The laptop becomes unresponsive and restarts during gameplay on the Acer Predator G9.
The laptop becomes unresponsive and restarts during gameplay on the Acer Predator G9.
Hey everyone, I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with my laptop. For about six months now, games and browsing have started freezing or shutting down unexpectedly. It looks like the whole system freezes, audio glitches, and then it restarts. After a couple minutes, it comes back online without any obvious problems. I checked the Event Viewer but didn’t find anything specific. Online help suggests it might be GPU-related, though I’m not sure why it would fail right after loading or during gameplay.
I’ve updated my graphics drivers and kept everything current. The BIOS is fresh, and temperatures are normal now—so overheating isn’t the issue. I run games from a secondary drive because my main SSD is full. It doesn’t seem to be caused by CPU load since the machine isn’t overworked when it freezes. I don’t overclock and use Process Lasso for settings, which has worked fine before.
I also don’t play on battery power, just plugged in, so power supply seems out of the question. My hardware specs are: Predator G9-593, i7-7700HQ, GTX 1070. RAM is 2x8GB DDR4 at 2400MHz, OS is Windows 10 64-bit. I’m worried it might be the GPU failing, which would mean the end for this machine since it’s soldered in.
I’ve tried using DDU to remove some Nvidia drivers and clean install the one I have, but nothing seems to help. I’m running out of ideas and really fear the GPU is giving up. If you’re dealing with similar problems, what should you do next? Any tips would be appreciated!
Visit C:\Windows\Minidump to see if any minidump files exist. If present, return to the Windows directory and transfer the Minidump folder to the Downloads folder (use your desktop if needed). Compress the copied folder and include it in a post. Please adhere strictly to instructions since Windows doesn't allow file changes there.
These issues indicate the GPU wasn't working, the driver was reset by Windows, yet the GPU remained unresponsive, leading to a BSOD. You might not notice a crash if the GPU is frozen. This often points to a faulty GPU, but you can follow this DDU guide. For laptops, the recommended steps are included in the linked document.
Sure, I’ll try DDU next. Thanks for your comments and the details. If the issue is related to the GPU hardware, I might need a desktop setup since it’s really tough to access it. Also, I’m wondering if the RAM isn’t the cause of these crashes. I ran a memdiag in Windows and found no errors there. I considered replacing or adding RAM, but I doubt it would help much. It’s worrying that my old Win7 laptop—still running after 5 to 6 years—has such an old GPU and only 4GB of RAM, yet it works fine while another one is already retired.
After exploring various solutions, I completed the DDU cleanup and updated both Intel and Nvidia drivers. The main challenge remains the processor not being supported anymore on Intel's site, and installing the newest video driver for my CPU failed (it crashes with an error). However, I successfully reinstalled the latest Nvidia drivers, allowing me to use the dedicated GPU. Unfortunately, the system still experiences freezes, likely tied to heavy GPU usage but sometimes occurring even when background media plays. Interestingly, these freezes seem connected to audio—there’s a higher chance they happen when background content is active (like a YouTube video). Another test involved running a game for several hours with a paused YouTube video; the screen went black when idle, but froze instantly when I interacted with it. Since the driver was already installed, I disabled Process Lasso without much difference. My final choice would be to run a GPU stress test to check for hardware issues. Any tips for self-testing without professional help? Thanks again for your support and have a great holiday season!