Asus G1S-A1 - how do I check GPU temperature? I'm getting BSODs.

I just had a blue screen of death (driver_irq_less_or_equal) in a game a few hours ago (my first one in more than five years, and here I've been proclaiming my love of Vista left and right ), followed by a reboot, an hour in another game (that didn't cause trouble), and then suddenly a spontaneous self-reboot from Windows (nothing intensive running, just a browser window or two) while I was out in the kitchen - which I imagine was probably prefaced by another BSOD.

Now I may just be paranoid, but after being up and running again now for a good half hour, it seems like the system fan is spinning up ofter and longer than it did before (I'm running at a 60% CPU power plan setting unless I'm gaming to cut back on noise), even when there's very low CPU load.

I downloaded SpeedFan to take a look at system temperatures, but it only seems to report the two CPU cores (both around 44-48C right now, so nothing dangerous there), the HDD temp (also fine) and a seemingly static "Temp1" at 66C - which considering that it is entirely static - I assume isn't the graphics card temperature.

So what kind of software do I use to read the temparature on my 8600M GT?

Also, any input on what could possibly be causing BSODs all of a sudden? I haven't really been installing or upgrading any drivers or system related software for the last week (aside from a few system info sidebar gadgets, which I've turned off now - not that I really think they are to blame).
I'm running the 169.09 Nvidia drivers at the moment. I figured I would try out an older one instead, but apparantly LaptopVideo2Go is down for the count, and I don't really know where else to go for laptop drivers (aside from Asus, but those drivers are several months old - although perhaps that's not such a bad idea).

 

RivaTuner. Google it. Put your GPU clocks back to stock settings if you've overclocked and use the tool to help gauge optimum overclock speeds.

I don't overclock my cards so I can't give you any overclocking tips other than to take it easy and increase speeds in small increments. Benchmark new speeds to test for stability and increase until the screen starts acting up or PC crashes completely.

 

The card isn't overclocked and I don't intend to try (I do most of my gaming on my XBox 360 anyway now, so it's just going to be the occasional PC game I toy around with), but I'll give RivaTuner a shot to check temperatures.

I've noticed though, that after having my laptop shut properly down for a few minutes, the fan seems to be back to its previous (relatively) quiet whisper (regular desktop work, 60% max CPU in the power plan) - and no further crashes or reboots for the last hour and a half (keeping my fingers crossed ).

The reboots after the two BSODs were done without any proper Windows shutdowns in between and after (which means I was also presented with the "safe mode/start normally?" screen during boot), so perhaps something wasn't properly reset (I won't really pretend to know how, why or if that could happen) - which might explain the apparantly slightly confused fan, which I guess might have been trying to cool an equally confused graphics card operating a bit out of the ordinary.
And hopefully that also explains the second BSOD which happened while nothing taxing at all was going on.

I'm still not trusting this thing though - I have a bad record with computers. Mostly hardware problems, but I guess Vista might also start throwing software or driver related errors at me. Just to be spiteful .

Edit: Just ran RivaTuner - the GPU temp is around 73-75C under regular non-gaming load. Sounds a bit high to me, but based on the info I could find well below overheating limits.

 

If you have a power plan maybe you have settings for the CPU fan as well. I'm using the notebook hardware control program and can change the speed of my fans to suit my needs. If you are setting CPU speed to less than full power make sure the fan is doing its work as well.

 

You might have dust caught up in the fan,causing overheat and the reset.
That or you might have RAM problems. Try the slots independently for a day or so and see if there`s any boo-boo with them.
Also, is the problem new, meaning that the laptop worked fine until now?if so, might just be a driver problem...

 

I think I've pretty much already ruled out any hardware or fan problems. As mentioned it seems to be back to normal behaviour now (and no new BSODs), so I'm still leaning towards some sort of residual mess left behind by those crashes that required a proper shotdown or reboot to clear up.

As for the BSOD itself - that was indeed a pretty bad one to get slapped in the face . I haven't seen one in the last five or six years of using Windows 2000, so I pretty much thought they were a thing of the past these days.
Considering the first one happened when I loaded up a game and the error specifically mentioned something about a driver irq conflict, I imagine it must have been the graphics card driver that went haywire.
I haven't dared loading up that game again though - I really don't feel like pushing my luck with all the computer (hardware) problems I've had over the years .

 

The first time that booted up my G1S, no problems
But then i was installing stuff, i put in a dvd (with some installations, pictures, ... form my old PC) and i had a blue screen of death. I was going crazy
I rebooted my G1S, putted in my dvd and had no problems any more

The temperatures in the G1S:
- CPU = Fine, not high
- HDD = Fine, not high
- GPU = HOT HOT HOT


(but the laptop is build to handle such high GPU temperatures, so there is no problem)