Has anybody had problems after installing last weeks game. "Riddles of the past"? I was playing it about an hour and my laptop shut down. I restarted, everything seemed ok and I went back to playing. In 10-15 minutes it shut down again. At that point I had moved it a bit and the plug was out so I thought maybe it was just that the battery was dead. (I keep it plugged in all the time cause the battery only lasts about 45 minutes) Anyway, I plugged it in and booted up again and played a few minutes...shut down again. This time when I re-booted the screen was all wacky...odd colors, everything larger than usual, weird little lines all over. I tried to reboot in safe mode just to see what would happen and even that wasn't normal. At that point I just shut it off and waited for my tech (hubby) to take a look at it. Normally he can find the problem and fix it pretty quick. This time...no-go. He hasn't had a lot of time to mess with it so I've just been using his pc or my tablet for everything. But just with the quick look he took at it he's thinking it's something pretty serious. Anyway, I'm not saying the game was the cause, just wondering if anyone else had any issues. I'm thinking not, since I didn't see any complaints here on the forum, so just thought I'd double check. My laptop is 7 years old and running Win 7 for those who I know will ask...lol!
Riddles of the past
(3 posts) (3 voices)-
Buckleysmom
MemberPosted 8 years ago # -
ChrisS
AdministratorIf the laptop actually "shut down" then I'd say it's either heat or low-power. If it "crashed" then I'd go with a hardware failure (most likely hard drive). The odd colors are troublesome though.
I'd take a look at the hard drive's SMART data and monitor the temps, one useful program that Hubby probably already has is HWMonitor.
Posted 8 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorThe onliest time I've seen a weird display kinda like you describe it's been graphics card/monitor related -- it happened rarely until the card was replaced, & never happened again, yet the card worked fine in another PC with a different monitor (?). Completely shutting down & letting RAM clear fixed it though, which leads me to ask if the laptop is completely shutting down or going into hibernation or similar?
About the only troubleshooting steps I can think of, are making sure it's getting enough juice, since you know the battery is bad [it might be shorting & reducing the amount reaching the electronics] -- the HWMonitor Chris mentioned also shows voltages. And booting to a USB stick to see if the display is still messed up. If for example you booted to a USB stick created with AOMIE software, you'd get a windowed display -- just not Windows -- & I would imagine if it was bad hardware, it would still be messed up. If it wasn't messed up, then Windows has to load display drivers & such even in Safe Mode, & I'd look there, maybe restoring a backup.
Worse case, as Chris said, might have been temperature related -- laptops don't have an awful lot of space inside for air to move around, so it takes less gunk, fewer dust bunnies to clog air flow. That &/or a fan cutting out would let temps rise to the point it shuts down. Hopefully the laptop's electronics did that, but worse case the CPU will too, only at higher temps. If it doesn't throttle back & then shut down soon enough, electronic chips [including the CPU] can become damaged.
Posted 8 years ago #
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