W3V reboots when playing a game

hello all,

my w3v is about 1.5 yrs old and lately i've been having an issue with it. whenever i play nba live 07 (the only game i have installed) the laptop shuts itself down. when i say it shuts itself down, it doesn't just black out. the pc actually closes down all the windows and goes through the shutdown sequence automatically. right after the shutdown, when i try to power it back on, it'll it momentarily turn on (like a short blip) then just die. after about 30 seconds, it'll start back up normally again. what could cause something like this? any possible fixes? any help would be appreciated, thanks.

 

Have you cleaned the vents lately? Perhaps a dust accumulation is making the notebook overheat, causing it to shut down?

That or a corrupt install of the game, or perhaps the W3v needs a reformat.

 

Are you positive its only when playing the game?

~ Brett

 

Hi,

The fact that it doesn't start up at the next press of the power button indicates it is indeed a heat-related problem.

However, the fact that it's going through the shutdown process indicates that it's not. If the safe temperature range would be exceeded, I believe it would just cut the power from the computer without any further ado.

To determine whether it's not a problem only with your game installation, you could run a 3D benchmark, like 3dmark05 or 06, see if that turns off your laptop. You could also monitor the GPU and CPU temps while doing it, using mobile meter. If it shuts down and the temperatures go sky high, it's clear, it needs a cleaning.

Otherwise, try reinstalling Windows like Coriolis hinted, if the install is very old it might start doing strange things.

 

Ugh, I wouldn't want the system to overheat again. Forget the benchmarks, it's definately heat indicated by his symptoms noted above. The system shutdown is probably from Power4Gear which automatically shutsdown the system if it exceeds a certain temperature. Not surprising really. And it won't come back up since the BIOS would detect the warning temperature on bootup and it'll shut right back down again until the temperature is adequate.

I would suggest to you to clean the CPU ventilation.

Tools needed:
- Can of Air (You can buy from Best Buy, CC, Walmart) etc.
- Precision Phillips Screwdriver
- A Vacuum (with a precision head, perferrably)
- A brain.

Unscrew with the precision screwdriver the 6 screws that hold the panel down on the left side of the laptop(when you flip it over). See pic.



Then use a vacuum and suck out as much junk as possible both from the vent(at the side of the laptop) and fan. Then use the Screwdriver again to remove 2 screws holding down the fan itself, the screws are located diagonal to one another, that should allow you to remove the fan, simply unhook the wire that is held in with a white clip. After your done, you can then see the Copper heatsink area as well as the vent chamber hole to the keyboard area. I'm pretty sure there will be large dust fluffs and possibly hair is caught in the vents and the fan blades.

Use the can of air to blast the fan, heatsink area and vent hole. Blow as much dust out as possible! Basically blow the air from all directions(from outside the case and from the fan direction (use it liberally! just don't flip over the can so that the liquid comes out! really BAD!) to remove as much dust and particles as possible. Be careful not to blast your Warranty sticker located near the heatsink retention area ontop of the Processor socket as it's very fragile and it'll crack easily.

Use the vacuum to clean up your mess Then simply screw the panel back and you should be set!

You can then run benchmarks as much as you want and see if it happens again.

 

thanks for all your responses. i'll give the cleaning a try and move on to other mentioned solutions as needed.

 

I did not know about this behavior of Power4Gear. I did not believe it was a heat-induced shutdown because the BIOS switch just cuts off the power without allowing the notebook to run at a dangerous temperature while shutting down Windows. That's why I suggested further verification. But provided Power4Gear has this behavior (which I somewhat doubt) it seems it's unnecessary.

In any case, cleaning the vents doesn't harm anyone.

(To some extent, allowing the notebook to overheat while under supervision should be safe -- due to the BIOS switch and also the user finger which can intervene quickly when necessary )

 

Hmm. Well it was a hypothesis more than anything. However, now that I think about it it may be actually the BIOS kicking in with the warning temperatur rather than P4G, and since Windows ACPI would pick that up directly from the BIOS. Windows would shutdowm.

Not that I don't agree to you that it is safe under suervision, for advanced users I won't see a problem with that. However, suggesting someone to purposely overheat their system with limited knowledge and a faulty cooling system would be too risky. Without knowing what the actual temps are, I kind of cringe to that idea.

 

Yep, agreed... probably I should've been more conservative.