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Vaio VPC-F13Z1E/B turning off while playing - NOT an overheating issue

Tags:
  • VAIO
  • random
  • Laptops
  • Games
  • Shutdown
  • F13
Last response: in Laptop Tech Support
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March 14, 2014 5:37:43 PM

Hi!

A little backstory first - I have the aforementioned machine for 3 years as of now, it has never been a gamekiller and it used to heat up a little more than my friends' notebooks. However, it was not a big issue, just a bit uncomfortable while resting my hand on a pretty warm surface.

About half a year ago, it started to turn off randomly while playing, no specific pattern here - I could use it for 7 hours and then play for 2 hours until it crashed or I could just turn it on, play for 2 minutes and BLAM. I decided to take it to an official post-warranty support company and they performed a "cooling system optimization". It worked great, temps dropped about 20 degrees, however, it still kept turning off. I reinstalled all the drivers, finally tried reinstalling whole system from scratch - nothing helped.

I thought maybe it's the fan, just stopping randomly and then the temp suddenly spikes up to the unbearable levels and the notebook just shuts itself, but no! I ran Speedfan for whole day, logged all the temperatures, checked the last one logged, 5 secs before the shutdown - none of them exceeded 60C. So it's not a temperature/fan problem AND it's a new system.

However, it's not Vaio-branded Windows, so there's a chance some drivers may not work correctly, can it cause a shutdown? It never happened outside of the game (I primarily play World of Warcraft and Hearthstone). Windows 7 I had until today was installed through Dreamspark Academy and I installed all the drivers through Sony Support. Windows 8.1 is from Dreamspark as well, but installed all of the drivers (except Ricoh MemoryStick) automatically. I also use original Nvidia Driver for GT 425M card as well, instead of outdated Sony ones.

Summarising - what can be the cause of these shutdowns? Is not having a branded system a potential culprit? Some sort of driver conflict and only during games? It kind of points to graphics card, should I use the Vaio drivers instead of clean Nvidia ones? I recall using clean ones without shutdowns, but maybe something isn't ok since a certain release.

What would you do?

More about : vaio vpc f13z1e turning playing overheating issue

March 15, 2014 4:09:55 AM

Xcom46 said:
I would look in your BIOS settings to see if there is any thing causing the shut down.

On some systems there is a temp alarm feature that will automatically shut the system down if it get's to hot.

I do not remember what it is called but go through the BIOS and look for any thing that has to do with temp control.Your systems BIOS temp could be set at a certain temp to shutdown.


Well, I know that, but as I said - it's not even exceeding 60C and I saw it going to 88C on Speedfan before cooling optimization and it still wouldn't shut down. So it's not related to temperature, sadly...

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March 15, 2014 6:16:42 AM

No, not at all. I don't remember when it happened for the last time.

Screen goes off, sound starts stuttering for 2 seconds and it just shuts down.
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March 21, 2014 1:23:23 PM

Still having problems with it, I tried updating all the drivers - no effect.

Reverting to original Vaio video drivers, though I don't think latest Nvidia drivers are the cause of it. It keeps happening for few months, this problem would be quite loud in the search results already.
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June 11, 2014 3:00:34 PM

I have the exact same computer and the exact same problem, i replaced my hard drive because my old one started to die due to the shutdowns, when i replaced it, it got better for a while but after 2 or 3 months the shutdowns came back...
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