W3v freezes when playing games!

I recently reformatted my computer and I installed the all the Asus drivers that came on the cd. For about a week it worked fine but recently, when I was playing Battlefield:Vietnam the screen just when black and my computer froze. I unplugged it and upon restarting everything was back to normal. I thought it was no big deal so I didnt do anything about it.

However, the problem has gotten worse and now it freezes every time I start Battlefield. After I start the game it runs fine for about 30 secs and then the screen just turns black and the entire computer freezes. The only way I can get out of this is to unplug the laptop. I've tried using the asus drivers, ati catalyst drivers, and omega drivers, all with the same result.

Is this a hardware problem or can I somehow fix it without having to send my w3v in for repair?

 

Well start with loading windows with ONLY the base drivers of the asus cd. Do not use any other drivers. If that dont help before or after you can run the new version of mem86 here ---> http://www.memtest.org/download/1.60/memtest86+-1.60.iso.zip
You can leter proceed to test the game and other games. Try to change some of the settings. There is really no reason for only one game to cause problems and not others. You should try running other games. Running a coupke loops of 3dmark is a very good way to determine if you have hardware issues but not fool proof.

 

I originally had only the asus drivers and it was crashing so I tried some other drivers. I tried running 3dmark05 a couple of times and it would repeatidly crash after the first scene. Ill try the memtest thing now and see how that goes.

 

I wonder whether something is overheating. Use Asus Probe (in the Asus Utility folder) to monitor your CPU temperature and fan speed. The CPU fan should come on at 1200 RPM when the CPU temperature reaches 45C and speed up to 1600 RPM when the CPU temperature reaches 60C (these rules are for the W3A - I expect the W3V to be similar).

Asus Probe will reveal whether there is a cooling problem. The maximum CPU temperature under heavy load should not exceed about 75C.

John

 

Is this a stock w3v? Did you upgrade the ram?

My experience with Battlefield Vietnam is that it is very tempermental when it comes to your RAM. When I bought BFV, I also bought another stick of RAM so that it would play better, little did I know that the RAM Stick I bought was broken and I kept getting the same kind of errors when I played BFV. However in Windows everything seemed fine...

 

I had the same problem with my M6n, did all the same things as u, gave up and took the notebook back for repairs, the shop was unable to locate the sorce of the problems either, but a new motherboard fixed the problems, so my guess is that there was an issue with the gpu.
a

 

Unlikely that the mobo is the cause however posible. I belive its the ram or hardware. Did you add ram or switch anything?

 

Yeah I upgraded the ram. Is there some way that I can test to see if its the ram? I ran prime 95 on the ram testing mode for around 20 minutes and there werent any errors so I assumed that the ram was ok.

 

http://www.memtest.org/download/1.60/memtest86+-1.60.iso.zip

1. Start Nero Burning-rom

2. In Nero go to "Copy and Backup" tab.

3. Select "Burn Image to Disk"

4. Under file types select all files and point to the ISO file you just downloaded.

5. Presto! After the image has been burned you can boot your computer with the cd. You have to make sure bios is set to boot from cd before hard drive

 

Good idea Eddie.

 

I just ran 1 pass of memtest with no errors. Afterwards I proceeded to try to play battlefield again and I got the same black screen. What's wierd is that while battlefield freezes I seem to be able to do other things like chat on AIM. I can't see anything that I type but I can hear the AIM sounds.

 

you know whats weird ray5000 the asus w3v i sold to my friend he is experiencing the same problem, he was playing the movies the new game that came out not too log ago but the game will drive the w3v to heat up. Now whenever he plays a game or does a video card stability test the w3v will freeze in a matter of seconds.

Black screen and you can still hear background noise too.

Hes using the omega 5.10a drivers.

he is using a notebookcooler underneath the notebook too and it doesnt help at all.

 

maybe you should upgrade the bios then use the upgraded stock graphics drivers.

 

upgrading the bios doesnt fix it.

 

Well if 3dmark freezez on it then thats a bad sign. It is not suposed to. Are you using any foreign utils for clocking? Are you absolutely sure u changed nothing in bios and you are using only the soft that came on the asus cd rom and NOTHING else?

 

if your asus w3v can only use the crappy gpu drivers provided by asus.. then that would suck.

 

There is nothing special about foreign drivers. They are simply tweaked to allow faster frame rate. Same can be accomplished by using ati tool and such. It is widely known that these foreign drivers can cause problems not just on asus but any other.

 

Let me take a crack at this. So memtest came out fine, meaning your ram SHOULD be just fine. Sounds like a hardware problem to me, but hey you never know.

Since you just freshly installed windows, try a fresh install once again, and have a cd ready with updated drivers and such from the web and install those when you are done installing windows.

Remember just because you have freshly installed windows doesn't mean that it is a clean install. I've had windows do some funny stuff on me when installing fresh, for no reason AT ALL.

Save time and just do a fresh install again and try installing Ati's latest catalyst drivers, not for mobile gpu's but the normal ones and get DHmodTool3, from driverheaven.net? or guru3d.com? Anyway just google it, it lets you install the latest catalyst drivers, as it modifies the inf file so you can install it on your mobile system.

If that doesn't work then holy crackerjack maybe you have a hardware problem, which I hope you don't. I'm thinking this is a software problem as windows isn't the most stable OS and I had a similar problem when I got my Z70Va, until I installed some new drivers and such and the game Rose Online ran FINE when it was crashing before with Asus' display drivers.

Goodluck~!!
Mike

 

I forgot to add that I must agree with Justin on thirdparty drivers, as they are just modded to allow faster frame rates and like omega drivers, supposedly increase image quality(IQ), but I stick to whql or beta drivers from Ati, or Nvidia directly.

Don't worry about using the DHmodTool3 as it is completely safe, I don't know why Ati just doesn't make one set of drivers for mobile and desktop systems, as mobile units use the same core, so why bother with mobile drivers??? Redundant, yes, very much so.

Cheers,
Mike

 

You said you were able to play fine for a week before the problems started appearing? Could heat from the unit break something in the motherboard?

How about other games? Have you tried them and see how they run?

 

Yeah, it seemed to work fine for a week or two, there were maybe one or two similar crashes but they were isolated incidents, not recurring problems. Ive tried playing fable and battlefield:vietnam along with 3dmark05, none of them work. Im also using the drivers that came with the w3v on the asus driver cd right now. Changing drivers seems to have little effect on the problem.

Just today the problem seemed to get worse. I left my laptop on all night as I normally do and when I got back from classes later that afternoon the laptop pooped out on me again. The screen saver was on and when I moved the mouse the desktop came up for about a second and then it black screened. After I rebooted it it black screened again, like a minute after windows started, without me playing any games at all. So basically this problem went from something that happened seemingly randomly while gaming, to something that happened everytime while gaming, to something that just happens gaming or not. On a side note, I turned off and unplugged the laptop for a couple hours and when I turned it back on later the problem of random black screens while not gaming stopped. However, it still black screens while playing games.

Reformatting is always an option I guess. Since I just recently reformatted there not nearly as much for me to lose. However, it is still a time consuming project and the last thing that I want is to spend hours reformatting only to encounter the same problem again. Im starting to think that Ill have to send it in to Asus to get it fixed or replaced or whatever but since I need my laptop until winter break in december I could use some sort of workaround so that I can at least do word processing and web browsing until then. In fact, not being able to play games during finals would probably be a very good thing .

 

I hear you... Maybe the blackscreen during games is a sign to study for finals?

I hope a reformat will work out for you. Keep us updated on what happens.

 

LOL sign from god? haha
Goodluck on this man.

Cheers,
Mike

 

drivers from official ati doesnt let you install into the asus. they only support certain companies.. pretty wack to me

 

i think the latest drivers from asus that i have used were like 5.6 catalyst drivers. that was why i switched.. they werent up to date with ati driver releases