laptop problems

[biffbacon]

so i have an offbrand laptop with an ati x600 mobile radeon video card. its about 5 months old, and i just started having a problem.

it started when i would boot up a vvideo game (WoW). i had played w/o problems for about three months, then occasionally the computer would die when i got in game. some times i would still hear the sounds, and the display would go dead, and other times the whole comp would go dead. other times it would reboot on its own. the problem got progressively worse, and started to happen everytime i loaded the game. windows would come up after restart saying a serious error had occurred. once i heard a double beep when i booted up. now i can boot up to windows, but the laptop display will go black when i boot up before i get to windows. or if i get to windows, soon after.....

sounds like a video card issue to me. i tried to d/l new drivers for the card, but since its an offbrand laptop, ati doesnt have the drivers on the site, and regardless, the comp wont stay on long enuff to load any new drivers.

anyone had an experience like this? or have any ideas?

 

[cheesehead]

It does sound like an overheating component. It may, however, be the LCD backlight inverter instead, shorting out. I would try disconnecting the LCD and inverter, and then playing WOW on an external screen. If the problem returns, you need a new video card.

 

[twjr]

I've had the video card go on my laptop a while back. It was an x600 too. This sounds very different to what was happening to me. Do you have any artifacting? If it is the video card then you will have to start looking for a new motherboard, what brand is it?