P-6860FX screen shuts off or computer shuts down while playing videogames.

How goes it,
I'm running vist home premium 32bit
dual core 1.83Ghz cpu
4Gb system RAM
8800M GTS video card

I've been having a reoccuring problem with this laptop for a few months now. When I play any game on this laptop (WoW, Aion, Crysis, CS: S), the screen will shut off but the multimedia buttons will remain lit or the laptop shuts off completely. Ive checked the fans and they are still running and they even speed up when I play games for an hour or so.

I've updated my drivers and BIOS and I've updated Vista to the latest updates.
My warranty has expired so I'm more than willing to dive into the guts of this laptop to see what the problem might be.

I'm not sure if this is a recently discussed issue but I appreciate anyone willing to lend a hand or more brain power so I can go back to destroying pixels

 

Try connecting your laptop to another monitor and see if the same happens. But since it shuts off completely at times i doubt it has to do with the monitor. Have you tried monitoring the temps while gaming ?

 

What are your temperatures at idle and when loading/playing games? This seems to be a very odd problem that I have only heard about from you...

 

Ok last night I searched around and found some beta modded drivers from a link in one of the threads. I used driver cleaner and installed the drivers as per the instructions in the thread. I was able to play WoW and Aion each for an hour without a problem. I'm not sure if the problem is gone but I couldn't even get passed the character design phase of creating a toon with Aion and last night I was able to make a character and play to level 3 without a problem. Before I played Aion, I enjoyed a late night wintergrasp battle in WoW and did some dailies with no problems and I even had better fps than normal.
I'm hoping last night wasn't a fluke and that the different drivers resolved the issue.
Btw, what app can I use to monitor my temps for CPU and GPU? What are normal idle and heavy load temps?
Thanks for the suggestions

EDIT: Here's the link I got the drivers from: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=265740

 

This is the link to hwmonitor.
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

Just run it when u power on your laptop and just monitor the temp when its idle say about 15-30 mins after powering on. Also monitor the temp while gaming. Post the screenshots here if possible.

 

Here's some temps after playing UT 3 for about 30 minutes.

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/3279/tempsz.jpg

EDIT: Is there a way I can record temps in the background while playing a game? If I alt tab out of the game the temps will drop and not give an accurate reading.

I forgot to mention that I have the laptop propped at an angle to allow for better air flow for the vents. I also don't block or set anything in front of the exhaust vents.

 

Those CPU temps are actually on the high side, they wont damage the CPU because they have a much higher rating but other components close to it might be overheating although the GPU looks fine... have you ever applied new thermal paste? I highly recommend ICD7 which is a very great paste. I also recommend Speed Fan as a temp monitoring program in which I have it set to easily check my temps in my task bar for the CPU/GPU in one convenient place and little footprint... You could also invest in a cpu cooler such as the Zalman NC2000

 

CPU temps are on the higher side. GPU looks fine. Try cleaning the fans and applying fresh thermal paste like ICD7 to the processor. Make sure you clean and get rid of the residue b4 applying the new paste. To take note of the temps while gaming... just check what the max temp was b4 u started the game and after your done gaming.

 

As far as applying new thermal paste goes...will that affect gpu temps?

 

Not exactly, unless you remove the thermal pads and replace them with paste on the actual GPU... but IMO it isnt worth the hassle. In his particular problem his CPU temps were pretty high... if he used some thermal paste such as ICD7 it would lower the CPU temps, which should lower the whole mainboard temps, which might even lessen the GPU max temps but probably not significantly...

 

If applied on the GPU. Yes it will. That is when the temps are very high idling. If its around early 40's dont expect a huge drop.

 

I used to have the first generation of XPS2's with the 6800ultra. I've opened that and replaced the GPU and put thermal paste on there myself but not without the help of a step by step guide for dismantling it. Is there a similar guide out there for dismantling this laptop or is it pretty much the same? The warranty is expired on it so I have no issue with that and I'm not a noobie when it comes to working on computers. I'm a little new with working on laptops is all and thats why I'd be more comfortable doing it with a guide.

 

If you're talking about the 17'' FX series laptops this is the sticky thread.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=382408

Download the PDF of the same hosted here by another member from here
http://www.mediafire.com/?zwmh5g2cmy1

 

Ok,
I couldn't get ahold of that ICD7 stuff so I used arctic silver 5 thermal paste.
I also used a compressed air can and dusted the inside of the laptop which needed it lol. The exhause fan for the CPU heat fins had a dust blanket attached to it so that more than likely was a cause of higher temps. I also checked every other spot for dust and did a thorough dusting with the air can.

I then removed the heatsink and applied the AS5 to the CPU and GPU. When I turned the computer on and looked at HWmonitor the temps were ridiculously low but I expected that due being turned off for a little over a half hour. I'll play some games and post a screen shot of the new temps after a quick alt+tab.
Thanks again for the help thus far. Its been a lot of help

 

Ok here is a screenshot of temps after playing Aion for about 40 minutes.

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/227/newpastetemps.jpg

I'll play some more games and see what the difference is. I'm betting the temps will differ if I played a game like UT3 for the same duration.

 

While those temps do look better, its better to have a base that you are comparing to. The last image we saw was after you ran UT3, so run UT3 under similiar circumstances then see if the temps are better than they were before

 

Ok Ill do that and see what the difference is.

 

I'm having an IDENTICAL problem, with exact same model laptop. Happens while playing Fallout 3. Never happened before, but just started today. I actually found this forum searching for a solution.

Has this been confirmed to be driver related or overheating? I don't think it has anything to do with the hardware overheating because I've had my laptop far hotter than when the screen shuts off.

Just a note, the screen doesn't go black, it actually turns completely off in an instant, and I have to manually shutdown the laptop and turn it back on to get it to work again.

 

It should not matter that it has been far hotter, because overtime components break down anyway... even more when put under stress/high heat... do you use a cooler or prop your laptop up when playing games?

 

Ah well then it could be heat related. I do tend to get caught playing Fallout 3 for hours on end. Just seems strange that this has never happened with Crysis or UT3.

To answer your question, I prop up my laptop by placing it on 4 sticky note pads--one in each corner.

Another thing, I've had problems with Fallout 3 crashing randomly many times since I bought it, but it would just crash to desktop. Perhaps it hints at a driver issue. Problem is, there's no manufacture drivers for this laptop. I ended up manually installing drivers a long time ago. Never had any problems til now.

 

This could be an odd problem that could even arise from a driver issue. Happened to me once while installing to the latest Nvidia Forceware driver.

 

Ok, I played a couple games of team death match with 10 players total on UT3 and the GPU didn't get over 60C the cpu got up to 56C. Its weird that Aion stresses my cpu and gpu more than UT3 does.
I'm happy to say that, ever since cleaning out the innards of the laptop and redoing the thermal compound on the gpu and cpu, my laptop has been running stable without any restarts or shutdowns or the screen turning off. I'm gonna be a cleaning nut with this laptop from now on so I don't run into this problem again
Thanks again to everyone that helped me out with this. I can now go back to destroying pixels happily ^_^

 

Your very welcome... certain games are optimized to utilize the CPU or GPU more such as you mentioned about UT3/Aion.... it really makes quite a difference cleaning of your laptop every once in a while... also make sure you prop up your laptop or get a cooler to help prolong the life of the components

-t3

 

I always have my laptop propped up and I make every attempt to prevent the vents from getting blocked. The exhause vents pish so much air now and the media buttons dont even get hot or warm like they did before I cleaned the laptop. Im glad I decided to do all that before anything got damaged.