Problems following M18xR2 GPU upgrade from GTX675 to GTX980m

Hi all,

So I have recently upgraded my CPU from 17-3630qm to an i7-3940xm and GPU from GTX675m to GTX980m. The laptop had been running fine no problems. The GTX675m video card wasn't really very good and needed upgrading.

So I upgraded to the GTX980m and flashed the BIOS to the unlocked A11. Ever since the upgrade however, the graphics looks great in game but I am getting awful screen tearing issues, happens when the in game character is running around. Doesn't happen if I stand still in-game.

I have tried altering SO many different settings. It mostly happens in Fortnite where it renders the game almost unplayable. I have disabled and enabled V-Sync, lowered 3D Resolution to the lowest setting and i still get screen tearing even on the lowest graphical settings.

Does anyone know what the best settings are for the GTX980m or if anyone knows why I might be getting god awful screen tearing, any help would be greatly appreciated. The 980m has more than enough power to play Fortnite and other games without experiencing this.

Please help!

Many Thanks

MUSTANG

 

Hey there

What is it like in benchmarks, all running fine and performance is as expected?

How about other games, any tearing there? Or is it just Fortnite?

 

I used Valley Benchmark 1.0 yesterday and there was an intermittent stutter but no screen tearing.

The screen tearing happens constantly on Fortnite I've managed to get it to a minumum with everything on low and V-Sync On, but it hasn't eradictaed it completely, its just playable. Apex Legends plays better than fortnite but still has screen tearing.

I just benchmarked with Novabench and the results are below. Pretty poor!

 

That's weird, have you tried using an app like HWInfo64 to see if the GPU is throttling? I would suggest running 3d Mark and comparing your score to a similar set up. That's the easiest way I found of telling when my 1070 is throttling. If I get 5.1k score in Time Spy means it's fine, if I get 2.6k then it's throttling and I have to do Mr.Fox's sleep / wake trick to get it back up to scratch.

You will also see if Performance Limits are triggered there and for what reason, along with max GPU power draw etc. all useful things to see if you're throttling.

I also use RTSS along with HWInfo64 so can see stats in 3d Mark in real-time, like temps, fan speed, fps, etc. so I just let 3d mark run the test for a moments and then I know what the deal is quite quickly.

 

Run something like 3dmark11 or 3dmark firestrike.

For the tearing, did you try turning on v-sync?

 

What power adapter are you running?

It kinda looks like both CPU and GPU are power starved.

 

I did a couple of benchmarks. The first one is the Sky Diver test, the second is the Time Spy test.

I did have V-Sync turned on.

My power adapter is pictured below, how would i know if they are power starved? The battery doesn't last very long unless it is plugged in, do you think that might be an issue?

 

Just run the pure Fire Strike non Extreme test. That's most comparable in your GPU performance range. A 980m should do something ~10-11k graphics points there.

675m and 980m both are 100w cards, so the 240w power adapter should be sufficient, but yours may have become "old" and is not delivering enough power anymore.

 

Fire Strike results below



After installing the 980m I read somewhere that i may have to switch from legacy bios mode to uefi mode, is this true, if so how?

 

Did you remove your old GPU drivers with DDU?

Its scoring low, both on the CPU and on the GPU side, mainly on the GPU side.

 

I didn't use DDU but I did reinstall the GPU driver and checked the box that made sure it was a clean fresh installation.

 

Try again from scratch with DDU, and run something like HWInfo so you can see power usage, temps, and clocks, post a screenshot of the HWInfo sensors tab after running the Firestrike bench.

 

Ok, should I be ticking the box that says driver folders even though it says not recommended?


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Usually the preset should be enough, but you can tick all 4 boxes belonging to nVidia, DDU should be run in Windows Safe Mode.

 

OK, so I have uninstalled using DDU. Then I went to the NVIDIA driver webpage and chose the driver for the 980m which came up as 436.30 and the installation is failing. I then tried to install GeForce experience which installed fine but when GeForce installs the graphic driver from within the software it is version 388.13 which is from back in 2017 and it says that is the latest up to date driver. Now the laptop feels really slow and unresponsive at times.

 

I'd try disabling driver signature if you haven't already. Just in case.

 

Just tried that and got this error:

 

Strange. I'm guessing that a modded driver inf combined with disabling the signature will work.

 

Just on this one, doing a 'clean installation' doesn't remove the old driver. It just resets any Nvidia settings you've changed from default. DDU is needed for this.

 

I did use DDU in the end and it still didn’t work.


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So basically as it stands the only thing that works is downloading the GeForce Experience software which automatically installs driver version 388.13. It then shows as the driver being up to date so I’m not sure what to do.

This is so confusing. It’s crazy that I was getting more stable performance out of my old 675m than this 980m. I mean, the graphics look 10x better but games are almost unplayable because of the screen tearing.




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Yeah DDU wouldn't fix a problem like this. It's just good to do when installing a new driver.

I have heard that you don't need a modded diver with the 900 series anymore but it kind of sounds like yours does.I would give it a try.

You can actually look through the inf file on the driver you are trying to install and see if your GPU ID is listed. Then you'll know for sure.

 

Hi,

I found this video online, do you think this would be a good thing to try?




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I’ll have to check it out when I get home from work.


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Download @j95 modded drivers, its just a matter of disabling driver signature check and install.

Link:
https://premamod.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/j95-nvidia-inf/

I'm not sure if you need the PEG or the MSHybrid, but if you dont have Optimus you want the latest PEG version that has AW in the driver name, just follow the instructions.

 

Yeah that's basically it. If your ID is not listed in this file then you'll need to mod the file to include it.

 

FINALLY!! A STABLE PC! Thanks so much to everyone for the advice, in the end the premamod worked a treat! This is the first time I’ve ever played with such smooth gameplay and graphics. I’m so happy, Thanks all. Happy gaming


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Awesome! I thought it would be the modded driver. If you ever need to mod your own driver it isn't too hard. I used to just use the Eurocom driver for my M18x R2 but they don't update them anymore so I did my own with the last nvidia driver that supports the 780M.

The video you posted shows the process pretty well.

 

Thank you, it so much better now. I’m just using 3DMark to test it out. Very strange though, still getting pretty low frames around (20fps) when benchmarking on Firestrike and Timespy but Sky Diver was hitting around (130fps) but I played both Fortnite and Apex Legends on mid-high settings and it was great, no tearing, no stutter, no lag, smooth as.

Do you have any tips on how to achieve better frame rates? Also, what are the best settings for nvidia control panel?










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I haven't had any experience with the 980M but you could be seeing some of the thermal throttling issues that many people have had. There is a restarting trick that's helped a few people but I have no idea how to do it sorry.

I get 8850 on Firestrike with my SLI 780M's with a graphics score of 11,300. It's a pity games these days aren't suited to SLI so the real-world performance wouldn't match the benchmark.