Gateway P-6860FX Crashing issues

I've had my Gateway P-6860FX for four years now. I've never disassembled it but I've cleaned out the dust with some compressed air and a vacuum cleaner every few months. Lately, it's been having some problems. When I play Diablo 3 it will crash every once in a while. The screen will go black and all the buttons will light up and the sound will quit. Normally I'd assume this was an overheating problem, but I've cleaned it out as well as I could and I haven't been able to get it to stop. It did this yesterday and when I booted it up again then Windows said it had a critical error and it shut down. I had to run the windows repair to get it to start again.

I have been running temp monitoring programs, and I haven't seen anything go over 80C. But I've been running Diablo in full screen so I have to alt tab out to check on the temps and I've never been able to see what they were when it crashes.

So, is there any chance this isn't overheating and is some sort of issue with something else? If it is overheating, then is it worth it to try to dissemble it to clean it out? I'd probably hire a place to do it since I'm a bit worried after reading through the instructions on this forum. I'm very close to giving up and getting a new computer and I'd like to know if there is any chance this is something simple and easily fixable.

 

We'l need to see the temps for all the components, it would help if you could run HWMonitor: CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting Take a screenshot of the readouts after you've been playing Diablo for about 45 minutes and post it on here, we'll be able to see if anything is dangerously hot.

I'd also like to see what Windows is reporting about the error. If you could go to your Problem Reports and Solutions in the Control Panel, and post back whatever Windows says about any recent errors, crashes, driver crashes, etc that are related to your problems, that would help.

Before you completely give up and purchase a new computer, you should also try to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows, something could be corrupted.

 

Attached are the screenshots of idle temps and temps after playing Diablo. As you can see, nothing is getting above 80C. I did check the Problem Reports and I didn't not see anything for these crashes. In fact, Diablo wasn't even listed.

 

Temps aren't dangerous. Does the screen stay black, requiring you to do a hard shut down? Is it responsive, can you alt tab to the desktop when Diablo freezes? It doesn't sound like Diablo itself is crashing to me, instead either the video drivers or something with Windows.

You should update your video drivers. The critical error could have been caused by hard shutdowns, could also have been something else. If you can, try running it with just one stick of RAM, if it crashes, switch slots, then repeat with the other stick; could be faulty RAM. If all else fails, reformat and reinstall Windows before giving up.

 

This also could be a HDD issue. If there was a critical error and windows repair was required it means windows was attempting access to the drives at the time and there was a problem writing to the hdd. If say it/they were asleep and couldn't wake up this could cause the black screen and full lockup when the drive refuses to respond...............

 

When it crashes the screen goes black and the computer won't do anything. I have to hold down the power button to shut it down. The crashes are very random, I had three within a week about a month ago, then nothing until this week again when it's done it two or three times. This is exactly what it does when it overheats which is why I was thinking it was that, but the temps have been fine. The problem that I'm having with troubleshooting is that the crashes are so infrequent.

I'll see about the video card drivers. I recall it being somewhat tricky to update them since they weren't well supported which is why I've been reluctant to mess with them.

Is there anything I could do to narrow the problem to the HDD? I don't have an extra one unfortunately.

The computer is four years old and I was planning to replace it next year, so I'm not going to go to too much trouble to fix it. Mostly I just need to know if it going to die on me sooner rather than later.

 

It could die any time, there is no real way to predict this. As far as the HDD you could run some disk checks and do healt monitoring etc. I would run a util such as quiet hdd to turn off apm and hopefully keep the drive running.

I have a SSD but one thing is it hates to go to sleep, if it does it will do exactly what your system does as the bus locks up. This is the drive refusing to reinitialize. HDD's can do the same thing.............

 

screen goes black and you still stay connected and can talk on ts? or listening something like sound from the game?

and this only happens when you're playing?


yes, i have this problem usually happens when the vga is with temperature above 80, sometimes reaches 83 without nothing happens.


edit: and if I'm not mistaken it started happening after I replace the thermal pad of the vga by thermal compound IC diamond.

 

While I love ICD this is the one time I would recomend against using it. The problem is the nVidia solder issue and that the connections go cold. The faster you cool the chip down the sooner the solder goes bad. In fact nvidia's solution to extend 8xxxm life span is to just keep the GPU hot. ICD is counter intuative to this. Also with ICD and the heatsink you are creating a cool side while the mainboard is recieving no active cooling. While this will cool the chip it creates a cold side further accellerating the creation of cold solder conectons.

This is why baking or reflow works temporarily. you heat up all sides then let it cool slowly. The problem is this then just incorperates the exisiting oxidation so after each reflow it lasts a shorter and shorter time as the oxidation builds up..........

 

let's see if I understand correctly, you're saying that the solution to my problem would be to reflow the BGA? was thinking of putting the thermal pad again to see if the problem is resolved.

 

You have not gotten to the point of a dead system so reflow is not neccesary. I would recomend putting the pad back..............

 

then the thermal pad is more effective than ICD in the vga chip it?

 

by the way, I'm using the vga in underclock and undervolt and the temperature at full load not exceeding 82 degrees on average, performance in games and also did not fall as much or maybe not slackened.

Another interesting thing is that my vga OC did not have a performance increase in games, it made me very frustrated, but also underclock no significant changes as well.

 

No, ICD is too effective. You are creating too fast of a cool down and a cold side of the die. This then accelerates the creation of cold joints. The solder media used by nVidia on the 8xxxm chips has too low of a temperature melting point. Because it essentially starts getting soft at normal high temperatures rapid and multiple cool downs accelerate the demise of the chip.

 

I took all of your advice and decided to buy a new SSD, install Windows 7, the latest video card drivers, and reinstall the programs I need. So hopefully all of that will fix the crashing issues. And if not, at least I've got a new SSD to move into a new computer at some point.