I've had my laptop for about seven months, and recently, it's started freezing when I try to play League of Legends. The game is stored on an external hard drive to help manage my playtime, but that might be part of the problem. About a month and a half ago, right before winter break, I noticed my laptop acting strange, like turning off unexpectedly when closed and sometimes refusing to turn off without holding the power button. During winter break, I began experiencing memory errors that would freeze the screen and force a restart, but this only happened while I was playing League. I took it to Best Buy's Geek Squad, and they said it was a driver update issue, which seemed to fix it for a week. The laptop has also been draining charge while in my bag, even though I set it to sleep mode. Now, whenever my external hard drive is connected, the freezing happens more frequently, even requiring multiple restarts mid-task. I tried installing League directly on the laptop, but it still froze without the external hard drive. It seems to work fine when League isn't running, so I can complete my schoolwork without issues. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and shy about going back to Best Buy or my school's tech department to explain everything. If anyone has ideas about what might be causing the freezing or how to troubleshoot it, I'd really appreciate the help! Here are my specs: 13th gen Intel Core i9-13950HX (2.20 GHz), 64GB RAM, 12GB graphics card, 954 GB storage, 64-bit OS.
2 Answers
Based on what you've described, it seems like the issue might stem from either the external hard drive or potentially a memory issue with the laptop itself. Have you run a memory diagnostic check? Windows has built-in tools for that if you're using it. It's also important to ensure your laptop’s power settings are correctly set to allow sleep mode to actually take effect. While it seems fine when you're not playing, it’s crucial to make sure your laptop is optimized when gaming. You might want to temporarily disconnect any other peripherals when gaming to see if that reduces the freezing.
It sounds like a frustrating situation! Given the specs you mentioned, your laptop should easily handle League. One possibility is that the drivers are outdated or incompatible, especially with your graphics card. Have you tried updating both your graphics drivers directly from the manufacturer's website and any firmware from the laptop manufacturer? Also, check if there are any background applications taking up memory when you play the game. Sometimes, apps can hog resources and cause freezing. As for the external hard drive, it might be worth testing with a different one to see if that changes anything.
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