Ospi Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 (edited) hi all, Iv had my Tecra S2 for a year now and have had non stop problems with it since. It eventually got to the state where everything has been replaced in it. A problem i had before components were replaced was when i played certain games for random amounts of time all of a sudden the screen will have thousands of multi coloured shapes flying about before the pc eventually locks up and needs to be restarted (artifacts i guess). When the mobo was replaced (im guessing the graphics card is part of the mobo so it would have been replaced at the same time????) the problem still occured. Weird thing is this only happens with certain games, it doesn't matter if its an old game or a new one or what graphics settings i am running. I thought it was a heat issue but when i can play COD 2 or Prey for infinate amounts of time with no issues that kind of gets rules out. So im at a loss. Iv updated all the drivers for everything, bought a laptop cooler (didnt help) and a few other little things. Hoping someone here who knows more than me might have an idea. Specs: Intel pentium M 1.87ghz 128 meg nvidia go 6600 1 gig ram 80gig hdd Edited July 3, 2006 by Ospi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabrice Roux Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 If you want to rule out overheating you need to have some temperature readings. You can't state anything from some game not giving you artefacts... some games are CPU hogs, others are GPU hogs and the rest is in the middle. Recent game can bring CPUs to their knees... which means that the pressure on the GPU is lighter. Plus bad programming can lead to issues. I would advise you to use 3DMark 2003 to test your rig... if you end up with graphic artefacts and your temperature rises... you might have to downclock your GPU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ospi Posted July 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Thnx for reply, im dling 3dmark03 now. In the meatime i was wondering how i can test the temperature on my laptop. Is it possible to get software or would i need to buy a tem reader or something? Also, is there any chance my memory could be at fault? im just trying to cancel it down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ospi Posted July 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Well i finished running 2dmark03 with no problem and a score of 4859. Still no closer to figuring out the problem :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarketus Posted July 11, 2006 Report Share Posted July 11, 2006 ok. i have a toshiba tecra s2, with EXACTLY the same issue. plays fine for a while, then suddenly artifacts everywhere and system crashes. card in my one is Geforce Go 6600 128mb my first suspicion was heating, so i got some thermal paste and replaced the lot on the GPU (and the cpu for good measure) i then installed riva tuner to take measurements of the GPU temperature. when idling (on the desktop) the GPU temp is around 65-70 degrees C. when i played a game BF2 or Farcry, the temp goes 75,80,85,90 .... crash. ok so heat is the issue here. the layout of the laptop is that the CPU and the GPU both share one cooling fan that blows over fins connecting to copper heat pipes that connects to the block on the chips. This one fan is variable speed, and seems to be only affected by the CPU temp, I.E. when im doing CPU related tasks the fan goes crazy, whereas during games it doesnt go half as much as it should due to the GPU overheating so... a possible solution to this problem could be to make it so that the fan is always running on at max speed? ive tried to look for fan controlling utilities, toshiba provides none that work like that, 3rd party ive been unsucessful (riva tuner is for the graphics fan, whereas this one shows up as a system/cpu one. also tried speedfan but it does not detect the fan, also tried notebook hardware control but doesnt work either) so basically, does anyone know how to force the fan to always run at max speed on a toshiba tecra s2? like the way it does when it boots for a few seconds! it might be noisey but i dont care as long as games work :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarketus Posted July 11, 2006 Report Share Posted July 11, 2006 ok i underclocked the GPU to 250mhz (50 less that normal) and it seems to run stably at 80 degrees C even so, anyone have any idea about the fan? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dentarthurdent Posted July 11, 2006 Report Share Posted July 11, 2006 ok i underclocked the GPU to 250mhz (50 less that normal) and it seems to run stably at 80 degrees Ceven so, anyone have any idea about the fan? I don't know if it will work for your rig but. I have a fan utility on my dell laptop called i9kfangui. It has the ability to control fans and you can set up a profile to automatically kick the fan to high if the CPU or GPU hits a certain temp. I don't have a site for you to get it from but it is freeware and you can find it on google. If that utility doesn't work, or you're nervous about trying it because I don't know if it will work, I'd recomend going to http://notebookforums.com and asking about fan controllers in the forum appropriate to your system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
®®® Posted July 18, 2006 Report Share Posted July 18, 2006 I don't have a site for you to get it from i8kfangui and also i9kfangui plus oodles of other Laptop related tools can be found since ages in our mobile Software, Tools & Utilities forum section. Very easy to find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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