Clevo M860TU, freeze with coloured pattern on the screen.

Hello all,

this thread is a continuation of one I made regarding some issues I though were HDD related. however I found out that the HDD is not the cause, thats why I'm reposting this this as a more general thread.
The original thread can be found here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-m860tu-hard-disc-temperature-under-win7.html

Okay basically this started 1 month ago and first time while playing League of Legends. Suddenly my screen froze and a pattern like this one
appeared on the screen. The sound started to stutter and I basically had to press the power button on my Laptop. (The PIC was take the time I was using my external monitor).

I have been playing other games fine before, Including the stress test weekend of Guild Wars 2 (lots of hours played ) that ended like 2-3 day before this issue and never experienced something like this. Yesterday that even happened while watching a Metacafe (some Youtube like site).

What I already have done is the following.
- Check System temps: GPU: 70°C max, CPU 65°C max, HDD 50°C
- HDD check via DOS with the Fujitsu diagnosis tool passed.
- memtest86 in DOS mode passed.
- Chipset, VGA drivers up to date.
- no overclocking done.
- Windows up to date.

The Laptop itself is a Clevo M860TU, running:
- VGA: Nvidia GF9800m GTS 512mb
- Intel Core2Duo P8600 @2.4 Ghz
- 4 GB of DDR3 ram
- Fujitsu 5.200 RPM HDD

To note as well before the problem happened my Core Drivers (Chipset, Audio,etc) were running perfectly for about 1 year, VGA was last updated like 1 month before the issue. The only thing that was getting updated was Windows and things such as the Adobe programs.

EDIT: The PC logs into Windows fine as if it would be perfect. It runs fine for lots of hours, including web browsing etc. My PC stay on for quite some hours cause I use it for everything (music while doing something else, videos,etc) I ocasionally play some games inbetween and they run without a problem. The crash happens really random, maybe after 1hour or 5hours of the PC being on.

For any ideas and help on this matter I'd be very thankful,

~Onne

 

A few days ago I had a similar problem with my M860TU with a 9800m GT. Lots of tiny horizontal white lines all over the screen. I fixed it by re-installing the previous nvidia driver (285.62), even though 301.42 had been working fine since it was released. You could see if that works for you.

 

I have a few questions:

1. When you turn on the computer, can you see the post screen(before your laptop going to Windows, you would see some wordsing like brand/Logo)?
2. Can you go into Windows?

If you can't see the post screen, then it has two possibilities: a. Video data cable b. Graphic card.
If you can go into Windows, and above screen show up when you enter into a game and web browsing, then it is graphic card.

Please contact the reseller you buy it from and ask for tech support help!

 

Looks like the old 9800M GTS is about to die.

 

Yes, It logs into Windows normally. I can do everything without any problem, nor graphic glitches. And my Laptop runs really smooth. Today for example my laptop was turned on for about 7 hours, I played 1 league of legends game after i first turned it on. Everything was fine, I got no distortion nor graphic glitch inside the game nor lags nor hang ups. After that I went to do some browsing checking emails, after that make lunch etc. later I decided to go for one more game. 30 minutes into it it crashed. This time I haven't had the external monitor plugged and my laptop screen showed a black screen, but as well with the sound stutter issue described in my original post.

Thanks for this info I will give the 285.62 Drivers a try (using the 301.42 one atm).

I have had a problem with a dying Video Card once in my old Desktop PC, but that time I got artifacting on my screen with the images completely tearing, but the Video Card didn't cause the system to freeze and the sound to stutter. And by doing an alt-tab I could temporary fix the images, which clearly showed that indeed it was the Video Card. However I find it difficult to to understand how this time the VGA itself can run a few games without any problem nor graphic glitch and then all of a sudden freeze the whole system.

 

Added the following to my original post
: The PC logs into Windows fine as if it would be perfect. It runs fine for lots of hours, including web browsing etc. My PC stay on for quite some hours cause I use it for everything (music while doing something else, videos,etc) I ocasionally play some games inbetween and they run without a problem. The crash happens really random, maybe after 1hour or 5hours of the PC being on.

 

UPDATE 2: I tried with the 285.62 drivers. Still the same.

Ontop of that this time I removed the external Monitor. The Laptopmonitor just turned Black and no pattern. (note the pic is missleading cause thats the external monitor).

However, today after the problem occured I did not reset the Laptop straight away. I rather waited and after 10ish seconds the sound (my music) came back then slowed down, as if some1 would have turned the speed of the song down to 0.7x. Then it started to stutter then again sound slowdown. The Display did not recover and I had to reboot in the end.

 

i would seriously think of backtracking and trying the most stable driver nvidia ever released. its worth a go as youve tried most other things.

186.81

64bit NVIDIA DRIVERS 186.81WHQL

32bit NVIDIA DRIVERS 186.81WHQL

as youve got quite an old card it could well be strugling to keep up with the latest drivers.

 

I will try the 186.81 drivers next.

So far my only clue is bad ram (again). Because my Notebook was up to date with drivers including the NVIDIA ones for about 1year and ran without any problems, on top of that I do install driver updates manually. I ran memtest86+ before but I just found out that it is recommended to leave it the whole night... and I just did 2 passes. My guess, since I experienced this with only 1 game (well the one I play the most) is that it must have to do with the program writing exactly the pattern that causes an error on my RAM at some random given times thus causing a crash.