Week old y550p keeps getting BSOD's when gaming. Help!

Hi all!

I've been a long time lurker to these forums and learned a wealth of knowledge from the various posts here. To get to the point, I finally bought an Ideapad y550p about a week ago which I freaking LOVE but it gets random BSOD's once a week and it BSOD's whenever I game.

I have:

Windows 7
Core i7 720QM
Nvidia 240m 1GB model
4GB RAM

For a while it ran well with a few BSOD's and I enjoyed Mass Effect, L4D2 and Mirrors Edge on Maxed out settings. I did something stupid to the display driver and I restored it to factory settings and now it BSOD's when I play:

Half Life 2: Lost Coast
Half Life 2: Lost Coast Video Stress Test

After about 5 minutes of the game running like a dream, little artifacts take over the whole screen (When the game is in windowed mode, the entire screen and not just the game window has the artifacts) then the system freezes up and I get the BSOD.

I thought it might've been heat so I used Everest and got a CPU reading of 143F (I'm not entirely sure if that's really high).

Another odd thing is I wasn't allowed to update the display drivers regardless; whenever I got the latest updates from nvidia, it just would not go through properly.

This is my first laptop and I could REALLY appreciate any help!

 

sounds like gpu (not cpu) overheating

 

Ah silly me. I was definitely thinking that but didn't know how to check gpu temps.

Is this normal? What can I do about it besides getting a cooling pad for my laptop? It only stays on top of a table the whole time.

I ran the HL video stress test once more just now and it got further than before but it still crashed and the fan heat got pretty hot. Am I gonna have to exchange it?

 

if you're not blocking any of the intake or outlet vents, i'd suggest giving lenovo a call.

it would run (relatively) hot when gaming, but not to the point it bsod's

 

Thanks Cassiohui. I just needed that second opinion. I'll give them a call when I have time