np8170 gtx 485m artifacts then lock up then i go hard reboot in every game

I bought a np8170 8gb ram i7 2630qm 485m sager laptop last year july. a few days ago this problem just came up randomly with no problems of my laptop showing signs of overheating for both gpu and cpu before. So i was playing a game and my laptop just showed artifacts and sometimes weird lines all over the screen and a few seconds later the laptop just locked up and i had to press the power button since thers nothing else i could do. the laptop then keeps showing the same problem every time i play any game like la noire battlefiled 3 and age of empires 3. i hope my gpu didnt burn up coz its only a few months old and its has never shown any crashing and freezeing problems before and ive never overclocked it. besides gaming my laptop works fine when doing other things so right now the only problem with my laptop is the gaming part. is it possible that the gpu is dusted. i dont even know where the gpu is atm. ive checked the two fans and ive cleaned the dust already.

any suggestions would be appreciated thanks. ive done some research n some people suggest its the power supply. it might be possible that the power charging thing went bad since ive been charging it all the time non stop when gaming and downloading.

 

hi and welcome
could you post a picture of your screen with the lines and artifacts so it gives us a better idea.
lines normaly mean gpu could be on its way out but its impossible to tell until we see a screen shot.

 

Hi Powerhigh here are my suggestions in this order:

1. Dust out the machine thoroughly with compressed air.
2. Check to see if there are updated drivers, if so try those.

Laptop being plugged in 24/7 is a non-issue. Like DJ said, would like to see pics of the artifacting please.

Please report back.

 

It sounds like possible overheating to me. Have you checked your temperatures? Use HWMonitor to see what sort of temperatures you're getting. Cleaning out the dust should help immensely if you've had it for a while. Just take off the main cover on the bottom and check the CPU and GPU heatsink for dust (they're the big fans in there).

 

you can get all the monitoring software in my sig below

 

I'd rather you use GPU-Z or HWiNFO32, as HWMonitor usually not show the temps of the memory, which is what I strongly suspect may be the culprit here.

Just play a game for a few minutes, with the monitors running in the background, then alt-tab out of it, before whatever length of time the crash typically happens has lapsed.

 

ok thanks ill upload some pictures when im back from holiday tmw. just a small question so far all ive done is to take out the big pasltic cover of the laptop at the back at the top bottom. i saw two big fans and i used a screw driver to take them out to clean themn thoroughly including the big orange tube thing (is that the heatstink?) also how do i find the gpu is it under the right or left fan as it seems hard to find it.

 

ok i just downloaded gpu-z. age of empires 3 is an old game made in 2006 and im even getting 70 something degree just by staying in the online lobby constant 70 something. also tried nba 2k12 a more intense game n getting 60 somrthing while playing in game. after that i went for battlefield 3 and averaging an 80 for the first 10 minutes into the game. maybe even higher later on. funny the laptop hasnt freezed, flashed and showed dots and lines yet. when i alt tab or doing nothing at the desktop its 40 something. so whats the max for this card.

more info:
core, memory and shader clock speed is at max once im in a game. and memeory used is around 1.4-5k for battlefield 3 and a lot lower for other games. so what other info do u need. i still need to charge up my phone to take some photos. sry for the wait.

 

70C is fine. As long as your temps stay under 90C under load, then you have nothing to worry about. It looks like cleaning out the dust as well as anything else you did may have fixed the overheating problem.

 

sry but im still getting the problem. sometimes it happens after a few hours and sometimes after seconds.
i got photos showing the problem the one with nothing on it is plain lock up with no dots
Pictures by powerhigh - Photobucket

 

i think i found something. the laptop only freezes/lockup when the ac adpater is plugged in. not when im playing games on battery.

 

That may not mean anything, especially if it's overheating related. When on battery, the CPU and GPU both downclock pretty heavily so your temps will be much less than they are on AC.

 

ok so i brought it to a repair shop and they told me that its not related to heat issues and all the drivers are running fine. its the fact that whenever the video card reaches full speed it will have problems. thats why running on battery doesnt have problems but only on AC. maybe sager will replace the gpu for me if i send it to them since im still under warranty?

 

i need full details of how im gonna send the laptop to the US from Hong Kong for repair.

 

change your drivers and try again. it happened to me and the service told me its depends on game or about the drivers

 

it was found that whenever the card reaches full speed problems will happen. but anyways they replaced the gpu and fixed that line i have on the lcd screen.