What causes the GPU blackout issue on these laptops?
I recently semi retired this due to the age of the system when the hard drive failed. However, it has a longstading GPU problem I was okay with living with as long as the laptop worked in regards to the AMD GPU. When I was using the laptop with a second display (GPU always kicks in on these with multiple displays), the screen has a tendency to black out without warning and my only recovery option is a hard shutdown. I gave up on the laptop because of this issue, especially since it is a 7 year old platform (2013 model). In addition to GPU problems, the other reason is the Haswell CPUs are hit pretty hard by the CPU exploits in this system due to the subpar cooling combined with the performance penalty - in which I only patched Spectre V1 and left the others be because I already took a noticeable penalty with Spectre V1 - yes, even with the Win10 high speed patch. I stopped trying to keep up with it after the A24 BIOS and called it good because I’m well aware of the risks.
Is there any known way to reliably fix the GPU issue or is my advice on the device page (board swap or scrap) apply with how mine has failed?
I never messed with the board, but I repasted it years ago to try and help the issue and it didn’t do much outside of deferring the worst parts of the problem. The catch with mine is it has the 4810MQ CPU (47W TDP), so I had to deal with more heat then the people with M series processors. The AMD 8790M is ~35W (AMD isn’t open about the actual TDP), so the problem appears to have been made worse by the cooler since it is 80W of heat through one fan and vent. If I had the i7 4610M it would have been 35W for the CPU, but the situation would still have been pretty bad at 70W.
Is this a good question?