Gateway FX Edition Laptop

So I bought this laptop from Best Buy a couple years ago. I asked for the best gaming Laptop and they pointed me to this one. It has a Geforce 8800M GTS card with 512mb of mem and 2 duo processors with vista 64 bit installed. Everything was cool until earlier this year when the system started shutting off when I would game. I could stay on for hours if I am just browsing the web or using regular programs, but as soon as I start gaming the thing shuts itself off. I bought a cooling pad thinking that would help and it hasn't. I usually sit it on a desk that I bought for it. I now have it elevated a bit on the cooling pad. But it seems to still overheat super quick when I have games running. I'm at a loss as to what I should do here. Any of you guys have similar problems you were able to rectify:confused

 

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Greetings, Streetbroker...

Seems very odd that only games would cause a hardware problem, unless the video card is overstressing...you might try toning down shaders, resolution, etc., to try to pinpoint the problem...

I'd be more inclined to think this may be a software issue...

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Any gaming laptop will get hot, if it's the CPU overheating, it will throttle back until the heat dissipates, if the GPU overheats, it's gonna crash. Are your cooling fans working hard? Have you tried to open the laptop to clean out the ventilation routes? Did the laptop play these games fine before the shutting down became a problem?

Many of the (earlier?) 8800M GS graphics cards had a faulty component build causing them to overheat and prematurely fail, the laptop makers (Apple, Dell, HP, ASUS, ... ) had various fixes for this from replacing the boards to patching the BIOS so the fans would run continuously (so the board didn't fail until outside the warranty period?). I hope your board is a later version with improved component build.

Have you contacted Gateway Support over this or visited their forum, if they have one?

 

I think it's an overheating issue if it only does it when you game.

Try to check the heatsinks for dust buildup