Black screen/vertical line freeze!

[joseph10444]

yesterday, when my l4d2 did not work (black screen/vertical line freeze) for the first time, i posted in the l4d2 forums Vertical line freeze? (whole system crashes) - Steam Users' Forums but the problem is different now.

It used to be that whenever i played the game for ~5-10 minutes, it froze and i would do a hard reset. Then i updated my drivers to Today's released catalyst 11.1. it still wouldnt work!

so i forgot about teh game and i was watching a youtube video but it seems that the problem has branched out of the game and into the os. In the middle of the youtube video, the freeze happens.

I restarted and opened firefox but i forgot about my youtube tab so it froze again but this time it froze immediately when the page loaded.

now i downgraded back to 10.12 drivers and installed directx 11. i tried dusting out the fan and doing many other things as stated in the other l4d2 thread but it doesnt work!!

help ? i'm out of warranty.

i have an HP laptop dv6-2044ca with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200.
i read on the amd site that someone with the same problem updated his network drivers because it conflicted with his audio drivers and then it worked for him. FOr me, my network drivers are already updated and the thing is, this problem happened randomly!

Before i had this freezing problem, i did a presentation of an ISU and i put my laptop beside a projector which emiitted great heat. when i was done, the laptop was very hot (screen/fan hole area). could this be the cause that ruined my whole computer?

should i try a restore point to 1/25/11 2am?
when i presented it was 1/25/11 1pm (from the until now, ive tried various fixes which made things worse)

 

[nekov4ego]

Well, yes, heat kills hardware. However, if that projector had been so hot, your laptop would have at least restarted, if not turned off, in order to save itself from potential damage from the heat.
There are some programs for monitoring your laptop temperatures, you can use them to check if the problem occurs because of overheating (SpeedFan and Core Temp).

If the problem has something to do with your drivers and the restore point is before you have updated for example your Display Driver, then you could first try running in safe mode and see if the problem still occurs. If no, restore your system, it won't delete any files, it will only return your registry and drivers to earlier state.

That you are out of warranty shouldn't stop you from taking your laptop for diagnostics. You will have to have money of course, but at least they will fix the problem ; )

 

[bassfisher6522]

I had a similar problem when playing L4D2.I ended up deleting the game and reinstalling it and problem went away for me. Since your's has branched out like you stated, have you checked your system for any malware, spyware, adware and virus's. Sometimes a bug can corrupt some system files and can just play havoc with ones system. I would start there first. To the second part, Heat can most certainly damage a system like nekov4ego said. It's the biggest enemy of laptop bar none. The only way to determine that is to get your laptop checked out, throughly and by a professional. It's no different with a cars engine, you want to take some where trustworthy.

 

[joseph10444]

professionals will fix the problem, but with HP's price of $400 on repairing this integrated card/laptop mobo, it's better to invest in a better computer in the future. (with a dedicated card now)

plus i heard laptop mobos are pretttty expensive.. : |

haha i thought of uninstalling l4d2 but i didnt want to because i thought this was a temporary error and i didnt have the bandwidth to download 10 GB.

i think i did run a virus scan, but i forgot since it was many days ago. now my computer screen won't turn on. but i know it's not the screen's problem because luckily as i was pressing FN + F4 after taking out the battery, the screen magically turned on for some reason. now the screen's back to not turning on at all although all the other LEDs work (such as caps lock, num lock, HP logo light, volume, wireless, mute button)

thisis really weird

i am sending it to a local tech business for diagnostic but i doubt id take their offer for repair (because of price and parts theyll use) maybe

 

[nekov4ego]

Are you completely sure they want $400 to repair your laptop? If yes, then you are totally right -- it's not worth the money. You could build an upgradeable desktop PC, and later do a part-by-part upgrade, for about 500 bucks, so...

 

[joseph10444]

yeah i called HP lol. they said it included the fan/mobo/gfx card with shipping and 90 days of warranty....

i could buy a desktop but im in the market for portable.. although it will be more expensive

 

[theog]

Do you use your notebook on your lap?

 

[joseph10444]

sometimes, but gaming was always on a table.
my presentation that i did for the isu, i put my laptop on top of another laptop which was closed.

and the 2 together was beside the projector's fan hole