Computer crashes everytime I launch a game (BSOD, GPU error, freezing)

eliris

Estimable
Jul 28, 2014
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4,510
My MSI GT70 notebook with a GTX675m and an i7 3610qm has been working flawlessly for the past few years until recently.

I live in a tropical country, and on a very hot day, I was playing a game that I usually play, but I noticed a burning smell (a soldered PCB-ish smell) coming out from the ventilation system. The game then quit and then there was a notification saying that the Graphics driver is missing.

I rebooted the computer and the graphics card was missing. Now when you reboot again it comes back but every time you launch a game that's slightly putting stress on the GPU, it right away either gives a BSOD with a NVLDDMKM.sys error or quits the game saying that the Graphics card was not found, or just freezes until you hard reset it.

The game I was playing (Ultra Street Fighter IV) runs 200+FPS on the in-game benchmark but is limited to 60FPS for effective gameplay; it always ran fine since I first got this notebook. When I set the game to 640x480, the Graphics card has less chance of crashing.

Is my graphics card done for good? Is it just a thermal paste that needs replacement? I am afraid I overheat it and burned something, but it still works for a little everytime.