One of three computers hard crashes and powers off

[Smedbox]

I'm trying with 3 characters 3 computers. One PC is a HP Envy 15 notebook (quad i7, Win7 64-bit). After being logged in on all 3 characters for about 2 min, the laptop crashes hard and powers off. This only happens if Rift is launched via IsBoxer - never otherwise. I can run Rift on all three machines fine without any special software, or using other KVM tools.

It always happens and always after the same time period. I don't have to do anything for it to happen - just sitting there and waiting 2 min will cause the notebook to power off. Note that it doesn't seem to happen on the character selection screen, I have to be logged into the game world.

I'm wondering if it could have something to do with forcing processor affinity? Is there a setting I could try to have Isboxer not touch it at all? Or any other tips?

I've tried telling isboxer that that machine only has 1 core, I've tried unselected all cores in the "CPU Cores" setting for that character set, I've tried selecting just one core, etc.

[Smedbox]

Perhaps this is false alarm. It could be that the notebook GPU overheats and shuts off. I've had it working pretty hard this day while trying to set up Isboxer and it's a pretty powerful machine - too powerful for it's own good it seems. I'll try let it cool down, throttle FPS and turn down all graphics settings and see if that helps. The character on that machine is like 3 bars from level 50 and I don't want to stop playing just now.....

[Alge]

I'm wondering if it could have something to do with forcing processor affinity? Is there a setting I could try to have Isboxer not touch it at all? Or any other tips?

Just don't select any processors for that slot.

[Smedbox]

I'm wondering if it could have something to do with forcing processor affinity? Is there a setting I could try to have Isboxer not touch it at all? Or any other tips?

Just don't select any processors for that slot.

Tried that but it didn't help. However, it does seem like the GPU was overheating and turning off the system to prevent failure. I cleaned the vents, throttled the FPS to 10, and turned on lowest graphics settings. The machine is running fine now, at least until I can let it cool down properly overnight.

[lax]

My main multiboxing system at the moment is a gaming laptop with an i7 -- ASUS G73JH. I had overheating problems for a long, long time -- I got it last August and up until a month or two ago, I could hardly use it for gaming. Tried everything. Hell, every day this stupid thing lost USB power to my mouse and would NOT power it up again until I rebooted the laptop.

Until recently.

Depending on the video card in your laptop, you may also have an option in the Windows Power Options, Advanced options, called "ATI Graphics Power Settings". It has different settings for on battery, and when plugged in. If this option is set to Maximize Performance, my system will overheat and there is nothing that can be done to stop it short of installing water cooling or something. This laptop has some beefy-ass fans in the back and I even tried a laptop cooling pad under the laptop. I also installed fresh thermal compound on the GPU (did the same thing for my wife's G73JH a few months after she got it, which was before I got mine). I set this option to Maximize Battery Life, on my laptop and on my wife's laptop, and both of them immediately stopped having any issues.

We are now gaming, multiboxing, etc and having ZERO problems with the laptop overheating, and it doesn't appear that I have sacrificed performance. But honestly I would have, after a year of that bullshit.

Therefore, for anyone with a laptop that does this while gaming, I recommend looking for and adjusting this option.

One more thing I discovered after setting this for my wife is that she switches power profiles more than she thought, using a hotkey on the keyboard. This option is a per power profile thing, and I had only set the option on one of her power profiles. The laptop overheated and crashed within a few minutes of switching to one that didn't have this set. So you might need to adjust this option on ALL of your power profiles if it works for you.

This may or may not help, but I've been meaning to post my experience with this as I have NOT seen this solution posted on the internet, and I did a lot of searching for how to fix my ASUS G73JH before I came across this option. So there you go, something that could possibly help.