Computer crash, lockup, blue screen error messages, all while playing games! plz halp!

[PatrickPlayz]

for the past 2 or 3 years, Ive been having a now very serious problem with my very high-spec dell xps l502x laptop (i7 quad core CPU, nvidia geforce gtx GPU, 8gb ram). It keeps freezing every minute or so while playing games, for a year Ive had to put up with restarting it every time, since there was no getting out of it, then it progressed into a freeze up with sound stutter (du du du) which everytime i tried ctrl alt del. one day it actually worked, and worked ever since, but I notice a small message come up in the bottom right corner saying "display driver stopped responding and has recovered". also, instead of a sound stutter, it can be just a continuous buzz. but it also sometimes just freezes with no noise and I need to restart it. but what Im really worried about is that, about 2 weeks ago, I got a dreaded blue screen white writing error message, which top line said something like "a program was not installed correctly on your computer and could be fatal" i noticed down the bottom there was a 2 digit number that was changing, i'm not sure if it was counting down or if it was random, i was somewhat stressed, and quite frankly, very scared to have received any form of blue screen message, so i didn't really notice. after a few seconds the computer restarted, and after the dell intro, a black screen windows error recovery message showed up and gave me a safe mode option, and a normal start up option. Is this error The Blue Screen Of Death? Ive heard that the actual B SOD means the end of your computer and there is absolutly nothing you can do about it except get a new operating system, if not a new pc? please help. the purpose of this post wasnt to get a solution, but to find out more about the problem and whats causing it, but a very quick and simple solution will be attempted so please tell me!

 

[smorizio]

http://superuser.com/questions/564903/dell-xps-15-fan-on-fan-off-fan-on-fan-off-because-of-nvidia-drivers
looks like there was a heat issue with the nvida chipset on that laptop that had a high failure rate do to heat. your fan may have failed and the video chipset over heated.
http://www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-2016149/dell-xps-l502x-crash-issue.html
try as the person did in the second link and under clock the video card. for your os issue. use a usb stick back up your personal files and run the dell restore it put a clean image back on your hard drive when you fix the video issue.

 

[PatrickPlayz]

No, Im very very positive its not heat, Ive under clocked my CPU, GPU, separately, and at the same time, I also put it up on blocks. I don't think is memory either, I did the windows default memory test, twice, and MemTest, twice. its very puzzling for my whole family, even the I.T guy didn't have much to say! but even so, is the blue screen the blue screen of death?

 

[smorizio]

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=383591
with your laptop if there intel chipset for the video swap over to them. if not see if you can reset the video card. if it not the gpu ram. pull 1/2 of the system ram see if the bsod error changes or follows the ram. the last is the cpu itself it could have bad cache or bad cpu core. see if the laptop bios let your turn them off. the other thing to check is the fans make sure there working and not dust bound. also with 3-4 year old laptop you may have to re-paste the gpu and cpu. one last thng to check is look at the ac brick..if the wires are twisted you can have a short in it. also check the output with a volt meter see if it close to what printed on it. also check to pin on the laptop if it lose it case short out the unit. if you game a lot it may be time to toss the laptop into the recycler and build a new desktop. desktops are built more to last and take the heat over laptop.

 

[PatrickPlayz]

ok, well i didnt do exactly what you said, but i went to the second link in your first post and there i found that there was a youtube vid link with a possible solution to what sounds like the problem i'm having, so i will be doing that tonight, but as for the re-paste of the CPU and GPU, i belive that involves a complete disassembly which im very uncomforable with, but I have seen many pc repair places that may do it for me.

 

[PatrickPlayz]

ok, i did the suggestion, which was to under clock GPU with the nvidia system tool, which gives me access to the performance tab where i can change clock values, the initial values were 672mhz and 900mhz, "it" told me to under clock it to 522mhz and 700mhz, so i did. ill see how it goes for a few days and the first time, if at all, it freezes of bsod's, ill post back, if it dosn't freeze at all in a week then ill assume it worked and ill message back. bye bye.