"Energy Saver Mode" error?

[MOWbron]

I have been playing assault squad just fine until recently. When clicking around in the menu and randomly during the game, my monitor will dump out to Energy Saver Mode.

I can still hear some sounds and chat somewhat but then the game freezes which leads me to believe it is not the monitor.

Also, random occasions it will dump immediately and randomly to the desktop with an exception access violation error.

any clue?.. pretty aggravating since i just lost 100 points in ranked game play -- also it is just plain annoying.

I have tried:

updating my directx
updating my nvidia geforce drivers
updating my sound drivers
lowering shadows (and playing with all other settings)

no avail.

i have a quad core CPU and 8 gig ram.