Weird interaction with Mafia 2

So this is something I find really annoying and weird, for some reason my Clevo P157SM does something really weird when I play Mafia 2.

When playing the game for an extended period of time (usually around 1 - 2 hours), it will simply shut down my notebook as if it's overheated. The game runs at capped 60FPS maxed settings, GPU usage is 40-45%, temp around 55c, CPU has a usage of 20-30% and temps are around 60s, the game also has microstutters. Basicially 3 - 5 seconds before actually shutting completely down, the game would use the last command I gave it and repeat it, basicially when i go straight and 3-5 seconds before shutdown, the char will go front for 3-5 second, as If my W key was stuck, other input will get ignored, which lets me believe it has something to do with the CPU.

What makes this weird is the fact, that all other games, which are also way more demanding never had this issue. I've played games like, mafia 3, witcher 3, battlefield 1, Shadows of Mordor, GTA 5 for hours uppon hours, never seeing this behaivior ever, which basicially means only mafia 2 is causing this weird glitch.

Does anyone have an idea what this madness is?

 

Does the windows event viewer show anything?

 

Good chance something on your GPU is not being cooled properly. (Something other than the core, is probably not making good contact with the thermal pads)

 

Highly doubt it it. Why would the GPU run without any issues and high temps on new titles and only cause this issue on an old game with only 60% usage and low temps?

@ Meaker@Sager:
I should check that out. Thanks for reminding me windows actually had that feature Dx

 

Because the temperature sensor is only on the core and nowhere else. So there is no way of knowing if anything else on the GPU is over heating or not, and will just trigger a shut down if it starts over heating / goes over threshold. In most cases its a MOSFET.

 

But why would the mosfet get much hotter when the card is at ~55c than when the card is stressed out?

 

Im not sure why it would do that. This sounds like a similar behavior to when i would run the Sky Diver demo, where the system would black screen out at close to the same section every time. While every other benchmark / game worked just fine.
Certain games how ever push the GPU in different ways.
Heck it might never even be heat related, but this something you might need to look into if nothing else help. Like - Clean driver install, Windows Update, closing background processes, etc.

 

I have the bad feeling, that aegis physx is causing this. I¨ll investigate

 

I'm not familiar with the laptop model. Which GPU do you have? Try some much older drivers and/or PhysX software and see if that helps. Also if you're on an Nvidia GPU, try to turn PhysX on/off in the game and/or in Nvidia Control Panel and see if that helps any.
Nvidia drivers and/or newer PhysX versions have been causing some trouble with some older PhysX titles lately, so perhaps that's the case with Mafia 2 as well.
Not sure about the AMD side, but it's worth checking out some older drivers like 16.7.2 or even earlier.

 

played 4 hours Mafia 2, no crash, physx was causing this mess.

 

I'm glad you got it sorted.

However to answer the above it's because the heatsink makes contact with the two in different places. If the pad is missing or misplaced then the VRM may not be making proper contact.

Also VRMs usually do run hotter than the core of the GPU (and are perfectly safe to do so as they are designed to).