Late 2008 MacBook Pro Unibody Bootcamp Graphic Card Issues

[bpuryear]

Hello everyone! I'm having some trouble running graphic intensive programs in Vista under Bootcamp.

My Unibody will get extremely warm and then bluescreen to a Graphic Memory dump. This happens sometimes when I'm just trying to boot into Vista, usually I have to take my battery out and then restart my computer. After a few tries my laptop will finally boot into Vista. Then, I will try to run a graphic intensive program, Empire: Total War, for example. The game will run for a while, sometimes two hours, sometimes thirty minutes. Then the computer will become unresponsive and bluescreen to a "Memory Dump". I then cannot boot into Vista until I remove the batter again.

Any advice or software updates I should be aware of? Thank you very much for your help.

 

[iLog.Genius]

First I've heard of your specific problem. Are you using the 15-inch or 17-inch? I don't think it makes a difference, 9600M GT runs fine in XP, sure in runs warm but the fans do come on. I know the 17-inch has problems but I'm not sure if it's in Vista. We'll have to wait and see if any Vista users chime in with similar problems.

 

[bpuryear]

I'm using a 15-inch, and running Vista 32-bit. Its nice to know that I'm not the only one with the problem, but it's a terrible problem to have!

 

[RKpro]

Could be hardware issues... but more likely it's a problem with video drivers. Are you using the preloaded bootcamp driver? Or the hacked driver from laptopvideo2go?

If you're using third party drivers, I would recommend you go back to the preloaded ones, and see if it helps. Preloaded drivers are specifically tested on MBP by Apple for heat, while third party drivers might cause more heat.

 

[bpuryear]

I tried using the stock drivers for some time, but I tried switching to the hacked drivers and that improved the frequency of the crashing but it still happens quite often.

 

[shoulin333]

Download smcFanControl (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049 ) for mac, Set your fans up to 6200rpm before you boot into windows to run graphic intensive apps and you will be fine.

Happened to me too until i did that, just makes the fans run full bore, i found that the fans dont come on early enough in windows.

 

[bpuryear]

Thats the thing, I have smcFanControl....but, whenever I need to boot into Vista, I nearly always have to remove my battery at least once along the way to get rid of the bluescreen problem. And when I take that battery out, my fan control settings go with it!

 

[raptordrew]

I think I've come across a solution - I'd seen prior posts mentioning "Fan Control 1.2", but most posts said not to use it - I don't know why though. After installing Fan Control and telling it to leave the minimum fan speed as 3500RPM and to start ramping the fans at 40 C. The laptop certainly boots into Vista well now! And unlike smcFanControl, this program apparently "hard" rewrites the SMC fan settings - smcFanControl doesn't do it until you're in the OS, and if you shut down, it loses those settings.

One thing I have noticed, though - if you put it to sleep in Vista (I'd presume in Windows in general), it defaults the fans back to normal settings - but if you shut down and start back up after that, it reverts back to the custom fan settings.

If this continues to work, the guys at Lobotomo Software will get a good PayPal donation from me!

http://www.lobotomo.com/products/FanControl/