Acer predator helios 300 - nvidia GPU related crashes.

Hi,

Lately I have been experiencing some issues with my laptop (acer predator helios 300). Couple of days ago games started crashing while plugged in, working fine on battery. Sometimes games just exit, sometimes give BSODs (three types so far: DPS watchdog violation, video scheduler internal error, page fault in nonpaged area). Laptop is working fine if intel HD gpu is used, but when using nvidia it either crashes the app or gets BSOD. I bought the laptop 4 months ago, but I don't really want to send it to repairs, so my question is: is there a way to find out whether it is hardware of software issue? Crashes started out of nowhere, no physical damage prior to issue, no voltage surge, nothing. I opened up the laptop and inspected elements, no burn marks and no burn smell whatsoever.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Accepted answers

JackE

Open Control Panel. Search 'power plan' . Click 'choose a power plan' in the left pane. If plan is set to high performance, change it to balanced to see how it works. Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

JackE said:

Good luck. It might require a new mainboard since the nvidia chip is soldered in. If it was out of warranty, I might be tempted to do my own solder reflow since problems like this are often due to a bad solder joint. Jack E/NJ

So, two months after the issue appeared, I finally got my laptop back. It was motherboards, they had it replaced.

However, now my predator laptop has vanilla windows and F10 trick doesn't seem to work. I also cannot install predator sense because now BIOS system name doesn't contain word "predator". Do you think it is an issue worth getting back to the service or is it fine? Maybe there are other fan control options that I could use?

All comments

JackE

Open Control Panel. Search 'power plan' . Click 'choose a power plan' in the left pane. If plan is set to high performance, change it to balanced to see how it works. Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

JackE said:

Open Control Panel. Search 'power plan' . Click 'choose a power plan' in the left pane. If plan is set to high performance, change it to balanced to see how it works. Jack E/NJ

It worked! Just played for like 40 minutes without any crashes! Do you mind explaining what might cause this issue? I was using high performance plan earlier and there weren't any problems.

Honestly I tried to enable ultimate performance power plan, and it seemed to have helped alot at first, but then performance went back to the same as on high performance plan. I enabled ultimate performance plan and used it occasionally like two days prior to crashes, not sure if it is related.

JackE

>>>Honestly I tried to enable ultimate performance power plan, and it seemed to have helped alot at first>>>

Helped "what" a lot at first? Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

JackE said:

>>>Honestly I tried to enable ultimate performance power plan, and it seemed to have helped alot at first>>>

Helped "what" a lot at first? Jack E/NJ

While gaming, my temperatures are around 75-80 degrees Celsius, and right after I enabled ultimate plan game seemed to run smoother and temps were around 55 degrees. But later, after I shut down the laptop and came back to gaming next day, it went back to same 75-80.

JackE

Interesting. Do you recall shutting down and rebooting immediately before or after resetting the plan when you first saw 55*C and smoother performance? Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

I didn't shut down nor reboot after setting new plan, so it seemed really weird to me. And after shut down things went back to usual temps. I don't recall changing anything else at that time.

flyingsaucer

Also not sure if this is related, but I am getting a whole bunch of perflib and perfnet errors in event log. IDs: 1008, 1023, 2004. I've tried to rebuild performance counters using cmd utils, but it didn't fix the errors.

I have tried to completely reset windows but it didn't help, should I try complete reinstall?

JackE

OK. Can't really explain 55*C and smoothness immediately after making the change unless it defaulted to Balanced and didn't kick in until after the next boot. What temps are you seeing with Balanced? Jack E/NJ

JackE

>>>I am getting a whole bunch of perflib and perfnet errors in event log. IDs: 1008, 1023, 2004.>>>should I try complete reinstall?>>>

Probably not unless the machine is showing issues or they bother you.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/212ae95c-ba06-4626-b627-7fb758bff963/event-log-errors-event-id-1008-1023-2004-1018-1022?forum=win10itprosetup Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

JackE said:

OK. Can't really explain 55*C and smoothness immediately after making the change unless it defaulted to Balanced and didn't kick in until after the next boot. What temps are you seeing with Balanced? Jack E/NJ

It was 75-80*C yesterday with rare peaks to 88-90, but today crashes and DPC watchdog violation BSODs started to show up again. Also for some reason there is no more high performance plan on power plan page, there is just Balanced under selected plan tab. Game crashes to desktop immediately after I launch it, computer freezes for a minute or two and I get DPC violation BSOD. Do you think clean windows install might help?

JackE

>>>Also for some reason there is no more high performance plan on power plan page>>>

Is this with Control Panel's 'choose a power plan' app? Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

JackE said:

>>>Also for some reason there is no more high performance plan on power plan page>>>

Is this with Control Panel's 'choose a power plan' app? Jack E/NJ

Yes, there is just one selected plan (Balanced) and no other options.

JackE

Is there a button 'show additional plans'? Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

There is a button "Create power plan" on the left pane, but no "show plans".

JackE

It'd be below the balanced etc plan 'show additional plans' Jack E/NJ

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/1q/58vswfitqcxh.jpg

flyingsaucer

Yeah it was there, but now is gone... It happened after BSOD restart

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/8b/bxdo1399q83y.png

JackE

Does the 'create a power plan' app in the left pane bring them back up? Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

JackE said:

Does the 'create a power plan' app in the left pane bring them back up? Jack E/NJ

Yes, I was able to create high performance and power saver plans from templates given. So it might be that power plans cause issues for some reason?

JackE

Control Panel sometimes needs to be refreshed or re-started like File Explorer. Did you add the Ultimate plan or was it there before. Predators usually but don't always have this plan enabled by default. Jack E/NJ

flyingsaucer

JackE said:

Control Panel sometimes needs to be refreshed or re-started like File Explorer. Did you add the Ultimate plan or was it there before. Predators usually but don't always have this plan enabled by default. Jack E/NJ

I have added it with powercfg -duplicatescheme

Quick Links

Top Members

Weekly

Puraw 145

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™