T61P and starcraft 2

I have a t61p with 2.2ghz core 2, 4g ram and 570m FX card with win 7 pro 64bit. I tried playing the game but the first time it froze half way into the first level and the second time my system completely shut off without notice. Maybe it overheated second time around?

Any thoughts? Any ideas how to solve this problem? Has anybody else been experiencing these types of things? I currently have stock drivers and again running win 7 64bit. Any help would be appreciated.

 

yes it is probably overheating, try to clean the fan of any dusts by taking off the keyboard and the palmrest.

 

I've been running SC2 on a W500 with 4gb of ram. I'm wishing I had 6 gb right now. I'm thinking you don't have graphics memory.

 

looks like you in the same dilemma as I, to vidock or not to vidock?

 

I sincerely doubt that going from 4gb to 6gb will make an appreciable difference in Starcraft. Also, unless he is on integrated graphics the system RAM isn't having an impact on his video RAM amount.

 

This is a known problem with 3D games on the T61p with 2 memory sticks installed. Try removing 1 and see if you still get the crashes. If it goes away, you have a defective motherboard which will be replaced under warranty (but if you're out of warranty, you are SOL).

 

SC2 runs decent but it takes a long time to load

 

This might be of interest to you:

Blizzard confirms overheating issues with SCII
StarCraft II


Certain screens make your hardware work pretty hard

Screens that are light on detail may make your system overheat if cooling is overall insufficient. This is because the game has nothing to do so it is primarily just working on drawing the screen very quickly.

A temporary workaround is to go to your Documents\StarCraft II Beta\variables.txt file and add these lines:

frameratecapglue=30
frameratecap=60

You may replace these numbers if you want to.

 

Thanks for the replies. I am not sure if its so much a cooling problem as I tried setting up a few heavy duty fans around the laptop and kept the pc relatively cool...certainly as cool or even cooler than when I play fallout 2 for example.

I also do not believe the motherboard is defective as all my other games and programs run flawlessly.

With that said I am not really sure what the problem may be. Perhaps there is a compatibility issue with the lenovo driver for the 570M FX. Will attempt the advice of trying to change the lines as per above post and see if that does anything.

Anybody have similar setup as me and actually is running the game fine?

 

I added those lines in the required folder as per blizzards instructions however the problem seems to remain. I played the game for a bout 5 or so minutes and it just froze on me permanently. Its amazing how it took 12 years to make the game yet its not compatible with all systems with appropriate specs.

 

Have you tried running the game while CPUID is running or some other way of reading the temps during game play?

 

I'm running a T61p Intel Core 2 Duo [email protected], 4GB RAM, WD 320GB 7200 HDD, NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, and the game sometimes runs a bit sluggish, but overall its done well. I did have my machine shut off on me once because of overheating (I'm guessing) - I've had that happen a few other times on different games - though I've been able to play just fine.

 

If it helps, the 570M drivers I'm running is version 8.16.11.8694, dated 9/6/2009.

 

I’m surprised that your system doesn’t over heat during intensive gaming, since that one fan has to cool the T9300, and the FX570.

 

Try downloading the newest drivers from nVidia's site directly.

I believe they support the 570M natively now under the mobile drivers section.

Also, do clean out your fan ducts.

Let us know if this helps!

 

It certainly does, especially if I game a lot and don't let it rest for a while. Though I try to keep it cleaned out and that helps. Obviously you can tell how much I game lately by the age of my nVidia drivers. ;]

 

I have the same drivers as you xamlcoder so I am not sure why you are having no problems and I am, could be your faster CPU?

I added those lines of code and locked the vertical sync as well as kept the resolution of the game the same as the laptop (1680x1050) which helps me to play the game a bit longer but I still get freezes at randoml times, though much less frequently. It is still rather annoying though and so I am still looking for a fix.

Kamika007z I will try the driver from Nvidia and see if that helps at all.

 

I still think you should try playing with 1 dimm installed. I remember this defect only occurring to me when playing company of heroes and never occurring when playing counter strike source in the time I had a t61p with this problem...

 

I am trying to exhaust all other options first. Installing new driver from Nvidia did not help, in fact according to windows experience I actually went down a few points.

If will let you know if taking out 1 DIMM works when I cross that path. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Just as an update, I have been running the game without any problems on the lowest of settings all around and a fan for cooling plus.

It appears the problem is actually CPU in nature as I have seen even with a fan on the laptop temperatures up in the 80s on lowest settings. On the otherhand the GPU barely ever breaks 70 degrees on these settings and is usually in the 60s.

The game seems to be MUCH more CPU intensive and is likely the culprit in these random freezes.

 

i would choose lower resolution than lower setting. the difference is dramatic.

 

Seeing this thread isn't that old I'll add some info.

I too have experienced these symptoms (Laptop shuts down when playing 3D Games, benchmarks or using other GPU-intensive applications, can't power it up right away and you gotta unplug the power cord and battery. Upon booting up it doesn't show any error reports).

This issue is caused by a faulty planar (Mainboard). This issue has been fixed on 20/03/2008, so all systems built after that date should have the non-faulty motherboard with FRU 44C3931. The affected motherboards have FRUs: 42W7653 and 42W7877 (which are basically the same boards).

The issue is caused by an incorrect value set on one of the resistors on the motherboard (I suspect the value to be too hard). This causes a voltage drop when the GPU utilization is high, the memory bus is full and both DIMM slots are equipped.

I've tried undervolting the CPU to ease on the power consumption and to avoid the voltage drops by to no avail.

If you are experiencing this issue, please see these links as they should be helpful. Contact the support or service depot, explain and discuss the issue with them and demand the 44C3931 planar as a replacement.

Re: T61P Graphic problems--random shut down, BSOD,... - Page 71 - Lenovo Community

Re: T61P Graphic problems--random shut down, BSOD,... - Page 48 - Lenovo Community

Lenovo Support & downloads - System may lock up when playing games or running video benchmarking software, or may report an "nvlddmkm.exe" error - ThinkPad T61, T61p, R61