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Thread: Solid screen freeze when gaming, but only on certain games?

  1. #1

    Default Solid screen freeze when gaming, but only on certain games?

    My laptop's been getting there single solid coloured screen where my computer completely freezes up and plays a 'jammed' sound on loop. I'm then forced to reboot. I happens when I play Starcraft 2, Skyrim, Dragon Nest and Borderlands 2. The games worked fine before April, but I didn't check for the latter 3 till recently.

    Somehow Dota 2 and League are spared from this and have NEVER gotten this screen before.

    Initially it occurred randomly and I could play a couple games consecutively before it freezes, but I guess my continuous attempts to keep playing after crashes aggravated the problem. Now I don't even get to build my first overlord before the solid screen appears EVERY SINGLE GAME. [~1min after game start].
    The other three games die out after ~1h.

    So far, I've checked using gpu and cpu tests, Furmark and IntelBurnTest, and they came back okay. I've cleaned out the laptop fan when I opened it up as well. Swapped both my RAMs with each other for some random hope.

    Some random findings:
    1) For Starcraft 2: screen appears once gpu temp hits ~80 as a trend. CPU hits 90 and still fine
    2) When I had my other monitor on, the other monitor still shows normally while the gaming screen gets the solid colour
    3) And when I remove the HDMI of the 2nd monitor, the jamming sound still stays and still frozen. Solid colour shows again if I replug it in
    4) Tried just using laptop without external monitor, still shows the solid screen

    I'm pretty lost right now, anyone has any suggestions on what I could do or what is the problem?

  2. #2
    Wyatt's Avatar
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    Because it's a laptop, you're on a chip, and not a dedicated card. (obviously.) And it appears that this chip is dying. I have a laptop that does things similar to this if I try to play anything more than League on it. I believe it's just more than the chip can handle, really. If you can play Skyrim for ~an hour first though, that baffles me.. 80'C on a chip shouldn't be the end of the world, but that definitely is running a bit hot.. especially for an integrated chip.
    Your processor though, damn.. I don't have that much knowledge in laptop CPUs, but I know that if my CPU hit anything over 63'C, I had emergency shut downs. (Benchmarking, stress testing, Vegas Pro rendering pre-aftermarket cooler.)

    My first idea, though it might not help, is to use a program like DriverSweeper, and delete the drivers on your Laptop, and reinstall them. It might be a hassle, but I always do this when I run out of ideas. Alternatively you could just uninstall your GPU driver, and then download the latest one (or download yours again, if you have the latest one.) I would definitely assume that it has to do with the chip in your laptop going bad, but that's an expense that isn't really..manageable on the spot.

    If I get any more ideas, I'll post them here.

  3. #3

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    Sorry, I forgot to post my com specs. ._.

    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
    CPU: Intel Core i7-2630QM @2.00ghz qcore
    GPU: Nvidia 540M 2gb ram
    RAM: Some 2x4gb
    ~>1.5 years old

    Quote Originally Posted by Wyatt View Post
    My first idea, though it might not help, is to use a program like DriverSweeper, and delete the drivers on your Laptop, and reinstall them. It might be a hassle, but I always do this when I run out of ideas. Alternatively you could just uninstall your GPU driver, and then download the latest one (or download yours again, if you have the latest one.) I would definitely assume that it has to do with the chip in your laptop going bad, but that's an expense that isn't really..manageable on the spot.
    I've tried uninstalling the nvidia drivers completely and reinstalling them but it still happens. Yeah, I would rather not get a new chip if possible since I plan to get a desktop somewhere next year. I've actually run all those fine before with no issues. My guess was the same as yours with the chip frying itself, but the weird thing's that now this is happening, why're League and Dota 2 are unaffected?

    Laptop's been running games with high temps since I got it, even with a cooling pad blowing directly into the vent

    Edit: Just remembered something; ingame FPS drops a little before the freeze (which is why I guessed the GPU fault). But I still play run the games on the same FPS as per normal
    Last edited by AcrylicBlaze; 6th September 2013 at 04:36 AM.

  4. #4
    Wyatt's Avatar
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    Could you perhaps tell if the freezing occurs when it hits a temp? See how hot it is when it freezes during a match of Starcraft 2, and then see how hot the chip gets on League. Perhaps you're hitting the chip's heat capacity, and it's crashing on you?
    That's the first idea that comes to mind.

  5. #5
    IAちゃんまじかわイア blankaex's Avatar
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    That's pretty similar to my old laptop, age & specs to boot. I was having a lot of trouble with it not long ago, and tried a LOT of things to get it working again. I know it's not really helpful to hear this, but it's probably just getting old. 1.5 years isn't very long, but if you're using it a lot every day or running high-intensity stuff, it would reach its limit pretty quickly. And you can't really replace hardware in a laptop, so your best bet would probably be to save some cash and build a new computer. Dae helped me out a lot with that but he doesn't come on HS much anymore, so I'd suggest messaging him on Steam if you want to talk to him.

    Edit: holycrapihave>1000posts



  6. #6

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    After tests using MSI Afterburner, I'm even more messed up now. Apparently League and Dota 2 works fine at stable gpu temps of ~79 and ~84 deg, sc2 falls flat even with a stable temp of ~72
    Not sure if it's a gpu problem anymore, should've tested cpu at the same time damn

    Quote Originally Posted by blankaex View Post
    That's pretty similar to my old laptop, age & specs to boot. I was having a lot of trouble with it not long ago, and tried a LOT of things to get it working again. I know it's not really helpful to hear this, but it's probably just getting old. 1.5 years isn't very long, but if you're using it a lot every day or running high-intensity stuff, it would reach its limit pretty quickly. And you can't really replace hardware in a laptop, so your best bet would probably be to save some cash and build a new computer. Dae helped me out a lot with that but he doesn't come on HS much anymore, so I'd suggest messaging him on Steam if you want to talk to him.

    Edit: holycrapihave>1000posts
    Even if I find the problem, I guess I'll just have to leave it like and just save up for a new computer asap. I was hoping it was just a patch issue with sc2 then, but recently when I went back to playing the other games they died as well. It would suck not playing those games till then though
    Alright, I'll drop him a mesage when the time comes, though I'll be pretty shy about troubling him about it

    Thanks for the trouble guys

  7. #7
    Wyatt's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AcrylicBlaze View Post
    After tests using MSI Afterburner, I'm even more messed up now. Apparently League and Dota 2 works fine at stable gpu temps of ~79 and ~84 deg, sc2 falls flat even with a stable temp of ~72
    Not sure if it's a gpu problem anymore, should've tested cpu at the same time damn


    Even if I find the problem, I guess I'll just have to leave it like and just save up for a new computer asap. I was hoping it was just a patch issue with sc2 then, but recently when I went back to playing the other games they died as well. It would suck not playing those games till then though
    Alright, I'll drop him a mesage when the time comes, though I'll be pretty shy about troubling him about it

    Thanks for the trouble guys
    Maaan.. I have dae on Steam. He's cool, hilarious, and we talk all the time. There's really no reason you need to be "shy." He'll either help you out, or tell you that he'll help you out in a few minutes after a World of Tanks match or something.
    Dae is really helpful, and so messaging him is a really good idea.

  8. #8
    butts FailFTW's Avatar
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    Definitely add Dae on steam. He's awesome and nice and there's no reason to be shy, we're all HS :3
    Butts.

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