Laptop screen just goes black. Why? Please help.

It has been doing it on Counterstrike source after about every 10 or 15 mins of playing. Then it did it in WoW after about an hour. And it just did it in Oblivion after about 30 mins. The first few weeks I played games it never did this. Now it does all the time. The screen will just randomly go black. I can still hear the sound of the game. But the screen just blacks out and I have to shut my laptop down to get it to come back on. I do not think it is overheating. After just restarting it after playing Oblivion the temperatures were only about 35C. Does anyone know what might be causing this? It is very frustrating?

 

Are you running on stock settings and drivers?

Have you tried playing on an external monitor to see if it also goes blank?

If the external also goes black then it's probably your videocard.

 

No. I have updated the drivers once. But it did it before I updated as well.

I haven't yet. I haven't had one available.

 

Did you overlock the gpu?

 

Nope. Stock clocks.

I have updated the Bios and Drivers as well. Still the black screen.

 

Have you tried cycling your monitor output (FN+Fx key) even if you don't have external monitor attahced?

Does this happen only with games, not when using desktop applications? At least WoW runs in window, try that. It could be something as simple as buggy drivers (famous ATI quality ;D).

 

Try this.

Go to CCC, under Powerplay, set both battery and AC settings to Maximize Battery.

Now see if it crashes.

EDIT: Yes I know performance will be reduced, but I just want to check something.

 

Alright. I'll try both of those things and get back to both of ya'll real soon! Thanks!
And Yes, It happens just in games. It's only happened to me in WoW once. But it's been running fine hear lately.
It happens in CSS, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Those are the only games I've attempted to play.

 

Well, I'm not sure if it's fixed for good. But so far, Since I have done the power play thing I have played all 3 games for about 20 mins each and it has worked fine. Hopefully after playing longer it won't happen again. What did this change?

 

All it did was lower the GPU clocks, which confirms my "research". With certain Envy's there are quirky GPU's. You have one of them as do I. For some reason at standard or above standard clocks, the GPU has a tendency to furiously render simple textures, overclock itself, and crash the card, resulting in the black screen. Using Powerplay, you locked the card at 300/300, resulting in stability.

And now your thinking, "well that sucks, what if I want to play newer games".

Well, me, being "THE ULTIMATE L3VI!" (jk, jk), have found a semi-solution, until ATI freaking fixes this huge problem.

After you have powerplay set like you already have, install MSI Afterburner.

Go to the MSI After burner program files and open the Afterburner CFG file and set unofficial overclocking to 1. If it doesn't let you save, right click the file and adjust the permissions so you have full control, then set it to 1 and save

Run the program in Administrator mode.

From here set clocks at something only slightly lower than the default 450/800. I'm running at 425/700 with no issues to give you an idea. Click Apply.

To make sure everything is running at the right clocks install GPU Z and check the "sensors" tab.

Try getting as close to 450/800 while remaining stable.

 

Thanks so much!
I did all this and set it to what you have yours at.
Do I need to turn the powerplay back to maximum performance on ac?

 

No, do not do that. I'll explain.

By using Powerplay on the low performance setting and MSI Afterburner in conjunction, you have effectively locked the GPU at one frequency. The reason you crash in your games is because of the fluctuating frequencies (I told you about the card OCing itself on simple textures earlier). Setting the Powerplay to Maximize performance allows the dynamic overclocking/underclocking (this usually isn't problem, but for us with quirky GPU's it is), and it overrides MSI Afterburner and overclocks itself like mad beyond reasonable limits. By setting Powerplay to maximize battery life, it disables the dynamic overclocking, and is constantly trying to clock the GPU down to 300/300. This is why you won't crash when you set your clocks with After burner. The card isn't trying to OC itself at all (it's actually trying to downclock), whereas it was trying to before.

Best thing we can do know is let ATI/AMD know about this and ask for a driver update.

Also, this would have been a lot easier if there was a program like RivaTuner with option to lock the GPU at one frequency (standard). However, all the programs with that option are not compatible with the Mob. Radeon 5650. So this is the next best thing.

 

Oh, Alright. I understand.
Thank you so much for the help. I greatly greatly appreciate it.
It was really starting to bug me. Ha.

 

Hey L3vi

First of all...thanks for responding to me in that other thread, everyone else was ignoring me in the official gaming lounge. How's your performance in games with 425/700?

 

@Phongy

Actually not too bad. Borderlands running very fluidly at 1280 by 768 at medium settings. I'm sure I can go on higher settings, but I just ran defaults.

Earlier I ran at 440/725 and it seemed quite stable. Tomorrow I'll crank up the res to native and see how it handles.

 

I'm playing Fallout 3 on all high at native on those clocks. And it runs great and looks beautiful.

 

Yea I just ran Borderlands maxed out. Looks very nice and runs at 30+ fps.

But yea glad I could help ya.

I'm gonna try 475/725. If you set the clocks to the default 450/800, the card kills itself as usual during gaming. Perhaps locking at slightly higher clocks works as well. But that's wishful thinking.

 

Let me know if it goes well!

 

425/750 is stable for me at the moment, the performance in games is hardly noticeable but it still kinda bothers me that i have to underclock the GPU for it to work :\

 

I know what you mean. It's upsetting.

 

It seems 425 for core clock is the limit for me. Going higher works, and I even when up to 440/775 or something like that, but the game will crash if I look at certain things. I can replicate the crash easily by looking at a skag hole or at a certain locker in Borderlands. Kind of funny, but still frustrating. You would think the card would kill itself when rendering something of high detail, but no, it chooses render simple things ultrafast. Have any of you tried the new graphic driver update from HP? I want to, but I don't want to have to go through the hassle of clearing out all video drivers first.

 

I think I'll wait for someone else to be the guinea pig

 

Wow if i were u guys, i would definetly retrun that laptop.
Its unacceptable how u guys have to underclock in order to play games -_-
Which means ur graphic cards doesnt even meet the minimum HD 5650 standard. You guys should complain to HP.

 

can't you just turn powerplay off to lock it at 450/800 (and then underclock with msi afterburner if need be)

 

I tried just turning Power Play off, but it didn't solve the problem. I'll try that plus under clock later. If I have time (which I likely will not, I won't be gaming in a while it looks like).

@kotmul. Doesn't bother me much. I'm not a big gamer at all, and as long as the game runs, I'm happy. The real use for the GPU for me will be in modeling programs and stuff. Eh, whateva, I could be mad, but everything else about the laptop is too awesome.

 

okok, im the guinea pig

Latest updates from guinea pig
After wasting my time to uninstall old drivers and install the new drivers from HP, im still having the same problem

Im not sure how powerplay works, but if im not wrong, it should underclock my GPU to 300/300 right?
But after checking out my GPU-Z my GPU was still running @ 450/800

As confused as I am, I decided to just switch powerplay off and locked the GPU to 445/790 with MSI afterburner
So far my games have ran 1hr+ with no problems whatsoever

 

Imma try those clocks with powerplay disabled when I get the chance, I'll see how it turns out for me.

 

Under the sensors tab of GPU-Z is it reading the clocks that you set? Mine still stays at 450/800 when I disable powerplay and try to underclock.

 

mine is showing the clocks i set.
i tried it with/without powerplay, both variations work fine

 

I just ordered the Envy 14. If by any chance I have this same problem and I ask for an exchange or repair. Is it possible that HP might compensate me somehow for the inconvenience? If so, what might that compensation entail?

 

You have 21 days to return the laptop without penalty from when you get it. You can try asking them for compensation but don't expect anything huge out of it. They might reimburse you some cash or give you a coupon to the hp store.

 

Cata 10.8 has been released, if anyone wants to try it out. Just make sure you install on top of base HP drivers and if screen goes blank, wait for at least 7 minutes before restarting.

ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver