Similar crash across games L502x

A rather disturbing trend I have seen on my L502x is a recurring crash in games. I've only tried two so far, but before i start my scientific analysis I decided to report my findings after two games got the same crash.
Games: Skyrim and Portal 2
both legit, up-to-date copies.

crash symptoms:
random (non-reproducible)
out of nowhere freeze
sudden looping of audio (relatively low frequency in portal 2, high frequency "buzz" in skyrim).
loss of mouse and keyboard control, OR i can tab out but not kill the game process, or log out correctly.
in all cases must be fixed with a power button restart.

Conditions:
gt 525m OC'd to gt 540m speeds.
I have a cooler blowing directly into the chassis, as in no module cover, and no turbo boost, so temps on the gpu/cpu rarely exceed 80.
I use Gamebooster, which kills a few services and cleans ram to speed up games.

I have found that sometimes the crash will happen within a minute or two, but sometimes I can play for hours. Once I got skyrim to play windowed mode for several hours before I closed it myself.

Another thing is that I have played both of these games to completion before. with little problem in portal 2. Skyrim had the problem for a while in the beginning then i got the 1.1 patch and it cleared up.

Now, I beat portal 2 a while ago, but everytime I played it it ran like a champ. When I updated my NVidia driver to the latest one very recently, that was the first time I got the crash.

Games I plan to test:
1. DXHR
2. Portal 2
3. Skyrim
4. Minecraft
(all different engines

What I will try for each game:
1. Normal run
2. No Oc
3. OC w/o gamebooster
4. no oc/ no gamebooster
5. repeat above on normal settings windowed
6 repeat minimum settings FS
7 repeat minimum settings windowed

Testing procedure is to run the game, and play it until either it crashes or 45 minutes passes.

I am aware that this is a ton of tests but I feel like it will give me a nice wide sample range.

things I will do before testing:
defrag
steam game cache integrity checks
CCleaner

things I will try should problem persist:
rollback nvidia driver to previous one and try again
Fresh install windows
call dell support (DO NOT WANT)

I was planning on doing a repaste tomorrow, but I am hesitant now that I may need to call dell. Any thoughts on how repasting effects the warranty?

Anybody else with this issue? Either way, wish me luck, I'm about to Science this b*tch!

 

A little update.
Uninstalled AVG and rolled back nvidia driver from latest Beta to latest stable. Hopefully this will make things run more smoothly.
If you can include "please don't let it be a hardware problem" in tonight's prayers that would be excellent as well

 

The same thing happens to my XPS when playing Skyrim and Batman AA, according to google is a hardware defect than can only be fixed by replacing the MB, and praying that the new one is not affected too. Temporal workaround is playing using the battery .

 

This may be the dreaded hardware error that many others have had with the L502X.

I had the exact same events happen very frequently after purchase. As far as science I can only give you anacdotal evidence from my experience.

The TLDR version is: if this is the hardware error push for system replacement even replacing motherboard only fixes it temporarily...
Here is the long version of my story...

Awsome new L502X 2720QM i7 quad core, 8gb 1600 mhz ram, GT540M video card, 750 GB hard drive, blu-ray player, and wimdows 7 pro my dream system! Exact same symptoms crop up in first month owning machine playing WOW and RIFT...

Call dell techs they replace hard drive and heat sink repaste... does not fix anything they recommend I call the game companies...

I work with blizzard and Trion worlds for many months changing all kinds of settings... Lower use of the GPU helps and I am somewhat able to play like this but eventually problems persist and after time get so bad im back to crashing every 5-15 mins even with lowest settings use of the GPU.

Call dell again they say oh yes known issue we can fix it they send out a new motherboard/videocard set up. Works awsome for about one month... cycle starts again...

Call dell they replace mother board again and recommend I should not use GPU on games that cause crashes or to just play with super low settings they even try to sell me some registry cleaner software...

At this point nearly 6+ months of same problems I just kept escallating every call and at the 8 month mark FINALLY I got a replacement laptop and an upgraded L702X at that since they delayed me so much.

I so hope that is not what is going on with your system as you have alot of time talking to Dell tech support ahead if you dont find a fix...

One test to see if its the hardware issue causing problems with your GPU is that when I played unplugged no problems or crashes though battery of course ran out very fast. When I played plugged in the problem persisted even tried diff adaptors with some of my other XPS systems I had that were similar gauge/power still had issues anytime it was plugged in.

 

I think it was the overclock. or at least evga precision. I turned it back to stock, no more problems. Let it be known that this is the OVERCLOCK, not the HEAT FROM THE OVERCLOCK. I did a heatsink clean and a repaste on wednesday, and my temps are pretty excellent right now, so that can't be the problem.
Sorry to hear about that basic89, but good to hear you got a replacement. If my problem persists, I'll push for a new system altogether like you said, and hopefully and upgrade like yours.


@Squallmx with the battery fix thing - are you using the same settings in power management for battery and on power? set up a power plan that is the same for battery and plugged in, also preferably with max processor states at 99% to stop the heat from turbo boost, and try both plugged in and on power.
Also, I found that windowed mode made the problem happen less often

 

Tried everything you just mentioned , (and more, including under-clocking, CPU/GPU Temperature Monitoring, new drivers, even a fresh install of Windows 7) problem persisted, I can confirm that windowed mode made it happen less often , and that running the game on battery avoid the issue but obviously the duration is limited by the capacity of the battery(less than and hour).

Darn it , my MB was replaced two months ago after the keyboard stopped working, and was almost replaced again after the technician forgot to connect the USB 3.0 board (and also forgot to put thermal paste on the CPU/GPU) and thought it was a faulty new motherboard, luckily I asked him to check the connections before proceeding, so in theory this could be the third time my MB needs to be replaced .

 

Try and get a full replacement (you never know) - Does this happen to all your games/3D Applications? (Using Nvidia)

I have a similar problem where I get crashes in Age of Empires III and some other games (before I was able to play for hours without trouble); and I HAD this problem with SCII for a while, but now it does not occur at all mysteriously.

I have performed all methods of diagnostics as listed and others uninstall reinstall, ect- MB replacement?

 

My problem seems to be gone now, here is a list of everything i did from the time of my error report:
Installed latest nvidia stable driver (non-beta)
removed and reinstalled AVG
clocked card to standard
did a motherboard/heatsink clean out, and a repaste on the processors

played portal 1 and 2 start to finish. in portal 2 i thought i'd overclock a little - I did so and got the crash. returned to stock and everything went swimmingly

Watched some LOST HD rips on an a tv via hdmi (both vlc and the hdmi port reported using the video card)

played skyrim in fullscreen (got a thief through a good part of the main quest), then in windowed mode (had chrome open next to it with the dragon shout locations) - not a crash in sight

ran some torture tests with furmark and prime95 (watched the temps carefully) and no crashes

 

mw3 here bf3 plays fine though....

 

silly question but , Does that void warranty?, should I try that or request the MB replace first?

 

No, so long as you don't break anything

If you feel like it you can do a repaste; and by replacing the motherboard you will also need to do a repaste (as you have to remove the heatsink).

 

I suppose you could request a replacement in-home. Just get a tube of mx-4 and suggest the guy use that when he repastes. Also, when I did mine I had an experienced friend do the pasting.

 

Update: Capitankasar's excellent voltage modded bios's seem to help. Try the undervolted Bios first, then try the overvolted one if that does not work. I use the undervolted one and havn't seen the crash in a while, and others on that thread are reporting similar findings