Laptop stops working/goes black screen when playing game...

Before anyone asks. This happened to me on many programs, not just the OS ones which is why I am posting here.

Anyway. I am a heavy gamer. And I play a lot of games. Whenever I am playing a game, sometimes my Laptop will go black screen (like it is in sleep mode or stand-by) and nothing responds. I have to unplug my laptop before I can turn it back on. I have tried looking for an error report and found nothing. I saw a thread on here that may suggest overheating but that also came unsuccessful. I am wondering if there is a possible solution on my end that I can fix. I can't bring it to someone since the place that I got this laptop from Closed its doors. My Laptop specifications may be listed under my username but I have a 2GB RAM and 160 GB hard drive. Thanks in advance

 

How did you rule out the overheating?

 

I placed my fan, which was blowing cold air, near my laptop so it was blowing cold air into my vent of my laptop and I felt it cooling down and the MobileMeter even showed it cooling down. It still did the same thing.

 

Have you checked to see if your running the latest gfx drivers?

 

I am not sure how I would do that. Where would I look for that?

 

Start here.

 

I am not sure what to select (XP drop bar isn't specific on what is what) since I am not using Vista (unless it won't hurt anything) but I am pretty sure that I have everything up to date for XP.

 

From the WinXP Driver and Utilities dropdown select VGA.

Just looked at your system specs, what games are causing this problem.

 

I have everything up to date on the VGA.

As for what games do that, the following games I have experienced it with.

BOTS from acclaim (bots.acclaim.com)
2moons from Acclaim (2moons.acclaim.com)
Need for Speed High Stakes
some addictinggames.com games (can't remember which ones)

I've been mainly having the trouble with BOTS lately since I am playing it alot.

The thing is I can play the games but on occasion the black screen thing will happen

 

Minimum Requirements:

Pentium III 1.0 GHz
256 MB RAM
32 MB Video card(Intel Integrated graphics not recommended) with Pixel Shader 1.0 or greater.
Direct X compliant Sound card.
750 MBs minimum available hard drive space.
DSL internet connection

Perhaps your GFX chipset is not up to the job?

 

Well Like I said, it is able to play it but on occasion it goes black. It doesn't explain why it does that with the other games though. =\

I thank you for being patient with me though.

 

Some software will install and run on systems that don't meet the minimum requirements, this doesn't mean they'll be playable though.

I'd check the minimum specs for the other games you mentioned.

Do you have problems when browsing, word processing etc or is it only gaming?

 

It seems to be only gameing. On rare occasion though it will happen when browsing.

I know that this laptop meets the requirements on NFS:HS though.

 

Other than making sure DirectX is up to date, there's nothing more I can do to help.

Sorry

 

Its ok. Thanks for your help anyway.

The DirectX idea seems to be helping. I haven't tested it on the area I know would cause the black screen thing but when playing BOTS, it seems to be running fine. But Like I said, I haven't tested it on the areas that are the trouble spots.

EDIT: The problem isn't fully solved but is improving. It did go black screen when playing areas I know cause trouble but seems to be more stable since I was able to play more areas than before. Is there possibly a way to get DirectX 10 or 11 on XP?