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17 R3, freezing in games
Hi.
I own an out of warranty 2015 Alienware 17 R3 6820HK GTX 980M. I purchased it recently tried some gaming (Rise of the Tomb Raider, Serious Sam) and after 10-15 min games freeze, but I could hear audio from game.so game freezes but laptop works normal. Now I am not yet at home, but when it happens I do get separate window error message and will post it later. Then again there are moments when I could play for like an hour and no errors. From my experience reading about this issue, this means my GPU is dying, correct? I installed most recent nVidia drivers. Temp of GPU while gaming is max 76 C, but usually around 72 C depending on load.
mattyb3
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April 19th, 2024 01:53
First thing to try is to make sure that you don't have Support Assist installed as this can cause random freezing in older systems. Remove all traces of it. There could be multiple programs associated with it when you look through the list in 'Uninstall a Program'. They all have to be removed.
frozensun
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April 19th, 2024 19:25
No, I don't have it installed.
frozensun
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April 20th, 2024 05:05
So even it started issue (freezing) very soon after launching Unigine Heaven which was not the case before.
Now I did messed up something from one website advising what to do in case of this error, I believe I did add some reg value.
So one last thing to do is that I did removed latest installed nVidia driver with DDU and installled version from Dell website some older 4xx... version, and I am running Unigine Heaven, and will leave it for an hour...wish me luck, so far so good.
Sueila
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May 12th, 2024 23:08
Hey, mate. Been having this very issue for like last 2 years, started from some Nvidia drivers update back then, not sure which version though. Tried everything that is out there on the internet, nothing helped. Keep seeing multiple "nvlddmkm" errors in Event Viewer. Nothing seems to fix it, except for rolling back to latest driver version from Dell website. But then it's been 5 years already since they've updated the video driver (back in 2019)... so many new games might have problems with it.
I have the same very set-up as you do, btw: Alienware 17 R3 i7-6820HK, GTX 980M.
If you managed to fix the problem some way except for rolling back the drivers, would really appreciate if you would share your solution.
frozensun
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June 28th, 2024 11:13
@Sueila I purchased laptop in unkown condition, I mean in normal work it works okay, but in games either freezes the game or simply exits from game.
I googled a lot and figured out this is common for this model, my assumption is probably bad cooling design if hardware is okay.
Temps go mad hot CPU above 90 C and GPU max around 85 C.
Have you tried replacing thermal paste and cleaning dust from heatsink, which would be my next step?
What are your max temps while gaming (CPU and GPU)?
(edited)