Windows XP HOME, btw) and the new GPU driver I can actually turn it off the right way even with the ants. When I restart, the ants are gone and all is well.

Also, I have Notebook Hardware Control (1.10 Beta) and I've watched my temps. My CPU never goes over 70*C while playing a game, and my hard drive always seems to be running fine.

So now I'm hoping someone in the audiance knows what's up. I'd like to solve this problem myself. I'm most definately still in my warrenty, so I could send it back. But it would take several weeks since I use an APO address and am all the way in Japan. ^^;

Here are the pics:

 

It's definitely GPU related... perhaps there's some software feature that's messing around with the GPU and you don't know it.

Are you using NHC or another third party program to control the GPU? (i.e anything that underclocks the GPU under light use)
- If so, disable.

Also, you could try reinstalling the stock GPU drivers that came with your computer...

 

That doesnt look good. I would try the asus stock drivers from Asus website not ATI. if that doesnt work. I would honestly do a fresh install of XP and the Asus vid drivers. Then install the games and try if it happens again you know its a hardware issue. i used to have an issue like that with a Pc tower and it was a bad video card. but you never know.

 

AuroraS, I'm not sure about the GPU thing. I don't THINK I have anything that touches the GPU speed. All I installed was the NHC, and I haven't touched the GPU section of that program. (Though my computer had all the drivers and such preinstalled so maybe something is already on here and I don't know..?)

SRD, I'm really hoping it's just a driver issue. I'd hate to think I got a bad GPU. Especially since that means I'd have to send it in for repair and that'd take "forever".

With installing drivers, I should uninstall the ATI ones and then install the ASUS ones correct? And I'm not sure which series I have, AX700 or AEX700?

If that doesn't work, is there some for sure way to figure out if the GPU is bad? I'd rather not do a fresh install only to find out my GPU is bad anyway and I'll have to send it in.

Thanks! Figure I'd get one that's got something wrong with it...

 

Try these ones... (from the Asus site)
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/M6VA/VGA_XP_2K_051020.zip

You will have to uninstall your current driver and then reinstall this one.

 

Any number of things can make a PC screwy. I would try the asus drivers. If that doesnt work its kinda hard to narrow down software issues at times. Some times it takes less time to do a fresh install. But if you still have issues after the install you really need to figure out if its a hardware problem and the only way to trully do that is a fresh install with nothing but drivers and that game to test it.

 

Oh my goodness. That does NOT look good. Could be a bad driver installation and hopefully is.

Just go to the Ati website download the latest Radeon drivers, not mobility, get DHmodtool3, use it to install the new driver set.

When uninstalling your current drivers do use drivercleanerpro AFTER you have uninstalled from control panel -> add/remove programs.

When it asks if you want to restart after uninstalling, say NO, then run Driver Cleaner Pro, THEN restart -> after restart install new drivers.

After your restart, upon bootup see if this problem is still there during post, windows boot screen, logon screen. If so, then you have a hardware related problem. If not then it was the driver, BUT upon entering windows after the restart you see the same problem then something is screwy with windows.

Does this happen as soon as you enter windows or after windows starts loading stuff up?

Need to know when this happens or if it happens all the time during post, bootup, logon.

Cheers and goodluck,
Mike

Edit:: Noticed it only happens after games, so tired studying for exams all week that I missed this in your post. Oooooops. Yeup do as I have listed above and everything should be fine. If not then hardware problem OR hopefully a windows problem and you should try a reformat, but I doubt this.

Edit 2:: There shouldn't be any problems with installing Ati reference drivers, and since you game, I'd recommend sticking to the latest Ati Radeon drivers, not Asus drivers or mobility drivers.

 

I can always tell when it's gonna boot screwy because the "Centrino Inside" logo will not appear. In fact, the screen doesn't even bother to turn on until right before the Windows login screen (the one where you have to press the icon to actually get into your account). So SOMETHING is having problems on boot up.

And now that I think about it, when I installed the new ATI drivers, I did NOT uninstall the old driver set. So it's possible that's why I'm still having a problems... (I had the problem before I messed with any driver anything.)

I guess a clean reinstall of Windows would probably be my best bet but.. ugh.. lol.. I've done that sooo many times with other computers. I hate reinstalling. But I'll do it. Tomorrow. And install the CORRECT drivers.

 

Yes. That will be your last resort.

Now, I had a big ati problem as well, somewhat similar, somewhat different, it happened when I played videos. But I later found out it was driver related.

What my problem was: I never installed the Microsoft .net frameworks on my computer (it is required for the new drivers apparently). I dont know why, but it worked. Even when i rolled back my drivers to a version that did not require it the problem stayed. That could be your problem? Just a shot in the dark.

 

That happened to me a couple of years ago on my desktop when my GPU died...not a good sign...

 

I'm contacting the vendor that sold it to me to find out how to get an RMA number.

I reinstalled windows but the problem hasn't gone away. Since I noticed the problem (a few weeks ago) it's gotten steadily worse. Now I don't even need to play a game, it happens almost every time it boots up. It surprises me when I do a "cold" boot up and it doesn't happen...

I'm really bummed. This was my first laptop and except for this one thing it runs wonderfully. I hate having to send it away, it'll probably be a month before I see it again, and that's if they can diagnose and fix it. I just hope they fix it. I just want to turn it on and use it, ya know? I don't want to worry about something dying on me in the middle of something.. I dunno.. important.

*pats Bob* Well, guess even guys get cranky sometimes...

 

As a overclocking fanatic I have seen that before. That happens when your videocard memory gets pushed either to far, or the memory is dieing. Not much you can do. You can try and downclock your memory but even that might not fix it. Usually you are just screwed

 

I used to get that problem when my video card's RAM temp was too hot. The only cure for it was to replace it. Hopefully that's not the case for you

 

Output your graphics to a desktop monitor if you can and see if you're getting the same thing pushed onto that.... If not, then it's most likely your screen.... or your cable connection to the screen....... if it is happening, then it's your gpu and the motherboard neeeds to get looked at.

 

strange problem hope you get it fixed, i would definitely try looking into the possibility of the hardware being faulty

 

Aiya, too bad it's a hardware problem. I guess you could try to narrow it down to see if it's the screen or videocard itself or the cabling like Eddie suggested, but you're going to have to send it in anyways, so I say leave it and just send it in.

Hope you get everything worked out, I know how frustrating it can be to have a defective product. My baby has been in the shop 3 times, totalling over a month of downtime. So for the 6 months I've had my unit I've had it in my hands for about 4 and a half to 5 months.

*sigh*

 

Yeah, I pretty much figured it was the graphic card or the screen. I originally wasn't gonna send it in until something actually broke. But then I thought "Well... what if it breaks while I'm doing something moderately important?" since I use the laptop as my main computer.

Outside of this, I think Bob works really well. As far as I can tell nothing else is wrong with him. So once he's fixed and sent back he should be good to go.