Gateway P7811 FX Crashes when out of Battery Mode

I originally purchased this laptop back in 2008.. started experiencing the Black screen issue about a year later. The Rivatuner Force constant 3D fix worked until recently. However... Now anytime out of 'battery mode' the laptop will Black Screen with sound loop.

What i've done:
Dissasembled and replaced TIM.
Clean install of OS.
Declocked GPU settings to shown Battery GPU settings. 400 core 300 mem 800 shader

However.. none of the above has worked. Within a minute of plugging the laptop in while in Game mode the laptop crashes.

So.. I'm wondering.. is there any way to make my laptop run in Battery mode while plugged in?

Or are there any other suggestions?

Just looking for a fix to work until I have the money for a new motherboard/gpu replacement. Thx.

 

Have you tried changing the settings in Control Panel - Power Options? You can create custom power plans etc.

 

You said you de-clocked, were you overclocked before?

 

I suppose I should of said underclocked rather than declocked. As I know the whole system is pretty much underclocked in battery mode.

Yes I've tried several different power options in control panel. I've also tried undervolting, rolling back drivers, etc.

Problem is the cpu runs at max 35% frequency and there is very little to no Disk activity when running off battery. I'm assuming the GPU takes the same kind of reduction.. however I can not see this, I am only using Windows System Monitor.

I know there is a program in the Linux OS system that allows you to force laptop mode etc. But I'm not familiar with the OS and will steer clear from that option.

Now.. another question I have is.. this problem we are all having.. is it definitively a motherboard/GPU problem? If I replace this component will the problem in theory be fixed? I'd hate to fork out $225 and still end up with the same issues.

Also, I know people bake their MBs as a last resort for ripples in display etc.. and not necessarily for my issue but should I consider this option as a last resort before buying the new MB/GPU?

Thanks a mil.

 

What I notice about my p7811 crashing is that it freezes right before the battery is fully charged.

So say you unplug the the power cord and let it run on its battery for however long and you plug the power back into the back of the laptop. It will still run for me but when the battery is at 90-100% charge the laptop freezes. I don't know what this could mean but im sure it has something to do with the freezing.

I had this laptop for 3 years now. After picking up the laptop and updating bios and doing whatever else everyone suggested with drivers and Doc's graphics card and declocking the laptop, the problem of fully charging the battery always remained. I had spree's where the system never crashed; Mass Effect 2, Starcraft 2, Dragon Age 2, Fallout 3 all on high - very high settings (but not maxed.)

TLDR:

Kind of late to throw this suggestion out since this laptop is no longer as popular as when it was released. But maybe someone can figure out why this laptop freezes when the battery is almost fully charged. And I'm positive no one has ever noticed this specific detail when the laptop would freeze.

EDIT: More theories about this detail.
1-People would say their p7811 would crash within 30 mins to an hour of use which is about the time that it would take to full charge the battery after having it unplugged.
2-People claimed to have it running for hours without crashing. Did they just sit there with the power plugged in as I had when gaming(which I never crashed from)

 

With the battery charge issue it could be the brick. LiPo batteries at 90% start going though a pulse charge to top charge them unlike nicad or nimh. This will cause small intemitent power spikes/dips from the brick. When the brick is new these are very small and the caps in the system itself will handle this. As the brick gets old the irregularity size is increased and the added load to the caps cause it to run outside of capacity.

The second issue could be the caps are failing. The brick, albeit not 100%, may still be within design tolerances but the systems caps may no longer be able to filter the power properly. This is doubtfull.

Manufacturers usually design a weak link and try to make this a cheap external, or easily replaceable, item. In this way that cheap link will die out and protect the rest of the components. With laptops this usually is the power brick. Now it isn't a 100% protection plan but better to blow a $20.00 brick than your $1,000.00 machine.

This too though is an argument not to use the 180w Targus brick. You are taking away the weak link and providing more than enough wattage to toast your FX system. Not that the stock brick under certain circumstances can't do exactly that.

Our bricks from day one were/are known to be a possible issue, so don't forget they still can be...................

 

So after reading the above responses.. I decided to just take the battery brick out .. and leave it on A/C and man its lasted 20mins in World of Warcraft (on forced low GPU permance in rivatuner) so far... <.< Could it have really been that simple after all that I've tried? The brick pulsing my computer with too much juice with ac plugged in as well... sigh i feel moronic

I will update in an hour or so. And if it lasts that long I'll switch to normal GPU settings and see how it goes.

 

Not your fault, this is something most people without a high degree of tech knowledge will not be able to understand. It acually is a +/- issue or tolerance. Without pulling the system appart and a micrometer we can't be sure what side of the spike causes the crash.

If you still need to remain at the lower clocks for stability then the AC brick may be in dire need of replacement. It may even if default works as again you could be just at the borderline of its capability normally but a power brownout in the AC could cause yet more issues...............