HP Pavillion G6 2301AX restarts while playing 3D Games

[Kayneth]

My Laptop's configuration is as follows:
HP Pavillion G6 2301AX
AMD A8 CPU
Radeon 7670M + 7640G Graphics
8GB DDR3 RAM (2x4GB)
Windows 8
AMD Catalyst 14.1 (dated 18-04-2014)

I've been playing games fairly regularly on my laptop since June, 2013 but starting from the May, 2016 i've been hacing random reboots (with no BSODs) while playing 3D games.On occassion i find that after the reboot one of my RAM cards (top slot) is not being recognised in BIOS or in Windows. Sometimes the computer just freezes while playing harsh buzzing sounds and artifacts appearing on the screen while the input devices become unresponsive (including Caps lock light won't turn on, etc.)

The reboots initially occurred only when playing more demanding 3-D games (Insurgency SHOGUN 2 and War Thunder) and didn't happen while playing Metro Redux, Mount and Blade and Company of Heroes, but nowadays the reboots occur in almost every 3-D game. 2-D games such as Age of Empires II HD, Hearts of Iron II and Rise of Nations Extended do not cause any problems whatsoever. Note that in the course of playing any of these games or at any other time, i have never come across any visible artifacts or other issues aside from the reboots.

I have replaced my RAM, upgrading from 2x2GB to 2x4GB, and although there seemed to be some initial respite from the problem, they have resurfaced yet again recently.
A complete removal and reinstallation of the AMD drivers produced no results.
I have also been monitoring my GPU and CPU temperatures and although the CPU hits 90C and the GPU 80C at times, the reboots occur usually in the temperature range of 60-70C.
I also though this might be a power-supply problem, so i started using an external power-adapter for my Laptop Cooling pad, but that hasn't helped much.

My concern is that the top RAM slot still feels too tight, which is spurred further by the occasionally missing RAM from that slot after reboots.
I also feel that this could either be a dying GPU (the 7670M, it has worked hard for 3 years now), or a power-supply problem (diagnosing my battery health shows it to be 'low')

On thing i've noticed that if i 'walk' my Discrete GPU for a bit before making it doing heavy work, it doesn't have the rebooting problems. e.g. if i play AoE2 HD for about an hour or so before switching to War Thunder, no reboot seems to occur. It could have been a coincidence, or not. :v

 

[Im Spartacus]

These reboots are they happening on mains, battery only or both?
Try running on mains without battery.

 

[Kayneth]

I'm almost always on AC power with the battery fitted.

Although, i just tested my laptop out with RAM only in the lower slot, and it worked fine through a good few rounds of Insurgency.
My guess is that the top DIMM slot, which has begun to feel too tight lately, has either been damaged, or just doesn't hold the RAM properly for long enough, esp. when heating up.
A good look inside shows some small white/grey thing sticking left of the plastic 'tongue' which goes into the slot made in the DIMM chip to hold in in place, all the way inside the slot. All my efforts in dislodging it with a soft brush or compressed air seem to have failed, though.

 

[Im Spartacus]

Try a small sewing needle to see if you can dislodge it the point on the needle may catch the plastic enough to lift out. It could be preventing ram stick to be fully inserted.
I mentioned about the battery because as you said it was running low, as batteries age they tend to loose ability to charge and generate a lot more heat as they struggle to re-charge sometimes not noticed unless sitting on your lap. Something to keep in mind.

 

[Im Spartacus]

I'm almost always on AC power with the battery fitted.

Although, i just tested my laptop out with RAM only in the lower slot, and it worked fine through a good few rounds of Insurgency.
My guess is that the top DIMM slot, which has begun to feel too tight lately, has either been damaged, or just doesn't hold the RAM properly for long enough, esp. when heating up.
A good look inside shows some small white/grey thing sticking left of the plastic 'tongue' which goes into the slot made in the DIMM chip to hold in in place, all the way inside the slot. All my efforts in dislodging it with a soft brush or compressed air seem to have failed, though.

If it is loose try the end of a vacuum hose

 

[Kayneth]

Cleaned the top slot properly, the white thing i thought was debris was infact just the end of the plastic 'tongue' on the SODIMM slot.
The slot still feels overly tight and still causes crashes when exposed to heavy RAM usage. It may be an issue of just the slot having narrowed out too much because of being compressed (i travel long distances fairly often, with my laptop in my bag).
Since i'm at wit's end, i think i should just hand this over for professional servicing next time i'm staying at a place where that is available. Heavy games are off the menu in the meantime, or played with just one 4GB RAM, if it comes to it.

As for the battery, it's 3 years old now, but i can still pull off upto 2 hours of work from it. I think i'll wait out on a replacement until the battery backup falls to unacceptably low levels.

The good thing is, though, the problem was diagnosed correctly.