Graphics Card (GT 540M) Crashing Only when Plugged in

[shimeiengetsu]

So like the title says, I have a Dell laptop with an NVidia GT 540M, and it's got a bit of a crashing problem. Within a few minutes of playing the vast majority of games, the system has what seems to be an unrecoverable TDR error--the screen freezes, audio is slowed to a constant buzzing noise, and the only way out is a hard reset. I ran memtests, furmark, wiped and reinstalled drivers, and every other test I could think of, and nothing changed.

Then I played with my AC adapter unplugged, and not a single crash. I've tested this a dozen times or so, and the card does not fail at all while running solely on battery, but crashes almost instantly the adapter is plugged back in. Even when the battery is disconnected and running only on the adapter, it still crashes within minutes.

My question is, what could be causing this? I've seen suggestions that it's the motherboard, the adapter itself, and about a hundred other things, and I'm at a loss.

 

[Warukyure]

Could also be an issue with the optimus switchable graphics solution. I've seen where games kill themselves because you go from the dedicated to integrated graphics by pulling the AC out. Since this is a dell and since its a switchable graphics a lot of the time you won't have newer drivers and for a lot of laptops with switchable graphics, you just can't get newer drivers from nvidia because they just get flagged as incompatible.

Have you tried going into the settings and disabling the graphics switching option? I know with HP and when they had the AMD switchable graphics you get the option of disabling the switching. (I had an old HP with the Intel HD 3000 and the AMD HD 5650 and i could never update the graphics drivers with offical AMD ones because this card "was not supported".)

 

[shimeiengetsu]

Could also be an issue with the optimus switchable graphics solution. I've seen where games kill themselves because you go from the dedicated to integrated graphics by pulling the AC out. Since this is a dell and since its a switchable graphics a lot of the time you won't have newer drivers and for a lot of laptops with switchable graphics, you just can't get newer drivers from nvidia because they just get flagged as incompatible.

Have you tried going into the settings and disabling the graphics switching option? I know with HP and when they had the AMD switchable graphics you get the option of disabling the switching. (I had an old HP with the Intel HD 3000 and the AMD HD 5650 and i could never update the graphics drivers with offical AMD ones because this card "was not supported".)

No such luck, I'm afraid. My first thought was that it was because of the Optimus thing, so I've gone in and designated only the Nvidia card for use, I've turned off switching, used Power Mizer to force specific usages, and I've managed to update drivers for both cards individually with some legwork. None of it changed the problem in the slightest.
Thanks for the help, though

 

[Warukyure]

Have you tried backing up everything and just doing a full factory reset of the OS? just to test? Since this is probably driving you nuts anyways, never hurts to try. Ultimately, if neither of these work, it could be a hardware issue. And judging from the specs, your computer is probably about mid 2011 to early 2012, might be time to a) use it just for internet/email/etc b) plug it into the TV, get a wireless keyboard/mouse combo and call it an HTPC, c) hardcore ultimate frisbee as the repair (if it is possible) wouldn't be worth it.

 

[shimeiengetsu]

Have you tried backing up everything and just doing a full factory reset of the OS? just to test? Since this is probably driving you nuts anyways, never hurts to try. Ultimately, if neither of these work, it could be a hardware issue. And judging from the specs, your computer is probably about mid 2011 to early 2012, might be time to a) use it just for internet/email/etc b) plug it into the TV, get a wireless keyboard/mouse combo and call it an HTPC, c) hardcore ultimate frisbee as the repair (if it is possible) wouldn't be worth it.

Yeah, did the full reset towards the start of the problem about a year ago, and it seemed promising at first but ended up not actually helping. Just took a surprisingly long time to crash the first time (as in 20-30 minutes as opposed to 5-10), which apparently just happens sometimes. And the TV plug-in doesn't work either, as the PC still craps out, seemingly because it's still connected for power.
That being said, I'm 90% sure it is a hardware issue, my problem is just trying to figure out what part of my hardware is actually busted. If it is the adapter, sweet, I can get that switched for fairly cheap. If it's the motherboard, less sweet, guess I just won't be playing video games until I scrape together the money for a new computer. Any way of narrowing down what might be the broken piece without trying to crack this thing open?

 

[Warukyure]

If your external video output isn't working, then for real its probably the GPU component of your computer's motherboard and at that point it is done. Also when you said crashes, is it the entire system that crashes or just the game crashes and you get a message like "no direct x compatible devices detected"?