P-6831FX restarting/black-screening after 20 min of gaming

Completely at my wits end over this ...

I know for a fact that it's a heat problem, if I turn it upside down and run say CoD4, it won't black screen or restart. Also it has never done this while web browsing/doing anything else.

I'm running XP SP3, I've tried a dozen drivers (of the custom ones designed to be used with an 8800m GTS), I've tried upgrading the BIOS. I am missing one of those rubber prop-ups on the bottom but I've stuck something in it's place, so I'm not restricting air flow.

Measured temperature, GFX is at 85-ish, possibly 90 around the time it restarts/black-screens.

Opened up the bottom, cleaned one of the fans (which wasn't clogged or anything), obviously I can't get at the other one but it seems quite clean through the vent.

Any ideas of how to fix it?

I'm in Australia so sending in for warranty is not an option.

Oh, one interesting point of note I found was the BIOS is detecting that there's 2gb + 2gb of RAM, whereas in reality there is only 2gb + 1gb installed. Although it does detect properly in XP. Surely that's not it though?

 

take out the heatsink that goes to the CPU and GPU then re-apply thermal grease and try again.

 

Are you overclocking? Prop your laptop up on something to give it more air.

 

Nope not overclocking. When I prop it up on something it lasts longer but still dies, I only tested it for like 30 min flipped upside down so I wouldn't be surprised if it would have lasted much longer.

Hmm, isn't the GPU hidden under a piece of backing that can't be removed? I can take out the CPU heatsink but how do I get to the GPU?

 

It's a mission to get to the GPU as you have to completely disassemble the bottom of the laptop. Just try the CPU first and have you cleaned it out with compressed air? You would be surprised how much crap can congregate on the CPU heatsink.

 

as said, compressed air is your best bet.
just power it down and dont drip inside.

 

Just to anyone who might find this thread, spraying the graphics card heatsink and vent with compressed air fixed it. Couldn't believe it would for the smidgeon of dust that it blew out of there. Now, the top keyboard area isn't scorching hot anymore and it seems like it's ceased restarting.

EDIT - Heh, actually no it didn't I spoke too soon. What did fix it is reverting back to Vista/default drivers, which is obviously rather annoying but at least saves me junking it.

 

Okay then well, n/m lol