Sudden Poweroff When playing on the Dedicated AMD GPU

[ronferri]

Hi,

I am happy I sent my HP DV6 laptop for dust cleaning and reapplying the thermal paste after it had a very loud noise and was overheating. It is running cool now even under heavy load and the fan noise is way quieter. Games run smoother now without FPS throttling and I can safely play at higher graphical settings now. However, there's one exception.

The laptop has two GPUs, an intel HD 3000 and an AMD 6670M. Both operated perfectly fine before cleaning well except for the overheating (without system shutdown or critical errors) and loud fan noise. After cleaning and only when I switch to the AMD card and play intensive games like BF3 for around 15 minutes the laptop suddenly shuts down. It powers off completely; it is not a procedural shutdown out of windows. From BF3 screen = > to complete power off in split second.

Yes I tried playing BF3 for a longer time on the Intel HD 3000 low settings and I did not face the same problem; no shutdowns. FPS was a bit lower of course but it was playable.

Before cleaning the laptop this never happened with the AMD GPU and I have over 45 days of registered playtime with BF3 on my AMD GPU.

What could be the issue??

Thanks

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Did your laptop always have two GPUs? If you added one it could be that your battery does not have the amount of power to supply to both, therefore causing the motherboard to shut down.

 

[ronferri]

It always had two GPUs. There has been no change in hardware.

It is really weird, as if the laptop is suddenly disconnected from power while I am playing on the AMD GPU. I am connected to an AC power source and even the battery can usually keep up for 5 minutes while gaming on the AMD card.

Could it be a precautionary shutdown to avoid some serious hardware damage? Are laptops designed to power off in such a way?

UPDATE: I installed a temp monitor and noticed that the AMD GPU alone is instantly climbing over 106C while playing heavy duty games (54C when Idle). The Intel GPU and CPU on the other hand have a good range between 60 and 75C under load. The AMD card overheating is probably what is causing the sudden shutdown.

Could it be a bad thermal paste application? Or not connected well to the heatsink or the fan?