Laptop shuts down as graphics fail

[aidurber]

Hi,
I'll get to the point
I recently installed Battlefield 2 on my laptop (done this many times in the past), anyway I was in the game and i started seeing the graphics fail around me e.g. Buildings lagging and merge into one (Like when a program is not responding and you drag it), lines coming off my gun etc.

Then say 10 minutes after the graphics failing in places my laptop turns itself off - no shutdown, power just cut.


I came up with a few ideas on what this could be and I realised its not the game because why do it now after 2 years of playing it on this system?

I have had problems with my system shutting down on its own before but that was due to my laptop fan failing and my CPU overheating and turning the system off.

I took the back off my laptop felt the copper tube thing that leads to the processor (when my laptop was off of course and it was reasonably cool so it wasnt my CPU.

This clearly to me is the graphics card due to the gfx failing.

Any ideas/solutions to my problem will be much appreciated.

[Mcshammer_dj]

shared memory? I have an old laptop that does this and that was using shared memory for graphics and just could not cope. Try with a lower resolution

[matt40k]

New laptop me things, lot of talk around here about the graphic card burning out.

Funny you should say this, my PSU was burning last night whilst on 2142. Guess what I'm ordering when I get paid!

[Jamo]

when the graphics go nuts like that, its either an overheating card or a failing card! Try getting rid of all dust, reseat the heatsinks if they are easy to get to etc if not then its a great excuse for a new laptop!! Although the battlefield heroes beta woudl be a better excuse

[aidurber]

I tried it on the bog standard 800x600? Not sure but i think thats it, and it still shut down then, so i don't think that's the problem but i will try it later and post the results

And yeah definitely this laptop is nearly 3 years old, good enough for what i use it for but i want to start playing my games again

[nephilim]

sounds like the card is overheating causing the board to over heat, which is why it will turn off, unlike PC's, I have found many laptops dont give you a warning when they heat up!

Either put in more ram and have some dedicated for GFX (say 256mb out of 1GB) or put a better GFX card in the laptop

[aidurber]

when the graphics go nuts like that, its either an overheating card or a failing card! Try getting rid of all dust, reseat the heatsinks if they are easy to get to etc if not then its a great excuse for a new laptop!! Although the battlefield heroes beta woudl be a better excuse

Yeah ill try that now, i have taken apart a similar laptop before and its a pain but ill see what i can do

[aidurber]

sounds like the card is overheating causing the board to over heat, which is why it will turn off, unlike PC's, I have found many laptops dont give you a warning when they heat up!

Either put in more ram and have some dedicated for GFX (say 256mb out of 1GB) or put a better GFX card in the laptop

That does make sense, well ill try reseating, cleaning and yes ill add 256, i have 1gb of ram unfortunately but BF2's recommended is 512mb so hat should be about right

[nephilim]

get another 1GB stick, as BF2 says it needs 512mb, give it the full 512mb and still have 1.5gb RAM for the laptop itself.

[Jamo]

mm i doubt that would sort out an overheating issue, does it happen during any other stressful activity on the laptop? Good idea would be to run a benchmarking util to see if it can be stressed to fall over. SiSoftSandra is a good example has a great burn-in and monitoring util on it. There is a lite version as well for single use.

[Stevenw]

whats the make and model of the laptop?

also what gfx chip is in it?