I beg you to help! Z70V crashes when playing games.

I recently bought an Asus Z70V, but everytime a play a game, it freezes. The better the graphics needed, the shorter the time it takes to freeze. I've tried many things to fix this.....I've updated all the drivers and bios, and tried a different set of drivers for the graphics card (Omega drivers instead of ATI). I've tried running the game with most of the background processes closed. I tried using centrino hardware control to help the temperature, but my comp still crashed (and that created a whole new problem, but that one got magically fixed). I've also run spyware and virus scanner programs. I was thinking of trying to reformat my computer, but I want to use that as a last resort.....anyone got ideas?

Here are my specs:
ASUS Z70V Notebook
Processor : Intel® Pentium® M processor 770 2MB Cache 2.13GHz 533FSB Thermal Solution (Intel/Artic Silver 5) : Intel thermal solution (included)
Hard Drive: Hitachi 60GB/8MB Cache 7200RPM
Memory : 1GB DDR2-4200 (64x8,2x512mb)
Video Adapter : PCI Express ATI x600 64MB
Optical Drive : DVDRW - Dual Layer (specs above in description)
Wireless Network Card : Intel WM3B2915ABGNAX 802.11 a/b/g wireless card Gigabit LAN : Built In 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet LAN
IEEE 1394/Modem : Built In IEEE-1394 (Firewire) and 56K V.90 Fax/Modem
Operating System : Windows XP Home

please help me.....thanks

 

Just reformat even one bad driver install can screw your whole pc up. by the time you figure out whats wrong you could have formated it 10 times over.sometimes its the quickest way. i have an Image of all my pcs so i can just reinstall in 10 min because after about 4 months of hard use pcs run like crap after all the stuff that gets installed and uninstalled.

 

I agree... reformat. If that STILL doesn't work, then I assume that you have a bad stick of RAM. In that case, you'll have to contact your reseller to deal with it...

 

does it crash even when u're not playing games?

 

I had a similar problem, not sure what the cause was but a new m/b fixed it, so if a reformat doesnt do the job I suggest sending it back asap. You could spend weeks trying to trouble shoot this one.
ps I found the best gpu drivers were the asus ones,
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IT DIDNT WORK!!!!

I tried reformatting it, and it still froze when i played a game. My heart is breaking. I guess i'll go contact ISTNC now...

 

Before you go any further I would do as Aurora suggested and run a full memory test such as memtest86.

 

Contact your dealer they are better equipped to handle these things. Does it crash on all games or just one in particular?

 

yeah thats a good question.....

also does it crash when you watch movies or anything else?

 

Run 3dmark05. Do a couple loops. Needless to say if your overclocking someone should delete this thread altogether. If 3dmark passes do not contact your dealer. I would contact the game manufacturers and look into the particular games community and support forum. What game by the way?

 

haha...been a while....so just for closure.... before I sent it in, I ran 3Dmark2001, and it froze . No, I did not overclock it. When I watch media files, it freezes in a few hours. I tried playing The Sims 1, but it froze. I also used a PSX emulator and it froze too...(but runs fine on my thinkpad). When I sent it in, they said they couldn't find any problems I got frustrated, and ended up returning the whole system.

 

There is no posible way they could not have found any problems if the system froze in 3dmark. That right there it self is guranteed to be 100% hardware failure. If you were not overclocking and there was no harfull ware on your system it most certainly is a bum system. You had every reason to seek a refund infact i hope you were not charged restocking. Who was your vendor.?

 

My z70v was freezing as well. Would freeze at random times and never while playing games.

link

I updated all of my drivers and I uninstalled trillian and adaware (per directions of istnc). It's been a few days and it seems to be working perfectly. Updating the drivers also managed to solve a problem I had with hibernating.

Good luck.

 

I bought mine from ISTNC too! But I did all the update drivers thingy and flashing the BIOS and it didn't work. I even reformatted the frickin thing. I read your thread, and our problems sounded really similar. It would completely freeze, and I couldn't move the mouse. The only thing i could do was hold the power button until it shut off. When I sent it in, they're like "We cannot duplicate your problem". But its over and done with, I'm gonna buy a new comp from a different vendor......

 

Is it me or am I reading a lot about "we can't duplicate your problem", problems? Your issue is very odd and to say the least, not normal. I'd say you just got a machine whose motherboard just wasn't right in one way or another. It shouldn't put you off to the Z70v entirely, as there isn't anything much better that you could buy......... but it's completely understandable if it has.

Good luck with the next one.

 

HAHAHA. I'm actually on Proportable.com right now, shopping for a new comp. I considered buying another brand, but they just don't seem as good. I'm debating whether to stay with the Z70v, or buy a Z71V. Geared2Play also seems like a very good company to buy from too, but when I called a few weeks ago, they said they wouldn't have 7200rpm drives for a while and I need this computer NOW...I've already started college....

 

I'll tell you this much, if you had a z70v and you went to a z71v, you're going to kick yourself, trust me. As far as 7200rpm drives go, don't take this the wrong way, but you'd be dumb to buy one now..... DUMB. Their cost is so out there because of quantity constraints that the drives are basically twice what they were this time last year. Seagate is coming out with 60 / 80 /100gb 7200rpm drives that should show up before the end of the month and Hitachi has their 120gb 7200rpm drives coming in the next month...... regardless, in a few months their price will be down a ton..... I would get something like a 40gb/5400rpm now and try to make it a semester with that and then pick up a larger faster drive over winter break and then use that 40gb drive for external storage or something.

 

Actually..... I just checked and we must be out of them as well as they're not on the configuration pages... Well what I said still stands but I guess if we had some of the drives it would mean more, but whatever.

 

CRAP I just bought the Z71V....too excited I guess...can i switch it to what u suggested?! I just sent an email about it. And they really aren't on? I thought I selected 7200rpm....

 

Yeah, z71v is a good "bang for your buck" system..... but the screen, build quality, design is nicer on the Z70v model, I can assure you of that. Maybe if you didn't already have experience with the one model you wouldn't notice, but I would go as far as to say if you wanted a Z71v from us, I wouldn't let them sell it to you because you wouldn't like it as much.

I don't know when you ordered it, but I looked about the time I placed that last post and the drives were off the site. I don't think anyone was in updating stock, but Saturday afternoon/evening is usually the only slow time I can get anyone to do it. If you did already place an order for a 60gb/7200rpm there may be one, I don't know. I just know it's not there now and if we had run out and they changed the site as you were ordering, then they'd probably be giving you a call on Monday to tell you sorry, but somehow you ordered this and we took it off our site as soon as they were out of stock.

Drop me a PM or an email (didn't see an email in my box, if that's who you sent it too), but in the PM or email, give me your order number and I'll look it up tomorrow and void it our or whatever needs to be done. A apoligize for any confusion.

 

I've had the exact same problem. It's been happening a lot more recently when I'm planning Far Cry. Usually within an hour. I can still hear some sound (moderately long loop of music, not stuttering) but it's completely locked. Nothing responds. Not CTRL-ALT-DELETE, not pressing the power switch. Not using the Fn-Sleep (Fn-F1). I have to hold the power button for it to work. I've had this happen in other occassions. Specifically, if I'm running Slackware Linux, and run the console program 'worms', it will freeze up at exactly the same point every time. If I wait a little couple minutes, the ascii worms will move once. Then, a couple minutes later they will move again. When I was playing Far Cry, I tried hitting the Wireless On hardware button just to try it, and the Wireless light came on after a little delay. Then, after waiting a little my screen went blue. It was a slight shade darker than the Win95 BSOD blue. At this point the sound has just cut out and after another couple minutes it turns into a black screen. Just too see what would else might happen, I left it like that overnight, but it was still the same black screen when I woke up. I'm going to try 3DMark05 and memtest32 right now. Any other suggested hardware check tools would be appreciated.

 

Im just going to throw this one on the Table....It sounds like your GPU is overheating.

 

Whoa another thread about a Z70V overheating. Yowch, what's going on.

Mine has been fine ever since I got it. I'm undervolting slightly now, but even running stock settings I'm fine. Sounds to me like the heatsink wasn't seated properly for all of you guys.

Even with a bad driver installation I only had fps drop issues, not crashing. How long have you had the system? Could be the ram too, maybe your board just doesn't like the modules you're using.

I remember when I first got my system there were a couple hangups and I experienced the same thing when installing a new cpu into my desktop.

I could be wrong but I think in some cases you just need to burn in your system, or in otherwords you just need to work it in.

Sometimes ram and cpu's need burn in periods before it works right.

Explanation? I dunno exactly, but for the cpu could be that the thermal compound isn't fully cured yet if it's a brand new system. This process could take a few days to a couple weeks depending on which thermal compound was used.

 

PM me the detail of your spec, screen shot of the device manager/error message if there's any, and explain the symptom. I have Far Cry and it run fine on my z70va. It definitely is not over heating. Seems like there's an error when the memory tries to dump it's current cache and load the new one in (that's why it only has the error after certain amount of time and the more graphic it needs, the sooner it crash). Until i have more information, i'm betting on the memory. Could be either system memory or the graphic memory.

-Aphirat

 

For the linux one, there's probably a bug in the software. If it's poorly written, it can take days to calculate something. In Far Cry case. The after you hit the wireless on it should take a second or two and you'll see the wireless logo flashing on the top left of the panel. The delay is cause by processor having to finish calculating the info for far cry before it can execute the other program (wireless console) then switch back to the game. This lag will be minimize with the new duel core processor. Now, if you overclock or underclock your machine, this is where you'll see the problem. when you switch the process thread around like that, overclock/underclock processer tend to miss calculate. If it does, the result can be recalculation (takes a couple sec and everything will be fine), program crash (freeze but ctrl+alt+delete will work), or enter into an infinite loop of calculation (a.k.a. Lock up).

That's my guess right now since i don't have any info on your system or error code ^_-

-Aphirat