Turning sound volume up causes blk screen crash

[LoneRanger]

Well my laptop will be 5 yrs old in January. Lately had some problems with BSOD's, black screen crashes, and failure to POST. Two new ram memory sticks fixed most of that. But now there's a weird problem. I set the volume for the speakers beyond about 66% it invites a random black screen crash in windows, the kind where the speakers then crackle and pop and the only way out is a hard power-down.

I've updated video and sound drivers to the most recent versions, no joy.

If I keep volume below that 66% or so, it runs like a champ through everything I mess with including Medal of Honor and Crysis 2. I mean it will run those games pretty smooth frame rate at high detail in the game setup options and the fan will be whirring like a blow drier throughout game play, but it runs stable... Until I crank up the audio volume past about 66%.

I'm thinking it's a power supply problem?

Specs: HP DV7-2270us: 4 gb ram, Intel Quad Core @ 2.0Ghz, ATI HD4650 w/ 1gb discreet vram, 500gb 7200rpm ibm drive, Win 7 SP1. On board IDT HD sound.

 

[3800Series]

Thinking power supply myself. Could just be incomparable software.

General rule is always upgrade PSU and GPU at the same time.

Don't wanna lose your motherboard because you didn't upgrade the power supply.

 

[tinmanSC]

Are you talking about headphones, speakers in the laptop, speakers on the desk, or speakers elsewhere in the room?

 

[LoneRanger]

The laptop's built-in speakers. Has two full range speakers plus a single bass enhancement "woofer" which is in the under carriage.

HP DV7-2270us Specs

 

[Rand]

doubt its the power supply, the load of speakers even loud is not as much as the cpu etc while gaming.

motherboard caps? heat issue? who knows.

might just be time to retire it. Thats what a 2008? 2009? model and hp consumer laptops are not exactly known for the longevity

 

[ClutchDisc]

Boot up a Linux disc and run it off of that for a while and see if you have the same problem.

 

[sxg6]

Might want to try rolling back to an older driver and seeing what happens.

 

[Subdued]

It sounds like an onboard power regulator problem or a faulty cap. I don't think you're going to fix this with software.

 

[LoneRanger]

Could it be the external power adapter brick instead of the onboard reg?

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
Could it be the external power adapter brick instead of the onboard reg?


no. not logical.

If you can run a game.. that uses a ton of power and it doesnt crash, then you are idling along playing a movie or listening to music and it crashes.. that would 100% rule out the power brick.. also a bad power brick wouldnt cause issues that only occur when turning up volume.

As I was alluding to in my earlier post, HP laptops are not known for their longevity, was thinking bad cap, or other major issues.

 

[dishdude]

Not to mention the battery would compensate for a weak power supply.

 

[LoneRanger]

Battery been gone for a while now. Run on AC only all the time.

 

[datech]

If the battery is REALLY REALLY bad, it can suck down enough juice to make the PS output marginal.

Try removing the battery completely.

 

[sxg6]

I don't think this is a power issue. I tried to look up the general specs for your laptop, and I know your specs could be different from what I found. I found:

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 as the graphics chip. From what I've read, this gpu pulls anywhere from 15w-25w of power depending on load.

2.00 GHz Intel Core2 Quad Processor Q9000 as the cpu. I've read that this mobile cpu can pull anywhere from 16w-74w of power depending on load.

I'm a bit out of the loop on some of this stuff, but from what I remember laptop speakers generally don't use much power. I want to estimate that general laptop speakers only use maybe 1-3 watts of power at the most. I don't know how much power onboard audio chips typically consume, but I can't imagine it being very much, 10w at the most? So these things considered, I think if trying to pull too much power were the culprit, I don't think you would be able to do any gaming since that significantly increases gpu and cpu load and power consumption.

 

[LoneRanger]

I want to keep this lappy going to it's last legs if possible... hey come on we're BITOG'ers, its what we do-- keep our machines on the road. If this thing took oil I'd have full syn in it...

 

[datech]

Does the machine just die, or could it have left something in the Event Log?

Have you tried external speakers?

Have you tried removing or changing all of the easily removable/changeable parts?

 

[sxg6]

Very good ideas, I'm interested to hear about any event log entries and trying external speakers.