P-7811FX Frequent freezes in games

I've had my Gateway P-7811FX notebook for almost a year.

As long as I've had this machine, every single game I play will freeze. Crysis, The Witcher, City of Heroes, Left 4 Dead, Age of Conan, Eve Online, Team Fortress 2; you name it, my notebook will freeze. The point at which this freezing occurs is random; I've been able to play L4D for two hours before the freeze occurs, and I've had Eve lock up within 40 seconds of starting after the laptop had been off all night.

When it freezes, no keystrokes or mouse moves are recognized. The mouse cursor disappers. If any sound is playing, it'll loop. Upon restarting my notebook, Vista does not report any errors (aside from the 'your computer didn't shut down properly' one).

This only occurs when I'm gaming. If I'm coding or web surfing or watching videos, it runs all day without issue. I've been using a laptop cooling pad. Although the air being vented out is much cooler, as is the bottom of the notebook, the freezing hasn't stopped. The vents look pretty clear to me too.

What should I do to diagnose and fix this problem?

 

First download HW Monitor. HW Monitor

Use it to see if your GPU temps exceed or get near 80c while playing. If they do then you have a heating problem. Do you mean a cooler when you say cooling pad? Is this just a cold pad or a cooler with fans that circulates air to your laptop? If its the former, you should get a cooler.

You may also want to completely disassemble the laptop and clean the vents as well as reapply thermal compound to the CPU and GPU. You can use these directions
Clean Cooling Ventilation

If the temps seem to be normal then you should reinstall your GPU drivers. You can follow these directions
Reinstall Drivers

If none of this works you may have a hardware issue or need to reinstall your OS

Need any more help just ask

 

Thank you TheGOAT, I will get on that immediately and report back.

Edit: Oh, I meant a laptop pad that has a fan in it.

Edit: My notebook runs between 80c and 87c while a game is running. I'll try to get this thing apart and look for dust. I have thermal paste, so I'll try to get some of that in there too.

 

try a duster first and blow all the vents. mine was 106c while gaming down to 67c max now. it's not freezing anymore.

 

7811's have hit the one year on the market as of today. It's about time if you've not done it all ready, to take them apart and clean the crap out of all the heatsinks.