Screen turns dark during intense gaming sessions.
Screen turns dark during intense gaming sessions.
Hello everyone! My wife uses an HP Victus equipped with a 3050ti and an i5-11400h running Windows 11. Sometimes when she plays high-end games, her screen turns black and the system stops responding. The power button stays on, so it’s still powered. Restoring it usually means holding the power button until the machine shuts down completely. I’m not sure what might be causing this issue. I’ve tried reinstalling graphics drivers without success. I didn’t find anything in Windows Event Viewer, even though I might have overlooked something. I have a hwinfo log ready (hwinfo.csv). Here are my notes from the crash: CPU temperatures were throttling, which is normal for a gaming laptop during intense games. The power usage stayed steady around 25-30 watts, except for the last entry where it dropped to 16 watts. The GPU was hovering near 60 watts most of the time, except for three rows where it fluctuated between 31 and 10 watts. I can’t pinpoint the exact cause yet. Thanks ahead of time! Update: We now have more details about a crash that occurred shortly after I shared this. Here’s what we found: the computer doesn’t fully power off—it just goes black. After leaving it idle for a few minutes, it came back online. The game was still active and HWInfo remained functional. I’ve attached the logs (9.19.23-Hwinfo-3...). The crash happened on row 927. HWinfo stopped recording data until recovery, after which the logs resumed. She crashed again, but Windows logs showed no errors. It seems the system briefly froze and then resumed exactly where it left off, almost as if nothing happened. Temperatures were around 88°C for the CPU and about 84°C for the GPU. I also observed the GPU power dropping to 15 watts for a few rows before returning. I plan to re-upload the data and swap in a spare SODIMM to test. hwinfo.csv 9.19.23-Hwinfo-3.csv Edited September 21, 2023 by Joshua K. New info
The GPU consistently stayed at 87°C, which is unusual. Even with a gaming laptop featuring a 1660Ti 115W TGP and an i7 10750H, it only reaches 87°C when placed directly on the table under heavy CPU load. Your GPU temperature spiked to 80°C within a minute—it’s quite fast. How long has this device been used? How much airflow is present from the heatsink? What effects occur when playing on an external display?
It seems like a thermal shutdown or crash might be happening. I’d look into the heatsinks and fans first. A simple clean-up should usually suffice—unless you need a repair or replacement of the fans.
We actually got some extra information on a crash that happened soon after I posted this. Here's the new information (I'll also put it in an update in the original post) First, the computer doesn't fully shut down at all. The screen goes black. But we left it alone for a few minutes and it came back online. The game was still running, and so was HWInfo. I've attached the logs. The crash happened on row 927. HWinfo stopped tracking data until the system recovered. Once it did, the logs just continue. She just crashed again and the Windows logs have no errors. Its like the system just halted for a few minutes then picked back up right where it left off as if nothing happened. In this case, the CPU temps were only at 88c. GPU temps were also around 84c. I also noticed the GPU power went from 60, down to 15 for a few rows, then back up. I will try repasting it, and switching out the memory with a spare SODIMM that I have. 9.19.23-Hwinfo-3.csv
No, not necessarily. A thermal shutdown halts operations by cutting power, so systems wouldn't run during that phase.
It wouldn't make sense if everything simply stopped and restarted. I considered only GPU issues like shutdown or restart, or memory problems. The logs didn’t show any driver errors, which suggests it wasn’t a crash. It’s an unusual situation. Though unlikely, it could be related to the SSD or even a loose connection from heat expansion. Just guessing at the moment.
That sounds intriguing. I'm willing to give it a shot too. The only other possibility I considered was the 30-series card generating sporadic power surges, which might be triggering the laptop's shutdown system. Still unsure if recovery would help. It's definitely odd.