Crash crash crash

[heya]

I'm not sure if this is in the right cetegory or not but here is my problem.
I have an HP laptop, and last night I was playing a game, and all of a sudden the screen froze and ended up looking like a blizzard of colours on my screen. So I turned it off, and then back on, and a few minutes later is happened again. So I left it off for a while to cool down, and then it happened again.

There were no error messages when I turned it back on or anything, it just kept looking like a tv channel with no reception just frozen and with colour.

Any ideas, or suggestions...or anything?

Please and thank you

 

[cj20032005]

Sounds like your video card is overheating.

 

[pyromaster114]

Very likely to be an overheat... because if there's no error, then I don't think its a driver issue. Just to be sure, update your video card drivers.
Its interesting though that your motherboard's temp. sensor doesn't kill the power to prevent damage though.

As far as fixing the problem...
1) Check to see that all fans are functioning properly. In many cases, even in notebooks, fans can be replaced at a much cheaper price than a new computer.
2) If all fans are functioning properly, make sure you have the laptop on a flat surface, one that does not have any sort of soft carpeting or anything, as this may block the heat vents on the bottom and/or sides.
3) Make sure that heat vents are free of dust and debris. A low powered vacuum will work fine for this, just suck off the nasty dust that accumulates there. (Important: Do not put the hose directly over the port, because you could damage the fan motor from the rapid movement of the air current. Unlikely that it'll happen, but just to be safe. Use more of an angle when vacuuming your dust ^_^)

4) If all else fails, it may be a more severe problem with the hardware, and it may be time to get a new computer.

You also may want to take it to a local repair service to see if they'll give you an estimate on fixing it, so that you can know if its worth buying a new one, or getting that one fixed. (Note: Please don't take it to GeekSquad... they're not very smart most of them... they break stuff too often... in my opinion at least.)