Laptop shuts down when I do anything gpu intense

LSxRave

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Jan 4, 2011
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Hi everyone,
my laptop has been shutting down within seconds of starting anything graphically intense, but runs just fine in any other case. So far I've only tested this on Dead Island and Minecraft, but the results are consistent; I'll start up a game, get into the menu (I can idle in the menu for however long just fine), and when I start up the actual gameplay, it runs at about 40-60 fps. Then, it sputters every 5 seconds or so, lagging so bad that it drops down 3 fps or so, and then comes back up. After two or three times that this happens, my computer's screen shuts off, then the laptop shuts off.

There isn't any sign of heat from the laptop during the entire time. The system specs are up to par with both minecraft and Dead Island on the nVidia. I've tried updating the drivers to the latest, and rolling them back to the most compatible. Also, my laptop has the Optimus thing with nVidia and an intel card. I made sure I had the right drivers for this when I tried the most recent time.

My laptop specs:

Samsung qx410
4GB RAM
Windows 7 64-bit
Intel Core i5 CPU M460 @ 2.53Ghz Dual Core
nVidia GeForce 310M

If anyone can help out, it'd be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I forgot to mention something very important; I recently had my laptop repaired under warranty, having the motherboard, battery and optical drive replaced. It's been about a week since the repair now.
 

LSxRave

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Jan 4, 2011
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Wouldn't the case be hot if it was a case of overheating? also, the a/c cord was recently replaced, as well. little less than a month ago. Although, I just noticed that my available physical memory is 1.94 GB compared to the 4 gb I have installed. Would that be a problem?
 

starzty

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Sep 22, 2011
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If the GPU or CPU is not making solid contact with the heatsink it could cause an overheat shutdown. That might be related to the service if they did not tighten the screws enough.
It might get hot right where the chip is but be otherwise regular.
 

leandrodafontoura

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Sep 26, 2006
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I also think its overheating. This may happen over time, as hardware can malfunction.

Anyways, I recomend you open your laptop, simply untie the screws, and get acess to your hardware, I bet by now the fans are FILLED with dust...clean up a little and you will get a better cooling.