Variation on Fire/Ballad/Escape lag issue (+nVidia driver ?)

[Suiram]

Okay, this is going to be something of a narrative, but I'm perplexed as to what I need to do here. I have a Dell XPS 170 laptop, it's almost two years old, I've been playing FFXI on it since about a month after ToAU was released, it's got an nVidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX card, and runs Windows XP. I have the fire/firaga/escape/songs lag that people have had over the years that supposedly some new drivers fixed, however my particular video card hasn't had official drivers released since the Summer of 2006.

This is all fine and good, it's annoying but I can play through it. However, about once or twice a week, under those conditions (Fire 3 cast, Escaping, etc.) my computer will shut down and a black screen comes up telling me I overheated. I reboot my computer and one fan goes nuts and is super loud, I reboot again as soon as possible and it all goes back to normal like nothing happened. The reason I don't actually think anything overheated is because everything is normal after that, until it happens again after a few days to a week. For instance, if the AC is gone and I'm going to Salvage, I'll get Nyzul orders, travel to Ruins, Escape, overheat, reboot twice, and then play for 4 more hours without any further issues.

So it happened again today, and I did a bit of reading, and came up with this thread from advanced discussion: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=27179 I went to the laptopviddeo2go site mentioned repeatedly there, downloaded the 169.17 drivers and the "modded INF" file to install them on my PC, and went ahead with the setup. During installation I got a blue screen telling me I had some fatal error and physical memory dump that I didn't really understand, and when I rebooted Windows told me I had serious problems, but the drivers seemed to have been installed well enough so I figured I'd roll with it. I logged on, and went out testing the new drivers, which seemed to be working great. Spammed minuets on myself with my gimp BRD sub as I Firaga 3'd a bunch of rabbits without any lag at all, then I was running across Batallia S toward Eldieme to test Escape, and just as I arrived at the entrance I got the old black screen that I used to get once a week that I described above, but with no discernible cause, I'd only been online for like 10-15 min and none of those spells were being cast. So I rebooted (twice like normal to quiet that fan) and installed my old drivers and am now patiently awaiting any advice anyone can give me.

In an ideal world I'd be lag free, but really all I want is some way to prevent my computer from randomly deciding it's overheated, if anyone who has a similar problem or who can recognize the source of mine has any input they can share.

Edit: I spoke to a guy at Dell (kinda, he couldn't really tell me anything unless I paid them $40), who told me to run some diagnostic thing on boot. I did that and it would seem my "video fan" (the fan that sits on the rear right side of my laptop, presumably near the video card) doesn't work anymore, so I guess I'm going to need a new one of those. I'm going to assume that when I get those shutdowns I described above it's due to the lag from the firaga3/escape making my computer tell my video fan to turn on or to go higher, and then getting worried when it doesn't and shutting off. Does that sound like what's going on?

[Stromgarde]

Run Speedfan and lock the fan speed at a static rate?

[Suiram]

Run Speedfan and lock the fan speed at a static rate?

So, I downloaded Speedfan and it told me my Core temp was 80~85C. Then I tried running FFXI and it went up to 95C, so I guess that's probably the problem. I ordered a new fan which should come by the end of the week, so I guess I should just keep my computer use at a minimum until then?

[darkamulet]

You have carpet or pets in your home? I noticed quite a few laptops get the fins at the tip of the heat pipes clogged up with all kinds of crazy crap. Sometimes the fans just choke on the that stuff aswell. Have had a few buddies bring laptops that crash 5min into any game, take'em apart remove the chunk of dust/hair and it runs fine.

[diony]

Core temp is a measurement of your graphics card temp, not the CPU itself

[Suiram]

Core temp is a measurement of your graphics card temp, not the CPU itself

Are you 100% sure on that? Everything I've read suggests that it's a direct reading of the processor's temperature. It's a very important distinction to me, since apparently my processor is rated to run up to 100C. I know that probably isn't the best thing for it, but it at least means I can continue to use my laptop this week until my new fan arrives, whereas if it's the graphics card temp I'm probably in real trouble.

[Grandcross]

Processor temp. Definitely not your Graphics card temp.

[Sigi]

invest in a set of small screwdrivers and cans of compressed air. Most of the screws on Dell laptops are small phillips head screws.

Also: check support.dell.com for the repair documentation on your system: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /index.htm


Enjoy!

[Suiram]

So just as an update, I installed the new fan a couple days ago, and then I downloaded the 171.16 nvidia drivers and the modded INF and installed them without any issues like I had had installing the 169.17s. I don't get any lag from Firaga or Ballad or Escape or Porrogos or Meteor like I did before. I also don't randomly shut down, but I think that's most likely because I have a functional fan.

In any event, I do have one issue that is starting to bother me about these drivers. My framerate is great (better than before actually in areas with a lot of characters), but after about 2-3 hours of play, I start getting what I guess you could best describe as "hiccups". For instance, if I pan the camera 360deg around, which takes about 5? seconds, twice in the rotation the framerate will hiccup for a moment then resume. Aside from the hiccups it is running normally however. Shutting down FFXI and restarting doesn't fix it, however shutting down my entire computer for a couple minutes and restarting does. I'm wondering if this happens to be an issue with these drivers, or how I would tell what is causing it and hopefully fix it. If anyone happens to use a similar videocard with newer drivers and could offer any suggestion, or who just happens to know what might be the cause, I would greatly appreciate any insight. I know there's a 10 page thread on nVidia drivers in Advanced, but Izzy yells at people who aren't running Vista and post their problems there, so I figured this thread was the best place to ask it lol