Game Crashes at Random Times, With Graphics Card Error.... Please read!

[CRNOBOG]

I usually play on my desktop which uses an Nvidia Geforce GTX 260, 3Gb Ram, DX10, Intel Core i7 running at 3.20ghz and running Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit and the game seems to run fine on that... But when I am travelling and using my HP Laptop With Specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit, Intel Core i5-2410M @ 2.30ghz, 8Gb Ram, DX 11, Ati Radeon 6490M, I have an issue...

My Problem is that I cant even play a single game period of 10-20 minutes w/o the game crashing to my desktop... I get an error on my desktop that says something like my graphics card has crashed and recovered or something like that, usually before I can get to my desktop, because when the game does crash it crashes freezing my game so I have to Ctrl+alt+Del and then by that time it just says your graphics card has recovered, but I have tried everything I could think of...

My Drivers for everything on the Laptop are all updated as of Monday and I had this problem before that, I also have the DDO Pre-launcher thing to boost my launch speeds, so basically I know it is not my graphics card because it is fully up to date, nothing else I can do there, I even tried lowering my gfx in game, below what the game detected as optimal for my laptop to handle and it still crashes, I turned off Anti Aliasing and no change in the crashing, just my gfx are worse, not sure what else to do here.

Any help GREATLY appreciated!

[Vordax]

I usually play on my desktop which uses an Nvidia Geforce GTX 260, 3Gb Ram, DX10, Intel Core i7 running at 3.20ghz and running Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit and the game seems to run fine on that... But when I am travelling and using my HP Laptop With Specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit, Intel Core i5-2410M @ 2.30ghz, 8Gb Ram, DX 11, Ati Radeon 6490M, I have an issue...

My Problem is that I cant even play a single game period of 10-20 minutes w/o the game crashing to my desktop... I get an error on my desktop that says something like my graphics card has crashed and recovered or something like that, usually before I can get to my desktop, because when the game does crash it crashes freezing my game so I have to Ctrl+alt+Del and then by that time it just says your graphics card has recovered, but I have tried everything I could think of...

My Drivers for everything on the Laptop are all updated as of Monday and I had this problem before that, I also have the DDO Pre-launcher thing to boost my launch speeds, so basically I know it is not my graphics card because it is fully up to date, nothing else I can do there, I even tried lowering my gfx in game, below what the game detected as optimal for my laptop to handle and it still crashes, I turned off Anti Aliasing and no change in the crashing, just my gfx are worse, not sure what else to do here.

Any help GREATLY appreciated!

I used to have this problem with my older laptop. The issue was heat. I got a laptop cooling pad and it worked fine after that. Another alternative is to make sure that the insides are free of dust, use a can of air to clean it out, also make sure that the laptop is on a surface that is well ventilated.

[CRNOBOG]

Thanks for the reply! Yes this is realy a multi-media Laptop so not really for gaming, but was told it would work fine, and quite frankly it works better on other games that require more graphics than this **** game! lol I mean other games I play on here are so crisp and clear and almost life like, and they run smoothly even when my laptop is blowing out hot air, or running hot as you say... But yeah that could be the issue, this game does make my Laptop get hot and blow hot air and I don't know why? THis game is not graphically demanding... the graphics as I said before are not that great compared to other games, so it's kinda funny that other games like LICHDOM: BATTLEMAGE run w/o game crashing, just runs a lil slow and that is prob due to my gfx card not heat there, but for this game I do not get it.... Lichdom Battlemage is graphically demanding which is why it runs a lil choppy at times, but no crashes, so don't get it...

Anyway where would I get a GOOD cheap cooling fan and how would I put it on? I assume it connects somehow to the bottom of the laptop, am i right?

[sebastianosmith]

Anyway where would I get a GOOD cheap cooling fan and how would I put it on? I assume it connects somehow to the bottom of the laptop, am i right?

Laptop coolers are usually small, flat platforms with fans. No need to attach one to the machine. Just set the laptop on it. Many are powered by a USB port from the laptop. Some have separate power supplies. Many are available with extra USB ports, speakers, LED lighting, feet/risers, multiple fan speeds, etc. They range in price from about $10 to $50 depending on what features you want. You can see dozens of them at NewEgg. The only advice I can give you about your potential purchase is to get one that fits the dimensions of your machine and has more than one fan. You can pay extra for an aluminum model (supposedly more heat transfer), but that's probably not worth the cost.

As a side note:

You can also try underclocking/undervolting your GPU if the Catalyst CC will allow for such on the mobile series chips. I have found that an underclock/undervolt of 5% will usually settle the driver crashes without sacrificing much performance.

[Melli]

On some machines the game seems to have an issue with DX11. You can downgrade to using DX9 in the options controls. I had the same problem on my new machine and this fixed it for me for the most part ... I see a graphics card crash maybe once in three months instead of every ten minutes of game time.

[Flavilandile]

Yes this is realy a multi-media Laptop so not really for gaming, but was told it would work fine, and quite frankly it works better on other games that require more graphics than this **** game!

Even recent games are easier on the graphic cards... DDO is a monster... it should be used for testing purpose when it comes to graphic cards.
I know as a fact that it can cause graphic cards to crash due to too much heat.
That's what happened to my 8800GTS, DDO was bringing it up to 80°C... and after a few years it didn't like it at all.
[ I made some measurement at that time... 76°-80° depending how long I played... going down to 68° instantaneously upon exiting the game... and then relatively fast to 56° ]

So, from the symptoms, I agree with others that your crashes are probably caused by the graphic card overheating and going into thermal lockdown.
You can try the laptop cooler thing, they works fine, as long as your laptop air vents are not clogged by dust. You might want to check that too.