Acer Aspire 8930G screen problems

So I am having a bit of trouble with my Acer.

I'm an avid fan of MMOs, specfically City of Heroes and Everquest 2. But I keep having a problem, intermitantly, which makes it really hard to play them.

The screen on my Acer will suddenly go black, while running these games. They are not paticuarly graphically intensive or new games and it only happens sometimes (IE, yesterday I ran EQ2 no problems, today I can't play more than 10 minutes without black screening).

Any ideas what might be causing this?

 

Did you check what is the GPU temperature while under load?

 

I do not know how to do that.

How can I do that and what am I looking for? High? Low?

I know this laptop has heating problems (and has crashed or died a few times because of that). Could that be the cause?

 

Yes it could be.
Use HWMonitor or GPU-Z in the background while playing or running benchmarks.
Take note of the max temperature value for both CPU and GPU although the latter is more likely to be a culprit.

 

Wow, yeah, it looks to be.

When I'm running EQ2 even booting it, the heat rockets from 50C to 65C, I ended EQ2 early to grab a screenie.

imgur: the simple image sharer

That explains why it worked yesterday. I moved my laptop from the PC room downstairs and then took it back up, so I guess that improved the airflow or sumin.

So any suggestions on how to fix it? I was thinking take it apart and clean the fan again, open windows, etc.

 

Actually it doesn't explain anything. 65*C is perfectly fine- anything below 80*C is considered OK.
There must be another reason unless the test was really short.
How long did you play the game?

 

I just turned it on, saw the tempreture rising, and stopped there sharpish when it hit 65.

But given the movement and the fact the fan was running full power (ie very loud) then stopped, I'm gonna guess it is that unless you can think of anything.

Would attaching another screen to the laptop work, you think? To let me see what is going on when the main screen dies?

 

If you have an external screen please test the notebook with it and try to reproduce the issue.
Also test the temperature for a longer time- anything up to 80*C is decent and below 90*C is safe so no need to stop at 65*C.
We need to know if it's actually overheating or is it a driver issue a screen issue or something else so we'll have to rule those out one by one.

 

OK, it definatly isn't the temp, I watched it until the screen went plutz and it didn't get up to 90C.

Seems to be drivers, and I have had problems before with those 2. Tried updating drivers, said they were up to date. Any other suggestions?

 

Yeah- ignore "up to date message" as it checks Windows update for drivers and go to nVidia website and download the most recent set of drivers directly form them.

 

OK.

I've updated the drivers and run it. I got a bit more time before screen died, but it did die.

I tried plugging in a second screen. It ran quite well this time, but when I chanaged character, I blackscreened again.

Any suggestions?

 

Hello fellows.. Same laptop same problems.. and something worse. not with only 2 games but actually with the most of them! Any suggestions ?