Solved! Laptop powers out without warning during gaming!

[alexcheng]

Hello guys, I will try to make this as brief as possible.

Just a few days ago, I was still gaming and using the laptop just fine, and then today, when I tried to play a game, the laptop just shuts down after around 10-30min of game play. Here's the catch, the problem is not with the game, it's whenever the CPU is under high load. I've already ran MemTest86 for a couple of times and there was no errors. It couldn't be the graphics card because when I tried Prime95 it did the same thing too. The CPU is becoming extremely suspicious but I just could not figure out what's the problem, because when I ran Prime95, the CPU temperature was at around ~90C, it never went above that...

Laptop: Asus N82Jv

Intel Core i5-450
4GB RAM @ 1066Mhz
nVidia GT 335M
500GB Hard Drive

 

[frozenlead]

Prime95 does not test your graphics card, only CPU and memory.
A 90C CPU is too hot, nonetheless. Since it didn't shut down during Prime95, there's a good bet your GPU is overheating as well. Clean out your heatsinks of dust bunnies.

 

[alexcheng]

Hi there, thanks for the quick reply. As I was saying before, since the computer did the same thing when I was doing some Prime95 tests, I would assume that it's not GPU related...

Also, I think I might have a lead... I was running some games again, and CPU was hitting 100C (Yes, that's definitely too hot, I would have to clean the heatsink sooner or later), I was using Core Temp to log down the temperature. This time when it powered down, I fired the machine up and checked the log, the max was 102C, it didn't exceed the 105TJMax yet. And so I checked out my hard drive temperature. Turns out it was quite high, it was at around 55C, and I read somewhere saying that most Seagate drive's safe operating temperature is at around 60C... So maybe that's the problem...

Remember, this is a LAPTOP!!!!

 

[frozenlead]

Sorry, misread that. I'm getting tired, I suppose.

Anyway, you definitely need to clean your heatsink. Your hard disk heat probably has little to do with it, since it's probably only heating up due to the excess heat of your CPU. Heat is similar to air pressure - high heat moves to low heat.

Make sure you take a look at your GPU temps, too. Chances are if your CPU heatsink is dirty, so is your GPU heatsink, if they're separate. They might not be. GPUs have higher heat tolerances than CPUs, though.

Once you clean her up, then we can look at additional options if the problem isn't resolved.