My Vaio keeps crashing when trying to play 3d games :/

Hey, I'm a new member of this forum (slightly obvious due to post count i guess) and I'm just here to ask a question which may or may not have been asked before (i don't know, i've used the "search" function but i couldn't find it)

I'm using a Sony Vaio VGN-FW46GJ with the latest drivers (well, according to the driver update thing they're the latest ones) running windows vista home premium 64bit.

quick specs:

Anyway, whenever i try to play 3d games, such as Crysis, Left 4 dead, Starcraft 2 and Atlantica online, the screen would crash and turn in to a grey screen. Someone else on another forum has had this same problem and so i'll write what he wrote:

This crash occurs every single time i try to play 3d games, although it doesn't occur immediately, it normally happens a few minutes in to the game.

It doesn't affect me however when I'm playing 2d games such as warcraft 3, Tales of pirates online or Emperor: rise of the middle kingdom.

I've had this laptop for about a year and two months or so now and i think i've had the problem ever since i got the laptop although it didn't really bother me as i liked to play on my PC anyway, but now I really want to play starcraft 2 on my laptop because that's an awesome game o.o

Anyway, thanks in advance for trying to help out a poor little vaio noob

 

Hi, and welcome to the Forums!

Did you update your drivers, or were they already updated? This can cause a game to crash. If you updated them your self, did the games work before hand?

Joel.

 

Hey Joel.

I haven't updated the drivers ever since i got the laptop last year in July or so, but i've checked for updates using the driver manager and it says that they were the latest ones, so i don't think there are any updates for it.

Thanks for the reply though!

 

Hi, is your cooling system clean ? after 1 1/2 year it might be full of dust at a point it could lead to overheating/crash.
You can clean it with dry air.

 

Hmm, would i need to remove the underside of the laptop in order to remove the fan to clean it or can i just directly apply pressurized air straight in to the fan?

I think i'll try that tomorrow when i get some screws and turn on my air compressor.

Although something makes me doubt that it's a heat issue because it doesn't feel noticeably hotter when i play the games, but sometimes it'll just go super hot and have no problems.

Eh, whatever, I'll give it a try anyway i guess

 

If you haven't updated your drivers since July last year, then there are definitely some MUCH newer ones available. Sony themselves pretty much never issue driver updates, but ATI have been releasing new drivers monthly for the past half year or so.

These are the latest 10.8 drivers:

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/920...mobile/10-8_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe

 

IMO it is better to remove the underside and fan for cleaning, but be sure to know what you do.