Screen freezes and shuts off while gaming

I have a Sager NP9170 with an AMD 7970m, Windows 7 64-bit, that's about 2 years old. I have an issue where when I begin playing a game, anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes in my screen will freeze then shut off, the sound will continue for a couple seconds, then will pretty much just repeat whatever background music there was, and won't respond forcing me to hard restart my computer. I can't say when this started happening, maybe a little less than a year ago? At first I would have to go through this process maybe 1 to 2 times then on the next time I started up my game it wouldn't do it, but if I happened to quit the game and then replay it or a different game, the process could start up again. It's now gotten to the point where it will happen 3 to 4 times before I can play the game. The first thought is that something is overheating, but my GPU usually stays around 60-70C, and I used a program to stress test the CPU and nothing happened. I have the latest AMD drivers and other various drivers. I'm at my wits end with trying to find a solution. I could just deal with it and restarting my laptop 3-4 times every time I want to play a game but that's kinda ridiculous.

I'm hoping someone on here might have had a similar experience or know a solution. I'm not sure if it's something specific to the laptop or the GPU and Enduro or what. I could maybe try reverting all the way back to the AMD drivers that it came stocked with and see if this fixes it. Would I be losing anything major by doing this, such as whatever tweaks and optimizations you gain by having up to date drivers? If anyone has any idea of a solution I would love some feedback. Thank you!

 

if its what i think it is then its not good news. lets hope im wrong.

sounds like a dying graphics card. those temps are perfectly fine.
same think happened to me with an old 9800GT and it was the sound loop that gave it away.
have you noticed any lines at all on screen as this is normally the first signs. mine died straight away. loaded crysis 2 on release day and as soon as it got into menu it froze and the background music looped. hard turn off/on and screen was full of lines.

im not sure how amd cards react as ive never owned one so lets hope you get some more replys.

 

There haven't been any lines on the screen, it just freezes then shuts off while the computer itself stays on but is unresponsive.

 

it could well have something to do with the graphics driver then. which have you got loaded, and is it a beta or whql.
also did the problem start after loading some software, a windows update or a driver.
to be honest its a process of elimination until you find the culprit.

 

There's 2 threads over here with the same problem :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/755407-p170em-windows-8-1-graphics-drivers.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/755733-np9150-w-7970m-would-like-some-advice.html

I'd suggest looking over those threads and try the solutions over there, if no luck post here and tells us what happens when you follow the advice. Unfortunately though other then that it does look like a dead card, however lets hope it's just a driver malfunctioning.

 

They're the official 14.4 drivers I believe. It has to be at least a year that this has been going on so it's hard to say what software or drivers/updates I installed around the time it started. I know for a while I was using stock drivers. I could try reverting back to the ones it came with, but I'm away for the weekend so won't be able to try anything until Sunday.

As for those other topics, the problems seem a little different than what I'm experiencing but I'm mostly seeing suggestions to reinstall Windows. I would prefer to avoid that but if necessary I could try.

 

They also suggest running a mem-test and checking the hard drive for errors, does the screen still show as in it freeze's but the mouse is just stuck and the last sound rapidly repeats?

 

No it's like the screen freezes, i can move the mouse, the sound continues whatever it was doing, such as dialogue, then the display shuts off while the sound just kinda continues...theres no real rapid repeating of sound or anything. It just stays that way while the laptop itself stays on completely unresponsive until I turn the computer off. I don't think the game or whatever is still running while the screen is off because theres never any new sound or actions going on. It's just really weird and I haven't found any exact experiences like that online anywhere.

I haven't tried the memory test and as far as the HDD, it's happened while playing games that were on both the HDD and SSD so I'm not sure if that makes a difference.

 

I would suggest reinstalling catalyst 14.4 (which is only about 2 months old or so), it works great for me. It sure wont hurt.
Follow the step by step manual procedure i posted HERE, it has never failed me. Its a bit long and boring but i prefer it to more automated and software based ones.