G74 DH73 Laptop shuts down playing skyrim on battery?

[lenigma]

As title says, My G74sx shuts down (crash shut down to be more precise, it just dies) playing skyrim if i run it on battery.

It doens't happen if its plugged in.

and it doesn't happen if i only browse/ watch movie on battery.

it generates an interesting side effect. After it shuts down. the battery light indicator will be orange and shows battery uncharged and will refuse to power on w/o being plugged, even though i know for a fact that i still have about 90%+ battery. I know this because i ran a few tests where i charged the laptop to 100%, used random programs to drain the battery down to eventual shut down (few hours) vs 100% and ran skyrim which resulted in shut down/refusal to powerup in an instant.

So basically the only way to turn on the laptop after crash will be to have it plugged in. in which case the battery indicator in windows actually says it still has 87%... And i have to reseat the battery or else it won't charge properly.

Anyone know what's causing this? my first impression was that the power consumption of skyrim is too demanding. but isn't this a gaming laptop that's designed withstand intensive gamings?

[dstrakele]

Do you see any Errors or Warnings in the Windows System or Application Event Logs that point to a troubleshooting direction?

What behavior do you observe when running stress tests on your system?

What CPU and GPU temperatures do you log when the system crashes?

Are you running the ASUS Factory OS installation with Power4Gear or a clean Windows 7 install with P4G and other ASUS Bloatware apps removed?

[lenigma]

dstrakele wrote:
Do you see any Errors or Warnings in the Windows System or Application Event Logs that point to a troubleshooting direction?

What behavior do you observe when running stress tests on your system?

What CPU and GPU temperatures do you log when the system crashes?

Are you running the ASUS Factory OS installation with Power4Gear or a clean Windows 7 install with P4G and other ASUS Bloatware apps removed?

I am running clean install w/o P4G. i set battery profile to high performance. just did another test run to see what the log says. i get on kernal-power critical and a WMI error right before shut down. GPU Temp has never exceeded 71 running any games. hmmmm it might be CPU over heating as u mentioned. what programs do you use to monitor CPU temp? but this scenario is unlikely since it never shuts down while plugged in?

[dstrakele]

From your description, I suspect some sort of power management problem. Could possibly be with the firmware of your battery. Can you provide more detail on the Kernel-Power Critical error? I also interested in any Errors or Warnings as much as 1 hour before the issue occurs.

SpeedFan, HWINFO64, or RealTemp can log temperatures of CPU and GPU up to the point of failure.

[lenigma]

dstrakele wrote:
From your description, I suspect some sort of power management problem. Could possibly be with the firmware of your battery. Can you provide more detail on the Kernel-Power Critical error? I also interested in any Errors or Warnings as much as 1 hour before the issue occurs.

SpeedFan, HWINFO64, or RealTemp can log temperatures of CPU and GPU up to the point of failure.

here is the detail log. There is no other errors/warnings prior to shutdowns. I usually just turn on the PC and run skyrim.

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 1/22/2012 11:57:27 PM
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: Luis-PC
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:
Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
System>
Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />
EventID>41/EventID>
Version>2/Version>
Level>1/Level>
Task>63/Task>
Opcode>0/Opcode>
Keywords>0x8000000000000002/Keywords>
TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-01-23T04:57:27.504412300Z" />
EventRecordID>23608/EventRecordID>
Correlation />
Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
Channel>System/Channel>
Computer>Luis-PC/Computer>
Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
/System>
EventData>
Data Name="BugcheckCode">0/Data>
Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0/Data>
Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0/Data>
Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0/Data>
Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0/Data>
Data Name="SleepInProgress">false
Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0/Data>
/EventData>
/Event>

[lenigma]

deleted double post

[dstrakele]

From your description, I suspect some sort of power management problem. Could possibly be with the firmware of your battery. Can you provide more detail on the Kernel-Power Critical error? I also interested in any Errors or Warnings as much as 1 hour before the issue occurs.

SpeedFan, HWINFO64, or RealTemp can log temperatures of CPU and GPU up to the point of failure.

[dstrakele]

That event doesn't help troubleshoot your issue. Do you see anything in the Application Event Log?

How long have you had this laptop?

[lenigma]

dstrakele wrote:
That event doesn't help troubleshoot your issue. Do you see anything in the Application Event Log?

How long have you had this laptop?

I found the problem, it was an FPS backgound booster program designed for skyrim that was causing this. it basically uses this concept

"Multimedia Class Scheduler Service (MMCSS) is a Windows service that boosts the CPU as well as I/O priority of a thread. It allows an application to get prioritized access to CPU for time-sensitive processing (such as multimedia applications) as well as prioritized disc access to ensure that the process is not starved of data to process. The MMCSS service monitors the CPU load and dynamically adjusts priority so that the application can use as much CPU time as possible without denying CPU to lower priority applications. MMCSS uses heuristics to determine the relative priority required for the task the thread is performing and dynamically adjusts priority based on that. A thread must invoke MMCSS explicitly to use its services by calling the AvSetMmMaxThreadCharacteristics() or AvSetMmThreadCharacteristics() APIs.
MMCSS is used by the multimedia applications in Windows Vista, including Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center to provide glitch-free audio playback."

and apply it to skyrim.

Funny thing is laptop doesn't crash when power is plugged in. I guess the the laptop power demand with this script running is much greater than what the battery can support?

I have had it since Xmas. it's been great and i love it. and i just realized that the touchpad actually has a protective layer on top of it that can be removed after 2 months of daily use. I wonder if this has anything to do with people complaining about the touchpad so frequently.

[dstrakele]

What is the name of the Skyrim FPS background booster program?

One thing I'm 100% sure about - the touchpad issue has NOTHING to do with the protective plastic shipping cover...