Graphical freezing issue / driver failure

[Nightblade]

Specs :
Intel Centrino2 (dual core)
GeForce 9800GTS
Windows 7


I'm currently experiencing a frequent slowing of frame rate, command/action lag, and a serious loop of driver failures.

Steps I've taken to correct the issue :
I've tried limiting in-game FPS in a range of everywhere from 30-60, already slaved my dual core to work off of a single processor, updated drivers, installed WinEQ2 and EQPlaynice (built in) to limit graphical issues from outside of the box, but it still happens. I've tried completely killing all graphics, spell effects, clip plane, shadows, and actor-fed clip-planes to a minimum, but it hasn't had any sort of effect on my issue.

Right now, it's....bearable, but I wouldn't want it to happen at a critical time that causes the death of my character or that of my wife's, which has almost occurred a few times. The game will freeze, the screen will go black until the driver autocorrects itself and restarts, resulting in anywhere between 5-30 seconds of me either running off a cliff, into a tree, or into mobs_that_want_to_rape_me04.

I'm failure computer literate, but all the normal fixes that I've had the time to do or research have turned up dry.

Thoughts, advice, questions?

[parlay1]

might want to try rebooting, going into your bios and disabling "SpeedStepp"

[Nightblade]

Took a look into that option, but either my laptop's BIOS is severely limited in what information it really wants to show, or I don't have Cool'n'Quiet or Speedstep.

I'll have to go digging around to see if I can find any sort of work around...my wife plays just across from me on her desktop and has no issues whatsoever, and without having to tweak the game at all.

[Malrubius]

Plugged in?

[Nightblade]

Yep, plugged in with High Performance options enabled. I even tried something a different thread suggested (start the game, unplug, let sit for a moment or seven, plug back in), though I wasn't sure if it effected anything.

My main problem is I can't recreate the crashes by any means that I can figure out. They just sort of happen at random intervals, and don't seem to follow much of a pattern.

[Nightblade]

In experimenting with new ideas and what other people have tried, I gave a whirl to what Epicentre did in this post.

So far, so good. Full speed run, minimal clip out when turning quickly, and so far, no black screens or graphical freezes.


Ain't that a bitch.