HP dv8000t reboots when playing games

Hi there, I have an hp dv800t with the following specs.

HP Pavillion dv8000t

Intel Core Duo T2500 @ 2ghz
Geforce Go 7600 256mb ddr3
1 x 1GB 667mhz DDR2
100GB SATA HDD 5400rpm
Lightscribe Dual-Layer DVD-R/W
17" WXGA+ 1440 x 900

Anyway lately I've noticed that whenever I start playing a game that is fairly intensive on the 3d side (eg: Team fortress 2, Half life 2, even my copy of Neverwinter Nights 1) my comp freezes, then just restarts itself. There's no blue screen or any other message that comes up.

Generally this will occur within the first 5 mins of playing a game, and never occurs outside of the normal email/music/internet browsing use of my machine.

I am using the 84.54 drivers which are supplied by hp for my machine. I have just reformatted to see if it would make a difference (it hasn't, still have the same problem). And before I reformatted I even updated the vid drivers to 93.71 (again, same problem occuring).

Not quite sure why this is happening, and considering I got it back from the repair centre only a month ago it does reek of bad timing. If anyone can help I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

Download a temperature monitoring program and see what the temps of the cpu and gpu are when you are playing the game. I'll bet that the cpu is overheating and that's why the computer is restarting. Most computers nowadays have thresholds already set so that once the cpu reaches a certain temperature it will shutdown or restart in order to stop the cpu from frying.

A couple tools to look at for this:
HWMonitor
SpeedFan
Everest

Let us know what the results are.

If heat is the issue there are a couple things you could do:
-Buy a can of compressed air and spray out the cpu vents on the bottom, back, and side of the laptop.
-Buy a laptop cooling pad to keep underneath the laptop.
-Undervolt the cpu to reduce temperature.

Also, what did they repair on the laptop? It might be that if they took the heatsink off of the cpu, they didn't replace the cpu goo.

 

Thanks for your prompt reply, i'll look into those programs now. This was actually the 3rd time it had been sent back since it came out of the box. The first two times were for faulty connectors with the monitor (caused the lamp to stay dark even when screen and comp was on) and the last time it had the entire motherboard replaced (power-surge-type fault).

Having said that, it was working like a dream until only a couple of days ago. Will post results soon.

 

As Envision said, due to the age of your notebook chances are its clogged up with dust thus overheating and doing a thermal shutdown. Check your temps, check the fans if you can

3 other cooling solutions:
- Prop the back of your notebook by 3cm or so
- Buy a cooling pad
- Undervolt

 

Ok just repeated the exercise, my cores went from around 50 degrees to this:



CPUID Hardware Monitor 1.0.8.0
-----------------------------------------------------

Mainboard Vendor Hewlett-Packard
Mainboard Model 30A6 (0xDA - 0x2290)


Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

ACPI hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 72°C (161°F) [0xD7C] (TZ01)
Temperature sensor 0 0°C (32°F) [0xAAC] (TZ02)

Dump hardware monitor



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

Intel Core Duo T2500 hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 64°C (147°F) [0x24] (core #0)
Temperature sensor 1 72°C (161°F) [0x1C] (core #1)

Dump hardware monitor



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

FUJITSU MHV2100BH hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 39°C (102°F) [0x27] (HDD)

Dump hardware monitor


Processors Map
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 2

Processor 0
-- Core 0
-- Thread 0
-- Core 1
-- Thread 0


Processors Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 1 (ID = 0)
Number of cores 2 (max 2)
Number of threads 2 (max 2)
Name Intel Core Duo T2500
Codename Yonah
Specification Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2500 @ 2.00GHz
Package Socket 479 mPGA (platform ID = 5h)
CPUID 6.E.8
Extended CPUID 6.E
Core Stepping C0
Technology 65 nm
Core Speed 1995.2 MHz (12.0 x 166.3 MHz)
Rated Bus speed 665.1 MHz
Stock frequency 2000 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
L1 Data cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control yes
FID range 6.0x - 12.0x
max VID 1.263 V
Features XD, VT

Everest doesn't support my specs apparently, and the speedfan only lets me adjust hdd fan speeds. Are these normal temps given the circumstances?

 

So what processes was your computer running when you took those readings that you posted above? Was your computer idle? or were you playing a game?

 

I was playing Neverwinter nights 1. Idle temp is below.


CPUID Hardware Monitor 1.0.8.0
-----------------------------------------------------

Mainboard Vendor Hewlett-Packard
Mainboard Model 30A6 (0xDA - 0x2290)


Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

ACPI hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 55°C (130°F) [0xCD2] (TZ01)
Temperature sensor 0 0°C (32°F) [0xAAC] (TZ02)

Dump hardware monitor



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

Intel Core Duo T2500 hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 54°C (129°F) [0x2E] (core #0)
Temperature sensor 1 58°C (136°F) [0x2A] (core #1)

Dump hardware monitor



Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

FUJITSU MHV2100BH hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0 42°C (107°F) [0x2A] (HDD)

Dump hardware monitor


Processors Map
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 2

Processor 0
-- Core 0
-- Thread 0
-- Core 1
-- Thread 0

Hope this helps.

 

Prop the back of the computer up a little bit to give a better circulation of air to the cpu vents, play a game, record the temps, and see if the computer restarts.

Let me know what happens.

 

You temps seem to be in range. Can you hear or feel your fan working?

I just re-read the OP and realised its restarting not shutting off. Usually it will completely shutoff or downclock if the GPU is overheating but this doesnt seem to be the case..

I advise updating your drivers anyway if you gonna game. Preferrably 169.09 or close from www.laptopvideo2go.com

 

Hey guys, have just tried again with a stress test from Orthos. Hits about 77-78 after 10 mins of ram/cpu stressing. No reboot at that time.

I have also just updated to the 169 drivers you mentioned earlier flipfire. Also propped the back of my laptop up quite a bit as you mentioned envision. Not sure if it's one or the other but my temps seems to sit around 71 during neverwinter nights, and no reboot after about 20 mins of playing. Will try to install something a bit more demanding to make sure it's alright so far, but am definitely looking into buying a cooler pad.

Anyone have any good ideas on where to buy a decent one that's not more than $90 in sydney? Bear in mind I need a 17" one.

Thanks for your help thus far guys.

 

heres a start:

http://www.mwave.com.au/newAU/mwave...Y87JLNIY94THIWHKTZFO&catID=1809&page=2&rpp=25

Zalman NC2000/1000 is the most recommended except it is expensive.

 

It seems I'm still having this problem. Just installed Counterstrike Source and it crashed after 3.5mins of playing. Core temps were around 76 mark.

managed to get an everest report of my system, do you need me to post the whole thing?

 

Have you checked the event logs to see if the OS is recording any information about the system reboots?

 

where would i find that?

 

Nevermind, google is a wonderful thing.


Event Type: Error
Event Source: nv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 108
Date: 9/05/2008
Time: 6:42:10 PM
User: N/A
Computer: BRAD-LAPTOP
Description:
The driver nv4_disp for the display device \Device\Video0 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00000000 00460003 00000000 c004006c
0010: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
0020: 00000000 00000000

 

If it helps at all i even reseated the ram in a different dimm slot. Still have the same problem.

 

Its the Nvidia GPU driver. Try changing drivers again..

 

I was thinking that, am going to downgrade them shortly. However I was getting the same problem with the stock standard drivers that were factory-installed, and to be honest I've only had this problem recently(maybe a fortnight or so?). Any idea which drivers I should go for?


By the way thanks for the undervolting guide, works a dream. I've shaved about 13 deg of the cores when its being used heavily, and only modified it by about 1.125 so far.

 

With that event log information, it definitely looks like a video card problem. I see that you've tried going back to the stock drivers, but how many different driver versions have you tried?

I would uninstall the video card software completely, download a registry cleaner and run that, then download a different version of the video card software that you haven't used yet and try that. If you still have the same problems, it seems more like it's a problem with the video card itself, but at the same time it could be a conflict with the OS as well.

Check out this site and download the newest drivers, not any beta ones though:

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

 

No problem. just make sure you put a small margin on your unsafe voltages to make sure its rock stable.

Back to the GPU, you said you tried stock driver but still persists,

If Vista itself is somehow corrupted, it will crash even if you use the stock driver.

If not, then hardware is to blame

 

I've tried the 169 and the 163 so far. Both have the same problem.

Have just downloaded a driver cleaner and the 84.25 drivers (yes they're old but the reading i've been doing suggests many people have dropped back to this for a more stable gaming experience). I'll do this tonight after I get back from work and let you know how it goes.

That's good news, however I'm running XP

One problem I've noticed is that HP haven't released a new driver for this comp since the 80-something ages ago. As a result of the current system setup, I'm unable to download new ones from the nvidia website as it advises to download direct from hp-update.

At this stage I'm seriously considering buying a new hdd, and installing a new boot partition without the use of my hp recovery partition, and just installing all the drivers and OS myself. Do you guys think this would make a difference at all? I'm really praying it's something software-related.

If it's the GFX card then I think it may be time to buy a new lappy. Kinda sucks since I've only owned this for just over a year.

 

A clean install always makes a huge difference in the performance of a computer. When you buy personal computers from manufacturers they are filled with so much garbage that hampers the true power of your computer. When you do a clean install it's night and day difference from the manufacturers stock installation.

You could try and reinstall the OS and see if you get the same problems, but it sounds more like the graphics card is the main problem here. If you have a warranty on it still I would call HP and have them take a look at it and repair it.

 

Unfortunately, as the case generally is with these problems, my machine is out of warranty. The last time it was sent back and repaired it was about 4 weeks out of warranty, and I believe the only reason they took it back at that time was because it had already been sent back twice before, during the first 12 months of ownership.

If I do a clean install on my OS partition, the recovery partition should still stay exactly the same (ie; I can retrieve the hp-os/boot later on if need be) right?

To be honest, I don't even know if the gfx card is removeable in this machine, and/or if it can be replaced at all. I really hope this isn't the case, otherwise the lifespan of this machine for me has been just over 14 months - considering i paid 2500 just over a year ago it does seem a bit on the dodgy side.