HP nc8430 problems with half-life. Help?

Okay, first off, this laptop is great except for this little issue. Ive had my nc8430 for a few months now. I have the AT Mobility Radeon X1600 video card. Early on I installed Counter Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source. They worked fine and everything was great until about a month or two in (maybe 2 months ago) Suddenly, randomly any source game (CS, DoD, HL2-DM, etc) will lock up. the screen freezes and whatever sound was playing the moment it locks up kinda stutters until I can end the game somehow. If its running full screen i have to manually shut the computer off. I started playing in windowed mode so when it crashed I could end task it, although sometimes when the game crashes it gives me an error and wont let me bring up task manager. but once i get the game closed everything goes back to normal.
Sometimes I get an error message saying something about "iDirect 3d Device error" but not always. Also... sometimes I can play for an hour or two and it won't happen. but more often than not it crashes about 30 seconds in. When it does play it's great. runs the game like a dream. Ive tried installing new drivers, running the game in lower DX modes, lowering the graphic settings and while sometimes it seems to work for a little while, the problem always comes back.

Anybody else have this problem? Can anybody offer me a clue as to what's causing it? I thought it might be overheating or something but, I bought a cooling pad and even when I play the laptop stays pretty cool, and it'll still do it.

Also... does anybody know if it's possible to use the official ATI drivers? Apparently the only drivers I can use are the ones from HP's site, which haven't been updated since july. It'd be nice to use up-to-date drivers but when I try to install them from ATI it says they're not compatible and I have to use HP's. However I was able to install and use the ATI Omega drivers. ( www.omegadrivers.net) Although they didn't help so I reinstalled the HP ones.

Anyway. If anyone can offer me some insight into why this is happening it would be greatly appriciated as playing DoD with my friends was a big part of the reason I got this model laptop in the first place.

Thanks

 

As long as it's ATi and the log/readme mentions support for X1600 mobile you should be fine. As to where you can get your latest drivers, you might want to check out Chaz's post in this same forum.

Did you install any new programs lately? Around the time that this started to show up? How long has it been since you have performed a full-fledged system maintenance?

 

Well perhaps I can be of some assistance.

First of all I would stick with the OEM HP drivers for your GPU, there are a lot of problems that can arise from third party drivers, so reinstalling those were a good move.

Secondly, I've had similar issues in the past with different notebooks, and they usually end up being worked out after I reinstall DirectX.

I would try to update and/or reinstall DirectX, delete all of your video drivers, then uninstall the device in device manager.

reboot

Then windows will reinstall it blah blah, reinstall the HP OEM Video Card Drivers and reboot.

Then try to reconfigure the game to it's normal settings or (default settings)

good luck

 

I would follow the steps outlined in this guide for updating the drivers; there is a possibility that your driver installation is messed up because of the non-so-clean-reinstallation.

I would personally stay away from the Omega drivers (those drivers had a long run of troubles with the X1000 series of GPUs). I don't know if those troubles have been resolved. You can download the ATI drivers directly from ATI's site here. This will link you directly to the Catalyst 7.1 drivers.

So far, the only thing I've had to do with those drivers in order to get them to work correctly with my nc8430:
1) Go to Start->Run and type 'regedit'. Hit Enter.
2) Using the Registry Editor program that pops up, search for ALL values with the name " ExtEvent_EnableAutoDisplayConfig". Change all those registry values to 0.

For more advanced info or if you just want to check out this thread in the HP Small Business support forums...click here.

 

to be honest mate. no point, just keep trying and see what works for you. ive SCOURED the internet for a solution to "idirect 3d..." and apparently, its the fact that the source engine dosnt really like ATI. most of all the x1000 series. ive tried ALL. im really serious. ive tried drivers, roll-backs, even some hardware. reboot, format. everything...and it keeps coming back. the moment STEAM updates a bit. the problem comes back. steam is crap..that's all. what really gets to me is the fact that ive paid money for something that only works on SOME computers. that's like...making a car that only certain cities can run. its quite stupid really. im not slagging off valve. its just...really frustrating. im still searching for a solution. the best one that works so far is rolling back to DIRECTX 8.1. April release.