A piece of my laptop's hardware is failing me, trying to figure out which part?

[detection]

I've had this laptop for just 1.5 years or so, but something is definitely failing me, and I think I'm out of warranty. I've been having frequent issues with freezes/crashes. They present one of three ways usually: it started with just total lockups - cursor would freeze, CTRLALTDEL didn't work, had to hard shutdown. Next I started getting crazy flashing screen and loud buzzing noises crashes, where I would also have to hard shutdown. Now I'm also getting a BSOD here and there - and not always the same error.

I did a memory test, SMART test, and CPU test with Intel's utility... all came back fine.

I'm beginning to think it's my GPU (1050Ti). I tried the Furmark GPU stress test; it started off fine, had the big hairy eyeball up, but it only lasted about 3-5 mins before the screen went black. I waited a few more minutes to see if this was part of the test but ultimately had to hard shutdown again. The problem here was that when I tried to boot again, I'd get to the Windows logo screen flash, then it'd go completely black again. Never got to the login screen. I had to boot into advanced options and did a System Restore to about an hour prior. Then I was able to boot.

I've been having the majority of my crashes while playing Football Manager 2019. I didn't think this game was very GPU-heavy, that said, most of the crashes happen during the matches where it does utilize more GPU power. I do have some crashes outside of FM19 though which concerns me. Although the last was while I was working in Adobe InDesign iirc.

Ultimately I'm not sure how to totally confirm it's my GPU, or if I can rule out the mobo. But I'd appreciate any insight!

If specs are needed...
CyberPowerPC Tracer II 15
i7-7700HQ 2.8GHz Turbo 3.8GHz
16GB DDR4 RAM
128GB SSD + 1TB 7200RPM HDD
GTX 1050Ti 4GB GDDR5

 

[Onus]

Your laptop may be overheating. If you are comfortable with doing so, open it up and thoroughly clean out any dust with a can of pressurized air. Do not use a vacuum cleaner (unless designed for electronics) as they generate dangerous static. If you do not feel comfortable opening it up, take it to a shop to have it done. They can also confirm that all fans are working.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Have you been monitoring your temps? This could just be an overheating issue. CyberPowerPC isn't exactly known for their quality builds. If I were you I'd get AIDA 64 and run a stress test. It will give you temp readings on your CPU and help you see if the temps are just too high. For graphics card monitoring MSI Afterburner works great.

If your system is overheating there are a couple things you can do to alleviate the issue. The easiest is to get a cooling pad. This will help move cool air into the PC. Sometimes this works great and sometimes it does nothing. It all depends on how the air moves in the laptop. Option 2 is to undervolt the CPU. This can be done with Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility. Some people report success with this approach, while others (myself included) don't see much of a difference. The final option is to open the laptop up, clean it out, and apply some high end non-conductive thermal compound to the GPU and CPU. This is the approach that helped me drop the temps on my laptop. I went from overheating and thermal throttling to only thermal throttling 1-2% under heavy stress testing.

 

[detection]

I did open up one access point yesterday and everything that I could see was clean and securely in place.

I'll have to try monitoring the temps. I read another post last night where someone mentioned they underclocked their GPU using Afterburner. I downloaded AB but took one look at it and went to bed haha. Perhaps that could help?

Thanks guys!

 

[seagate_surfer]

detection, you can test your drives to rule them out as a possible culprit with SeaTools.