Asus F3JP Notebook overheating with games

raark · Oct 25, 2007, 03:55 AM

Hello folks,

Im hoping someone can help me.

I have an ASUS F3JP Notebook with a ATI X1700 Mobility GPU.
When I run games it seems to get very hot on the right hand side of the notebook, not too hot to touch but hot nonetheless. After about 15 to 30 minutes the graphics either go fuzzy and the machine locks up or it just skips the fuzzy and goes straight into a lockup. At one stage when I rebooted it didnt even detect the X1700 and I had to run at 1024x768. Just for fun I wan the windows experience test and it returned a 1.0 in graphics so it definately didnt register the card cause it usually pulls a 4.7 or something.

Furthermore I have heard of people with this notebook getting like 60 fps in Wow, I never saw anything like this. The best I got with everything...and I mean everything turned to absolute min settings was 10 to 15 fps, granted I was running it at 1200x800 resolution, but changing it to anything else didnt seem to help and only made the graphics look funny cause it wasnt in wide screen then.

p.s. Im running with 1gb ram which is probably something to do with the problem, and Vista Home Premium.

Can anyone help?

p.s.s. I sent it to the Asus repairers and havent heard back after 4 days, they seem like a wild bunch too...hope they dont make it any worse.

Cheers

Rick

Dyre Straits · Oct 25, 2007, 04:49 AM

Greetings and welcome to DriverHeaven!

First of all, re: the overheating: Where do you have the laptop placed during your sessions? It's advised that the laptops not be placed on fabric covered areas but to be raised off the surface to allow proper ventilation. If the laptop cannot 'breathe' you'll have serious problems. It's much worse in 3D intensive programs like games.

Increasing RAM to 2GB is a big boost so do give that serious consideration.

Keep us posted on results or any other information.

raark · Oct 25, 2007, 05:07 AM

I have a little hospital like table that I put it on when im watching telly in the lounge...so in answer to your question, I dont have it on fabric etc.

Will probably upgrade the ram to 2gb but install myself (it shouldnt be too dificult should it?) as it costs half the price...ASUS reseller wants to charge me for two 1gb sticks $89 each (AU) and $25 to install...where as if I buy them off Ebay it will be half the price.

Nevertheless, I dont think that a lack of ram would force my GPU into melt down, I was thinking that maybe the fan isnt working properly, or something wrong with drivers....the GPU is a dx9 gpu and Vista is Dx10...so I thought that that could even be part of the problem???

raark · Oct 25, 2007, 08:34 PM

Spoke to the repairers this morning...they reckon all their tests were fine. I knew they would not be able to replicate the problem. I asked them to actually play a game instead of just loading one and letting it sit as that was not causing any stress on the gpu...you would think that they would know that...havent heard back from them as yet.

raark · Oct 26, 2007, 01:24 AM

Well I got the notebook back from the repair agent for Asus. They ran several tests on the cpu and gpu and sad that it didnt skip a beat.

They ran Unreal Tournament (the demo for the new one) and it locked up after ten minutes, they said they then rebooted the machine and it worked without fault. Typical.

As far as they are concerned it must be a software fault. I just find this hard to swallow because it does it for any 3d game I have. They think it must be a conflict with the loaded software. If that is the case, and I could be wrong here....wouldnt it give up the ghost sooner than ten to twenty minutes? and im sure the excessive case heat that I can feel has something to do with it.

Anyways, just thought I would keep anyone who is curious abridged of the situation.

Im not running much software really...but have been toying with the idea of uninstalling Norton Internet Security as ive heard its a bit of a resource hog.

Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated very much.

Trost · May 1, 2008, 12:57 PM

Try this:
having some problems with x1700 laptop

raark · May 3, 2008, 03:09 AM

Thanks Trost.

Actually I ended up taking the machine to the state repairer rather than their contractors and the next day I had my machine back with a brand new motherboard and graphics card....guess what ? The card was faulty as I had tried to explain to the bozos at the first repair centre.

Cheers

NikT · Jul 21, 2008, 09:30 AM

I also own an F3JP, and was experiencing the same symptoms as you - so kept landing on this thread while searching for a solution, however, my outcome was a little different, so I felt it would be good to share...

GTA San Andreas would run well for about 10 minutes, the framerate would then reduce to an unbearably slow rate... and did the fan have to be going so hard all the time??

But here's the strange part - it USED to run the game really well... just recently it became bad... Ghost images of Windows I installed and am certain ran fine previously, now they ran with the above symptoms. What had changed??

I sent it in for repair, requesting new GPU/Mainboard, only to have it returned a day or so later (by Asus paid courier both ways - thanks Asus) with the following repair:

- Flashed BIOS
- Dusted CPU Heatsink.. was clogged.

"HMM don't think that'll fix it"......

It did...

I learnt something today.

My coffee table.. welll.. errrf... maybe I should clean it once in a while.

I guess the moral, given I've been a laptop serviceman for HP, was that, I sent it in for repair, their service was very good, fast, and good for the environment.. while fixing the problem.. I'm glad I didn't sproing the laptop open and potentially bust something while it was still under warranty, and hey, I didn't have to risk the BIOS flash, they did it for me. 8)

Thanks for people's helpful suggestions in here, they helped me in my investigations... and finally got me off my butt to send the thing in for repair - it now appears unstoppable, running everything perfectly.