laptop issues. any help?

[mase18]

hey :smile:

first, i used to game on my laptop (prebuilt laptop), and ive had it for almost a year, and it had Windows 8 on it to start off and i could play some games, but sadly not skyrim with mods. i downgraded it to Windows 7, and i could play games, including skyrim with mods, but only briefly like a few weeks. then somewhere between the time i could play games on it, and when problems came up, i couldn't play any games whatsoever, modded games, non modded games, doesnt matter, no games play at all, except for warcraft 3 and warcraft 3 the frozen throne, oddly enough. i have taken the laptop to a computer place to see what the problem was (i went there to get a new laptop charger, because the second charger was broken when i got it, so i got a third one), and the guy said it was due to overheating, but im not so sure, because the laptop itself shuts down, like something was blocking the airflow/fan, yet nothing is even near there, but when it shuts down, the laptop battery (i think), makes a popping noise, then shuts down. i dont know why, but want to find out. playing my Xbox 360, PS3, and my 3DS is starting to get extremely boring, and i really want to play some modded PC games... :sad:

if anyone has, have they encountered this problem before (laptop problem), and fixed it? if so, what did you do to fix it?

i was also told, when i got the laptop, that it was a gaming laptop, but when i went to the computer place to fix the laptop charger issue, i was told it wasnt a gaming laptop. i am a little angry about it, too. i would return the laptop, but cant. the shop where i got it from, is now something else, but i know other places where the i got from are.

i dont know much about what the specs are, but i'll list what i know:

graphics card: AMD Vision A10 with Radeon graphics and duel graphics enabled
VRAM: 2 and a half GB
RAM: 16 GB

thats all i know for PC specs about it...

thanks for any help in advance :smile:

[Rennn]

It may be related to heat. PCs shut themselves down to protect the components once they get too hot. When laptops shut themselves down randomly, heat is the problem 90% of the time.

The popping noise isn't really indicative of anything, it could just be the speakers.

 

As for it being a gaming laptop... The name "gaming laptop" gets thrown around a lot, and it doesn't always mean much. The specs you listed aren't very specific, but it looks powerful enough for serious gaming to me since the "dual graphics enabled" means it actually has 2 graphics cards working together. That's popular for gaming laptops since it distributes the mass and heat of the video cards more efficiently. Do you have the exact model name?

Edited March 18, 2014 by Rennn

[mase18]

It may be related to heat. PCs shut themselves down to protect the components once they get too hot. When laptops shut themselves down randomly, heat is the problem 90% of the time.

The popping noise isn't really indicative of anything, it could just be the speakers.

 

As for it being a gaming laptop... The name "gaming laptop" gets thrown around a lot, and it doesn't always mean much. The specs you listed aren't very specific, but it looks powerful enough for serious gaming to me since the "dual graphics enabled" means it actually has 2 graphics cards working together. That's popular for gaming laptops since it distributes the mass and heat of the video cards more efficiently. Do you have the exact model name?

alright, i think the model name is ENVY dv6-7204ax. the company that made it was HP. the popping sound doesnt sound like the speakers, more like something on the bottom, not keyboard side. would the sound need to do with it overheating?

 

also, the laptop has something called AMD Quadcore A10-4600m accelerated processor. whats that?

 

the reason why i ask so many questions is that im not very good with computers. been a console gamer for a long time, still am. used to play on pc, before the ps1 was released, then when the ps1 was released, consoles up till now. now varying between pc and console...

[Rennn]

It's very hard to find any information on that model of laptop. I was eventually able to track down the rest of the laptops specs, and it is a gaming laptop. Or close enough, anyway. It should be able to play Skyrim on high settings at a good framerate if it's the version with an HD 7660G + 7670M for graphics (which I'm pretty sure it is...).

 

The sound wouldn't be related directly to it overheating. The speakers could make a popping noise from random feedback when the laptop shuts down suddenly, but that wouldn't cause any problems. I was just trying to rule out the possibility of a faulty battery.

 

As for the A10-4600m, that sounds like an APU. It's a new-ish thing that AMD (the company) is using instead of CPUs for most of their laptops.

 

I have a few possible things to try.

 

1. Update your BIOS, DirectX, .NET Framework, and video card/APU drivers. You'll need to find the correct BIOS and drivers on your own, but here's DirectX and .NET.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17851

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

2. If that doesn't work, try removing the battery and running the laptop plugged in. Does it still shut down randomly?

3. If that doesn't work, get a can of compressed air and blow it through the vents in short bursts to dislodge accumulated dust that could interfere with cooling.

 

What antivirus do you use?

[Werne]

The sound wouldn't be related directly to it overheating.

The sound is likely related to shutting down, when things start overheating the board shuts the machine down by flushing RAM, sending termination signals for forced component poweroff and finally initiating full system powerdown by shutting the board down (imagine that serial execution in a matter of milliseconds).

 

The pop sound is very likely the hard drive head being forced into lock position by a termination signal, if you ever powered down a PC by holding the power button you may have noticed how there's a loud click once it actually powers down, the same principle of poweroff works for thermal shutdown as well since it's designed to protect components, not just cut power to them.

 

By the way, you're telling someone who doesn't know what part of a PC is what to flash the BIOS? You nuts?

 

 

 

@mase18 DO NOT flash the BIOS, you may as well brick the machine if you don't know precisely what you're doing and you're 100% sure you want to do it. BIOS is a firmware interface that makes the software communicate with hardware, updating it is not like updating a program where you can reinstall if things go wrong. Gigabyte desktop motherboards have dual-BIOS so they can recover from a failed flashing, some others also have failsafes but most motherboards don't. Put simply - if the flashing fails your laptop becomes an expensive paperweight.

 

As for the shutdown problem, it wouldn't surprise me if the result is heat, those mobile Trinity APUs can sometimes get so hot the laptop's plastic case starts deforming on cheaper laptop models. Since Warcraft 3 doesn't trigger a shutdown, try monitoring temps using HWMonitor when running the game (just open it, minimize it, and let it run while you play). Play the game for an hour or so and then just take a screenshot of HWMonitor and post it here.

 

WC3 isn't a CPU-intensive game, nor GPU-intensive game, I play it on ultra on a 7 years old laptop with Centrino Duo 1.73GHz and Intel 945GM graphics and that explains why it doesn't trigger a thermal shutdown. But the temps reached in WC3 can be translated to temps reached in other games as well, if the temps running WC3 are high then it's a given that a more demanding game will drive one of the components to it's thermal limit. Then it's just a matter of figuring out what component is overheating.

 

The only other option I can think of that will power a PC/laptop down like that with a pop is a motherboard power delivery system failure (a popped VRM), that would just shut the machine down without a BSOD, anything else like CPU/RAM/HDD failure would result in a kernel panic. But then you wouldn't turn it on anymore once it shuts down.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Werne

[Rennn]

 

The sound wouldn't be related directly to it overheating.

The sound is likely related to shutting down, when things start overheating the board shuts the machine down by flushing RAM, sending termination signals for forced component poweroff and finally initiating full system powerdown by shutting the board down (imagine that serial execution in a matter of milliseconds).

 

By the way, you're telling someone who doesn't know what part of a PC is what to flash the BIOS? You nuts?

 

 

 

@mase18 DO NOT flash the BIOS, you may as well brick the machine if you don't know precisely what you're doing and you're 100% sure you want to do it. BIOS is a firmware interface that makes the software communicate with hardware, updating it is not like updating a program where you can reinstall if things go wrong. Gigabyte desktop motherboards have dual-BIOS so they can recover from a failed flashing, some others also have failsafes but most motherboards don't. Put simply - if the flashing fails your laptop becomes an expensive paperweight.

 

All I meant by saying it wasn't related was that the sound wasn't causing the problem, I worded it poorly.

 

Flashing the BIOS is really not hard, but perhaps I had too much faith in humanity to assume he would actually Google it and not just click a bunch of buttons. He may need to flash the BIOS, but that can be revisited if nothing else works at least.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Rennn

[mase18]

It's very hard to find any information on that model of laptop. I was eventually able to track down the rest of the laptops specs, and it is a gaming laptop. Or close enough, anyway. It should be able to play Skyrim on high settings at a good framerate if it's the version with an HD 7660G + 7670M for graphics (which I'm pretty sure it is...).

 

The sound wouldn't be related directly to it overheating. The speakers could make a popping noise from random feedback when the laptop shuts down suddenly, but that wouldn't cause any problems. I was just trying to rule out the possibility of a faulty battery.

 

As for the A10-4600m, that sounds like an APU. It's a new-ish thing that AMD (the company) is using instead of CPUs for most of their laptops.

 

I have a few possible things to try.

 

1. Update your BIOS, DirectX, .NET Framework, and video card/APU drivers. You'll need to find the correct BIOS and drivers on your own, but here's DirectX and .NET.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17851

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

2. If that doesn't work, try removing the battery and running the laptop plugged in. Does it still shut down randomly?

3. If that doesn't work, get a can of compressed air and blow it through the vents in short bursts to dislodge accumulated dust that could interfere with cooling.

 

What antivirus do you use?

alright, i dont know what the actual model name is, just looked at the box, thinking that was the model name. would a photo of it help determine what model it is?

 

about the sound thing, im just a little paranoid that something might explode on the laptop.

 

didnt know the a10-4600m thing was newish.

 

what does the antivirus have to do with it? :huh:

 

the antivirus i use is norton 360, but i plan on changing that very soon.

 

 

 

The sound wouldn't be related directly to it overheating.

The sound is likely related to shutting down, when things start overheating the board shuts the machine down by flushing RAM, sending termination signals for forced component poweroff and finally initiating full system powerdown by shutting the board down (imagine that serial execution in a matter of milliseconds).

 

The pop sound is very likely the hard drive head being forced into lock position by a termination signal, if you ever powered down a PC by holding the power button you may have noticed how there's a loud click once it actually powers down, the same principle of poweroff works for thermal shutdown as well since it's designed to protect components, not just cut power to them.

 

By the way, you're telling someone who doesn't know what part of a PC is what to flash the BIOS? You nuts?

 

 

 

@mase18 DO NOT flash the BIOS, you may as well brick the machine if you don't know precisely what you're doing and you're 100% sure you want to do it. BIOS is a firmware interface that makes the software communicate with hardware, updating it is not like updating a program where you can reinstall if things go wrong. Gigabyte desktop motherboards have dual-BIOS so they can recover from a failed flashing, some others also have failsafes but most motherboards don't. Put simply - if the flashing fails your laptop becomes an expensive paperweight.

 

As for the shutdown problem, it wouldn't surprise me if the result is heat, those mobile Trinity APUs can sometimes get so hot the laptop's plastic case starts deforming on cheaper laptop models. Since Warcraft 3 doesn't trigger a shutdown, try monitoring temps using HWMonitor when running the game (just open it, minimize it, and let it run while you play). Play the game for an hour or so and then just take a screenshot of HWMonitor and post it here.

 

WC3 isn't a CPU-intensive game, nor GPU-intensive game, I play it on ultra on a 7 years old laptop with Centrino Duo 1.73GHz and Intel 945GM graphics and that explains why it doesn't trigger a thermal shutdown. But the temps reached in WC3 can be translated to temps reached in other games as well, if the temps running WC3 are high then it's a given that a more demanding game will drive one of the components to it's thermal limit. Then it's just a matter of figuring out what component is overheating.

 

The only other option I can think of that will power a PC/laptop down like that with a pop is a motherboard power delivery system failure (a popped VRM), that would just shut the machine down without a BSOD, anything else like CPU/RAM/HDD failure would result in a kernel panic. But then you wouldn't turn it on anymore once it shuts down.

 

ah, didnt know that warcraft 3 isnt a CPU intensive game. i havent clicked the links since i really dont want to brick the laptop. what's a BIOS? i havent heard of it before.

 

 

 

The sound wouldn't be related directly to it overheating.

The sound is likely related to shutting down, when things start overheating the board shuts the machine down by flushing RAM, sending termination signals for forced component poweroff and finally initiating full system powerdown by shutting the board down (imagine that serial execution in a matter of milliseconds).

 

By the way, you're telling someone who doesn't know what part of a PC is what to flash the BIOS? You nuts?

 

 

 

@mase18 DO NOT flash the BIOS, you may as well brick the machine if you don't know precisely what you're doing and you're 100% sure you want to do it. BIOS is a firmware interface that makes the software communicate with hardware, updating it is not like updating a program where you can reinstall if things go wrong. Gigabyte desktop motherboards have dual-BIOS so they can recover from a failed flashing, some others also have failsafes but most motherboards don't. Put simply - if the flashing fails your laptop becomes an expensive paperweight.

 

All I meant by saying it wasn't related was that the sound wasn't causing the problem, I worded it poorly.

 

Flashing the BIOS is really not hard, but perhaps I had too much faith in humanity to assume he would actually Google it and not just click a bunch of buttons. He may need to flash the BIOS, but that can be revisited if nothing else works at least.

 

i havent flashed the BIOS, since i dont know what its, or what it does...

 

also, have you heard of a game called ANNO 2070? i get frequent shut downs when playing it (between 20 mins and an hour). oddly enough, i played for an and a half, and the laptop didnt shut down. do you know if its a CPU and GPU intensive game? i think it is, but im not sure...