• We hope you have a fantastic holiday season to close out 2025! Thank you all so much for being part of the Tom's Guide community!

Laptop shuts down while gaming demanding games.

GatsuLT

Commendable
May 28, 2016
2
0
1,510
Hello,

I've stumbled upon this issue yesterday only. The day before yesterday I was gaming all day Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch, and all was ok.

What happens: Laptop randomly shuts down while gaming these games around 5-8minutes of game. It suddenly freezes and shuts down. When I play Hearthstone or browse, and even left laptop to be for about 4 hours, nothing happens.

My laptop: Acer Aspire Review Acer Aspire V3-771G of 3.5 years old (i7 3610QM, GeForce GT 650M). Battery is almost dead(can last about 5 minutes), so I always keep battery in and adapter pluged in when I play and etc.
Adapter Chicony 120w 6.32A, 19V has been fixed 2 times because it was not charging and wires were fixed or something inside it.

What I did: Countless times cleared laptop from dust with compressed air, the ventilator mostly. Played the games without battery only with AC. It's NOT overheating as I've played Rainbow 6 for about 200hours with this machine. I also noticed that it shuts down immediatly and AC adapter doesnt switch to battery mode (suppose it's AC adapter failure). I also reinstalled Windows.

What I think: I think it's either AC adapter or motherboard. I can't find any similar adapter as mine from friends because it's 120w so I can't test if it's adapters fault or not.

Please let me know what you think and if someone had any similar problem?

Should I buy new AC adapter?


Thank you very much.

 
Hi,

Please do try these troubleshooting steps that may help.
- First is to do a clean install of the graphics driver.
- Go to Device Manager and uninstall the Nvidia graphics driver.
- Next is to open Programs and Features then uninstall anything related to Nvidia.
- Once uninstalled, download and install the latest driver.
- Here's the link: nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?
- Reboot the laptop once installed then set Nvidia as the default GPU.
- If all these will not work do try removing the battery off the laptop then try running it with just the AC adapter connected.
- If the same problem will persist I would suggest changing the AC adapter first.
 


Thanks for the suggestions. I did all that regarding drivers but didnt help. I guess I will have to get a new AC adapter (though it's hard to find a new 120w suitable for acer)