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el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 595

Dell E5400 overheating and 3D game freezing

I'm not really sure as to when this started but it was somewhere this week or last week.
My laptop is getting really hot (well it's hot outside so maybe that's it dunno) and everything starts to lag. I just wanted to make sure this is a problem related to the weather, how can I do it? The laptop is clean and all fans are dust-less.

The real issue started today. While playing Freespace 2 (FSOpen) the game started to lag a lot, although the HUD said I was playing at 60fps. Then after some seconds the screen froze and the sound keeps looping. I thought maybe the heat was the issue, so I shut down and waited for the laptop to cool. After that I tried played again and now as soon as I enter the game (not the menus, the actual 3D rendering) it freezes automatically and the sound stays like described before. I switched to Vc1 and Ctrl+C'd the X session. the game keeps running in the background and I can't kill it with either htop or killall. This also happens with Nexuiz so I'm gonna just say "every 3d app". How can I debug this further? I'm lousy when the matter is finding logs.

Thanks!

Edit: sorry, forgot the essentials:
Kernel26-Ck (also happens with -ARCH, both latest version available in testing/AUR)
xf86-video-intel-newest (also happens with -git)

After a  bit of gaming the cpu reached 80ºC

Last edited by el mariachi (2010-07-08 23:38:03)

stqn

Member

Registered: 2010-03-19

Posts: 1,191

Website

Re: Dell E5400 overheating and 3D game freezing

I don't know about the Dell E5400 but I "burned" my ASUS laptop while playing Oblivion a few years ago. It started with graphical glitches and then a few days (hours?) later the computer wouldn't even boot.

What you could do...
- Use your computer only at night (and see if it works that way)
- Put it on feet and point an external fan at it
- Limit its maximum frequency using cpufreq and/or undervolt the cpu
- Better, do the same for the graphics card if you can find how (I don't know)
- Limit the FPS in 3D games if possible
- Avoid using it (and especially playing 3D games) when it's hot if you don't want to lose it.
- Maybe change the thermal compound if your laptop is old.
- If it's still under warranty, don't wait and contact Dell or whoever to have it fixed!

That's assuming it indeed is a hardware problem, but it looks like it...