K50ID graphics problems

I own and use an Asus K50ID laptop, an experience which has proven rather interesting (in the Chinese sense). Whenever I try to play a game with 3D graphics, it works just fine for a period of time somewhere between ten minutes and half an hour, then it freezes completely. The mouse won't move, there's no sound, and the image is frozen. This does not end even after several hours, and the only immediate solution is to reboot.

Of course, I went on the Asus support site and searched for information on the problem, and it appears that the video card has a problem with rendering 3D meshes properly. The site suggested I install an updated driver for the video card, which I did. However, as you've probably guessed by now, this did not work. The problem persists.

Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a permanent solution? And before you ask, I'm aware of the CPU cooling problems on this computer, and that has been taken care of.

 

Hey Ares,

Have you, by any chance, done a clean installation of the driver? The NVidia installer usually has an option for this just before you begin installation.

The more likely scenario is a conflict with another piece of software/in the registry. Has this been a problem from day one - since you received the laptop?

 

As far as I know, no. I selected the default options throughout. I could try to reinstall it.

I would imagine it has, yes. I can't remember the first time it happened. What type of software could potentially cause problems like this?

 

It's hard to say. It's not necessarily poorly written software or malware, but often simple driver conflicts can cause lockups. Even Windows updates sometimes go sour.

You might want to examine your Event Viewer in Administrative Tools (located in Control Panel). That may shed light on what happened during the freeze each time.