1 year old '11.6" Inferno' Laptop turning off mid-way though games.

[burpleronnie]

Around a year ago i bought a slightly upgraded '11.6" Inferno' laptop from here. It has worked perfectly since then in a whole range of different games and applications and with reasonably heavy use.

Recently however two problems have arisen.

Firstly the internet keeps cutting out, mostly during videos online but occasionally during gaming sessions. turning the wireless card on and off usually fixes this and things go back to normal. The frequency with which i have been needing to do this however has increased.

I recently updated the drivers using the intel auto driver updater so i am not sure exactly what is causing this. It may be that i needed to update them with drivers from the pc specialist website, but i assume this isnt the case.

This problem is more a mild niggle and is secondary to the next one.


As i have said, the laptop has worked perfectly for computer games up until about a week or so ago. It has started switching off during games. This can happen as far as 5 mins in or 50 mins in to a session. It is doing this in games that had previously worked fine and isnt necessarily related to the complexity of the graphics or content being rendered.

So far Skyrim, Supreme Commander 2 and Planetary Annihilation have caused regular crashes. I will test Supreme commander one (a notoriously cpu heavy game) later.

I am assuming that it is a cpu based issue probably coming from the auto-overclocking feature that the i7 processor in my pc has. Graphics cards overheating usually ends in a game crashing or flicking to and from the desktop.


Another possible cause may come from the power lead i am using although i doubt this. When i was sold the laptop originally i was told i would need a more powerful power block, having found the smaller bock working fine i haven't used the bigger one since i got it.


Ultimately i have little clue at the moment and am hoping someone on here will be able to give some advice.

much thanks

Joe

 

[mantadog]

Well it does sound like an overheating problem. The easiest way to test the CPU for overheating is to run prime95 (small FFT mode) if it crashes you have a CPU problem. if your correct in the fact it is the turbo boost causing this then while it is a problem, it can be turned off but I doubt it is.

I think your too quick to rule out the GPU, it can just shut the system down like you say.

As for the network problems, did they just happen after you updated the drivers? if its been going on before the update then it might be a case of having to uninstall the driver, restart the computer then install the new ones to make sure no corrupted info is being passed along the update.

But the more serious problem is the shutting down with an apparent temp problem, stress the CPU and see if that does it. If not then I would say it must be the GPU, does the fan sound ok?

 

[burpleronnie]

i've done fresh install of the network drivers and will see what happens with that.

ran prime 95 for a little over half an hour and since skyrims been crashing within 5 mins of starting i'm assuming the CPU is fine. must be a gpu problem.

and yeah the fan seems to go on full power straight away when on skyrim so i figure it is an overheating problem after all.

any suggestions as to what to do with that?

I have the laptop hooked up to a bigger screen with the laptop screen/lid down is that possibly part of the problem?

edit: also thanks for the help

 

[ubuysa]

To be sure it's a temperature issue you need some numbers, I'd suggest installing HWMonitor from http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor-pro/versions-history.html. That will show you min and max values as well as instantaneous values. Come back here with the temps you see.

 

[mantadog]

The bigger screen wont make a difference, it will still be 720p or 1080p which I assume is the same as your laptop.

If prime 95 ran fine for half an hour then I would point the finger at the GPU. HWMonitor will give you a much better idea, but I suspect your going to see the temps spike on load and then eventually reach something over 90 degrees and force a shutdown to avoid damage. If the fan is working fine it might be an issue with the thermal paste, not sure what the insides of your laptop look like but it is a job you could probably do yourself if you followed a rough guide on YouTube.

 

[CEUOTC]

I would suggest taking a look at the heat-sink fans assembly and see if there is a build up of dust/fluff. If so give it a clean with compressed air to move the dust/fluff out, it may require you removing the whole HSF assembly, while you are doing that clean off the thermal paste from the CPU, GPU and both contact plates of the HSF. Then re-apply new thermal past MX-4 or IC-7, re-build and see how that goes.

There should be plenty of videos on YouTube to guild you.

Obviously you would do this at your own risk, but trust me it is not a massive job.

 

[burpleronnie]

yeah heat was running pretty high in games. cpu seems to be fine.

i've found a temporary fix for the problem by using a 30fps frame limiter, using Nvidia inspector.


i'll probably give the heatsink clean a go, it sounds like a thing that would be useful to know how to do anyways.


cheers for the help everyone,

quick few last questions:
opening the nvidia control panel is very slow on both my pcs and the program is really slow to respond, i'm assuming this is a normal thing?
are cooling stands any good? or mostly a waste of money?

 

[CEUOTC]

I use a Cooler Master NotePal U3 with my P170EM, the fans are positional and to be fair l don't really push it, however the clearance from the desk helps with cooling.

A Cooler Master NotePal U1 would be ideal as it will give clearance and the fan is also positional so you can set it up for the best cooling.

 

[mantadog]

cooling stands can help but wont cure a serious problem like this.

As far as the slow opening of Nvidia control panel, it shouldn't really be slow, but it depends what you mean by slow? 5-10 second is alright depending on the machine and its workload. 30 seconds is probably not fine and if it stops responding then it might be having an issue. if its happening on both PC's then it could be conflicting with some other piece of software you have on both, have you tried a clean installation on any of your rigs?

 

[burpleronnie]

i figure i'm over complicating things by mentioning too many issues at once. the big problem is the turning off thing.

@ mantadog, you mentioned earlier there may be an issue with the thermal paste. was that to do with the GPU or CPU? I'm waiting on getting a can of pressurized air before i dismantle and clean it. will i need some thermal paste with that too or is that unnecessary thanks to the prime 95 test clearing the CPU. Or could the cpu be a contributing factor to the heating issue?

also my 30fps frame limiter quick fix has stopped working, suggesting this may be a snowballing issue that gets worse over time.

Edit: for some reason my last post didnt get accepted. anyways, i did some heat tests. CPU idles around 60 with the GPU idling a little lower. I ran skyrim with beefed up settings in windowed mode and saw the heat reading right before the shut down. cpu was at 81 and GPU at 87.

 

[burpleronnie]

just ran a test using nvidia inspector and HW monitor

idle temps are around 60 for both the cpu and gpu

and just before the pc crashed the temps were 81 for the cpu and 87 for the gpu

running skyrim on max settings w/ 16x aa, 16x asf, 8x ss transparency aa, FXAA on and Ambient occlusion on quality setting. took about 10 mins to crash.

these were stress testing settings but the game still crashes when on lower settings and with frame rate limiters, it just takes longer.

 

[mantadog]

81 isn't massively high for the CPU and 87 is about top end on the GPU, it will survive higher but 87 is fairly high. That said the tell tale is that when gaming even at lower FPS it still crashes, it just takes longer. That says to me it just takes longer for it to reach the critical temps.

At the moment it might be too soon to grab a tube of thermal paste, it could be that you take the bottom off and see a huge mass of dust blocking the fan up. In that case a can of air is all you will need. If you don't mind spending somewhere less than £10 to get a decent tube of thermal grease delivered then you could grab one to save time if it is that. You will have thermal grease on your GPU too, in a laptop you have 1 heatsink that covers both and goes into the fan assembly. You would need to remove that, clean off all the thermal paste (isopropyl alcohol) and re apply a small amount of paste to each. Because the CPU is linked into the same system obviously it will be contributing to the heat build up in the GPU.

My thinking is that the fan might just be gummed up. Reason being prime 95 can run for half an hour no problem, the fan is able to dissipate the heat from the CPU no problems. The problem starts when the CPU and the GPU need to loose heat at the same time. Unless the paste on the GPU had an application problem no reason why it should be failing and the CPU is fine. it could have dried out but their is no real reason have dried out and become ineffective so soon anyway.