Curse

Kyomi Tachibana · Jul 24, 2008, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Alrighty, recently I've been having some increasing issues with FPS, and weird graphical glitches. Normally minimizing and reopening fixes the non-FPS related issues.

However! Today, doing Catacombs of Kathandrax my screen went all apesh*t on me. Although it looked much worse than the screen shot depicts.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...mura/gw418.jpg

I was thinking the vid card is fried, or something, but I know next to nothing when it comes to this.

Alright and here's everything I know:

Windows Vista 32-bit
Inspiron Notebook 1520
Intel Core2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5Ghz
2GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce8600M GT 256MB

If anything else is needed, yeah, just say so.

I'm looking at the temperatures right now. From what I gathered, while running GW it was running at 82C, and dropped down to 60C running just Firefox.

Not sure if that would be overheating or not. Anywho; I'm tired. And haven't slept in ages. Remodeling the kitchen ftl. Any help at all will be greatly appreciated. /sleep

Fried Tech · Jul 24, 2008, 06:57 PM // 18:57

That is running hot. Open up your computer and check for a lot of dust on the video card and its heatsink and fan. If there is a good amount try cleaning it (all of it). That would be the first step. If it keeps doing it after that it may be time for a new card

Ferret Deathsquad · Jul 24, 2008, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fried Tech

That is running hot. Open up your computer and check for a lot of dust on the video card and its heatsink and fan. If there is a good amount try cleaning it (all of it). That would be the first step. If it keeps doing it after that it may be time for a new card

^Do this^ But before you go buy a new Video card, check for new drivers for the video card. Sometimes they have updates and it might solve your problem. Plus it doesn't cost anything to try it first.

Fried Tech · Jul 24, 2008, 07:04 PM // 19:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ferret Deathsquad

^Do this^ But before you go buy a new Video card, check for new drivers for the video card. Sometimes they have updates and it might solve your problem. Plus it doesn't cost anything to try it first.

Doh!. forgot to mention drivers.

wesman · Jul 24, 2008, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Hows the air flow around the GPU vent? make sure there is nothing blocking it, if the comp is on a desk try propping the back up with a thin book to increase the air flow. You can also get cooling pads which go under the notebook, these help a bit as well.

The suggestions on cleaning the area around the GPU are also a very good idea. Just be careful not to touch the components, or if you must make sure you ground yourself by touching a solid piece of metal before hand (gets rid of static electricity which does not mix well with computer parts)

As always check the drivers...

Kyomi Tachibana · Jul 24, 2008, 07:17 PM // 19:17

Well I'm cursed and can't sleep. So! I did update the drivers about a week ago, but I'll check again. I'll give cleaning another go, removing panels on my laptop kinda scares me, as uninformed as I am. Manual time.

Fried Tech · Jul 24, 2008, 07:20 PM // 19:20

argh. a laptop.... Why do people use laptops to play games?!! sorry missed that part in your opening post

wesman · Jul 24, 2008, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Just out of curiosity is the computer running fine once it cools down?

EDIT: this is a quick guide that gives some good tips... mostly, and its always nice to see it done before you try it. btw cnet is not the place I recommend for comp experts but it will do in a pinch.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4660-10165_7...html?tag=vid.1

Ferret Deathsquad · Jul 24, 2008, 07:27 PM // 19:27

Ah laptop, Do you have a laptop cooler underneath it? You might have the problem of the video card getting to hot. Trust me a cooler will help, I know mine gets very hot after a couple of hours.

Kyomi Tachibana · Jul 24, 2008, 07:47 PM // 19:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fried Tech

argh. a laptop.... Why do people use laptops to play games?!! sorry missed that part in your opening post

Because it was a gift and being a student I can't afford a real computer at the moment. ;p

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ferret Deathsquad

Ah laptop, Do you have a laptop cooler underneath it? You might have the problem of the video card getting to hot. Trust me a cooler will help, I know mine gets very hot after a couple of hours.

I do have a cooler, but it's crap. Need to grab a new one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wesman

Just out of curiosity is the computer running fine once it cools down?

Well, it only really happens when I'm playing GW, it runs everything else just fine, hot or not. And yes, I did just cleaned it completely.

Alright update: Running GW now at 67C~, I'll leave it on for a little while and see if it gets much hotter.

moriz · Jul 24, 2008, 09:49 PM // 21:49

nvidia had recently admitting of using "inferior materials" in their laptop GPUs and chipsets, which caused "higher than usual rate of failure".

they are paying to replace them though. if you can, and if the laptop is still under warranty, it might be worthwhile to consider exchanging it.

Age · Jul 24, 2008, 10:36 PM // 22:36

I would check to see if you have any malware on windows and is up to date as my ATI card went green a lot and back .You could in command line put -dx8 noshaders.

Kyomi Tachibana · Jul 25, 2008, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

nvidia had recently admitting of using "inferior materials" in their laptop GPUs and chipsets, which caused "higher than usual rate of failure".

they are paying to replace them though. if you can, and if the laptop is still under warranty, it might be worthwhile to consider exchanging it.

I'll most definitely be looking into this, I read something about other people with similar troubles using NVidia GPUs and chipsets but didn't know about this.

As for everything else, I cleaned it thoroughly, again, and I do run scans daily with AVG, updated BIOS and Vid Drivers once again, and I think a major contribution to the heat was my 'cooling' pad was actually blocking the fan. All that in combination with shifting my laptop to the left so the fan isn't blocked(-.-; figures I would overlook this) reduced temps while not running GW to ~53C, and ~68C while running GW. So as soon as I am able I'll be looking into both the NVidia thing and a new cooling pad.

Thanks much for the help!

Edit: Well, the blocky screen of doom came up again, so I'm going to call Dell in the morning and see what can be done. Thank goodness the warranty is still on it.

Lord Sojar · Jul 25, 2008, 03:48 AM // 03:48

Yes, I am "sort of" to blame for this. But if you blame me, I will kill you.

Ferret Deathsquad · Jul 25, 2008, 01:31 PM // 13:31

I second that we blame Rahja the Thief, and he should fix it for free.

wesman · Jul 25, 2008, 01:40 PM // 13:40

yea if the issues persist after it is running at a cooler temp then that is not good. The only other thing to check into is if the most recent driver is bugged... may have to back roll it to a previous, perhaps slightly more stable driver. Try looking here for info on that

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26

Also try installing the driver that came with your computer (hopefully they sent a driver/restore dvd) and see what that does

Quaker · Jul 25, 2008, 02:55 PM // 14:55

That looks like a graphics RAM problem to me. The 256meg dedicated graphics RAM could be bad, or, since it would be capable of sharing main RAM, check that too, with Memtest or some such.