Weird Issue

[simplicity05]

Hi tom's!

I've been having a weird issue.

Last July I received my new ASUS G72GX from newegg. After jumping in and doing the usual driver updates, I decided to install my copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 (taxing I know... haha) to try and stress my system out with max graphical qualities, or bots, or whatever just to get a feel.

Installation went just dandy and I was up and playing once the 14gb of game installed. I'd play bot matches a few times a week. Installed mods and those worked great. Had a lot of fun.

Then one day, UT just decided not to work anymore. Ever since that day, any time I try to launch the game, I see the splash screen, and right when it looks like it's going to jump into 3D and load the menu, my whole rig locks up rock solid to where I have to do a hard shutdown to recover. I reboot, launch, and it does the exact same thing.

Ok, it's just a game, and I can live without it. Whatever, no big deal.

So then, maybe a month later, I go to install YIM. Installation goes fine. Everything looks good. Then, I launch the program. The login screen appears. I create my account, and it goes to log in, and WHAM! Locked up just like UT2004. Same exact symptom. And the lock point was right as it was logging in.

Ok, it's just YIM, and I can live without it. Whatever, no big deal.

So then... grr...

I buy Portal 2.

I get it home. Discover my DVD drive has mysteriously stopped working. Ok, sucks. I go buy a cheapo external DVD drive. I plug-n-play and it works as it's suppose to. I install steam first off. It auto loads. It starts to update. It gets to 100%, the updating bar closes... 3... 2... 1... WHAM! Locked up tight again.

So I'm dinking around, trying to sort this out. Portal 2 is a game I've been literally anxious for for 4 years now. I'm PO'ed.

I find a guide saying that I should boot into safe mode, run the update, reboot, and it should be all good. Sweet. I'm skeptical though. Boot to safe. Update. Looks good. I see the initial Steam screen asking for account information! SWEET! IT'S WORKING!

Reboot.

Launch steam.

Lock.

.........

Update my video driver. Update my chipset driver. Update my BIOS.

Lock.

................

I call ASUS, and they recommend I try to update my VGA driver. If that doesn't work - which it didn't - I should back up all my stuff for a reinstall and call them back.

My question for the people of the tom's community - can I fix this issue without doing a reinstall? Is there anything I may have overlooked? Anything else I can try to fix this weird issue that I can't wrap my brain around?

Thank you for taking the time to read through this, and in advance for any help offered!

-Simplicity

Oh, forgot to mention - I was using AVG antivirus at the time. I shut that down (eek!) and that didn't work. I uninstalled and installed avast. That didn't work either.

 

[skaz]

I sure hope you have some sort of warranty. I'd be fuming if anything broke on a laptop that cost well over a grand.

Watch your temperatures. See if you can record them right before the lock up occurs.

 

[simplicity05]

I sure hope you have some sort of warranty. I'd be fuming if anything broke on a laptop that cost well over a grand.

Watch your temperatures. See if you can record them right before the lock up occurs.

I will do so once I get some more time to sleuth this issue. I don't feel it's a temp problem, but it never hurts to check.

I was typing fast before as I was on borrowed time, so I also forgot to mention I don't have this same problem with my other programs. Photoshop runs fine, Cube 2 runs great - with all graphics cranked and 11 bots I can't get anything less than 59fps. It's so far just those three things that cause this issue. The haunting part was that steam seemed to work in safe mode but not on a normal boot, which makes me think there's something loading that isn't playing nice. I can also run all my stuff at stock speeds or overclocked with asus' built in OC utility. It's just the three things mentioned that don't work correctly u der ANY circumstance.

As far as warrenty - it was a 30 day warranty as it was refurbed (best I could tell all they did was uninstall vista and put 7x64 on; maybe not!) and problems didn't start until afterwards

 

[simplicity05]

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