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Firepro M5950 GPU does not idle = poor battery life

Discussion in 'Dell Latitude, Vostro, and Precision' started by dansi, Jul 28, 2011.

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  1. dansi

    dansi Notebook Consultant

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    LATEST UPDATE: bug source is found! if you make in catalyst control centre, change the monitor refresh rate from 60hz to 40hz, boom, powerplay works perfectly! exception...40hz refresh rate makes me uneasy sick.


    Hi Dell reps and all Dell users of M5950 1GB vcard in m4600. The latest bios and drivers i have used and GPUZ latest version, the clocks are big problem if i enable powerplay.

    Powerplay on (max battery/max perf) - idle at 250/900! That is way too high and no wonder the battery life is bad.

    Powerplay off (untick) - idle at 100/151, that is more like it! But the gpu will stay idle even if i run 3D games or HD accelaration means slowdown!

    Crazy bug that defeat the purpose of Powerplay, am i only one who facing this? :(
     
    dansi, Jul 28, 2011
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  2. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    Have you tried a fresh OS install? Maybe your GPU is geinuinely defective?
     
    Tsunade_Hime, Jul 28, 2011
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  3. dansi

    dansi Notebook Consultant

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    Dont think so a fresh install help, mine is almost 99% fresh when i tested the gpuz. Do you have m5950?
     
    dansi, Jul 28, 2011
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  4. tom_bell07

    tom_bell07 Notebook Consultant

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    Wow!! You are totally correct. I have a fresh install from a couple of days ago with the 5950.

    When I untick PowerPlay my clock speeds are:
    Core Clock: 100.0 MHz
    Memory Clock: 151.6 MHz
    VDDC: 0.900 V

    When I re-enable PowerPlay:
    Core Clock: 250.0 MHz
    Memory Clock: 900.0 MHz
    VDDC: 1.075 V

    This seems backwards to me... doesn't it??
     
    tom_bell07, Jul 28, 2011
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  5. afhstingray

    afhstingray Notebook Prophet

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    you're right. mine is idling at 1.08V as well. Disable powerplay and it drops to 0.9V, and not only that, the temp dropped from 55*c at idle to 44*c. Temps across the board also dropped slightly. My ambient temp is 28*c. Something weird going on here.

    Battery life has jumped a bit, from 3 hours to 3:45. according to windows. Still no where near W520 battery life :( and i dont even have the highest performance setup, dual core, not quad, and WLED, not RGBLED IPS..

    When i open the control panel for the amd graphics, it is set to be on high performance mode when plugged in and power save when on battery, however it does not seem to switch. in the status box, even when i unplug the power, it says active power plan: high performance
     
    afhstingray, Jul 29, 2011
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  6. zergslayer69

    zergslayer69 Liquid Hz

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    I wonder if this issue affects the 8900.
     
    zergslayer69, Jul 29, 2011
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  7. dansi

    dansi Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for confirmation. AMD always have problem with idle clock! I wonder if we install catalyst radeon drivers instead of firepro, would it help?

    Second thoughts on W520 battery life, we know it quad cores are running 800mhz 95% of time, so there is a clue to it.

    There is a setting in Windows power options, under advanced settings, go processor power management, change maximum state when in battery to 5%. Also change Dell fan profile to quiet. This will extend battery life by another 1hrs....with powerplay untick! :)
    Tweak the brightness of the led to further improve battery life!
     
    dansi, Jul 29, 2011
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  8. dansi

    dansi Notebook Consultant

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    Hi what does the Dell rep here has a response?
     
    dansi, Jul 29, 2011
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  9. tom_bell07

    tom_bell07 Notebook Consultant

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    Something interesting:

    With powerplay unchecked and my M4600 plugged into the wall (not running on battery) and using the "balanced" power plan the 5950 clock speeds are still:

    Core Clock: 100.0 MHz
    Memory Clock: 151.6MHz
    VDDC: 0.900 V

    Seems like the ATI driver does not increase it's clock settings now that powerplay has been disabled, when powered by the wall socket we should increasing the clock speeds and VDDC for better performance. When running on battery the clocks and VDDC should be reduced for better battery life.

    How can we get this info over to Dell engineering?? We need a driver update.
     
    tom_bell07, Jul 29, 2011
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  10. dansi

    dansi Notebook Consultant

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    dansi, Jul 30, 2011
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