AW M15x Throttling Issue Investigation - Stock clocks and overclocked.

And what I am telling you is that it is not certain that a GPU upgrade will fix the throttling issue.

 

Agreed. I was just saying that "hopefulky" it will. Wasn't sayin im right.

 

i might seem really newbie right now but i really cannot find "global" from the rivatuner that i was told to download. i got into a tab where i can like change the frequency and all, but no where i can find "global"...

is there any specific directions???? please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

hello,

i have the core i7 720qm
260m
6gb 1333mhz
bios a03
just got this system

when i run prime 95 and furmark together, i see a definite throttling.
when the temp of the gpu reaches 74 and when JUST about to reach 75, it throttles back and reaches 69 degrees or so. and then it again regains its 550mhz core clock and reachers 74, and then throttles back onces again with this cycle.

i think this is caused by temperature issue. if it was lack of power, the point of throttling will be rather random. however in my case, as soon as it reaches 75, it throttles. ALWAYS in this temperature.

if i let cpu at idle, and run furmark, it will go up to like 78 degrees or so. i didnt see it throttle till then. i just turned the program off after seeing that it doesnt.


the thing is that, as long as i put the temp down, i can run the gpu at 550mhz with not throttle while running prime 95. again, whenever the temp reaches 75, as SOON as it does, it throttles back. so i want to rather confirm that it is more cause of the temp, not lack of power.

but well 75 degrees is not that hot at all....

any other ideas????

 

Hey guy i need some help with my Gpu. In GpuZ, the Gpu clock would show the default clocks 550/950/1350 while in sensor mode it would show 383/300/766. Seeing how joker showed his and had the default clocks i'm seeing that something is wrong here. I tried nvidia system tools to change the clocks which failed. I also used riva tuner yet that just resets to the clocks mentioned with link clocks off in settings. Im not very big with messing with this kinda stuff so not sure if this is normal or not.

Here's links to the picture
Gpu Clock
http://i590.photobucket.com/albums/ss344/xultix/Gpu/GpuClock.png?t=1267496013

Gpu sensor
http://i590.photobucket.com/albums/ss344/xultix/Gpu/Sensors.png?t=1267496075

Edit: Seems like Riva Tuner decided to start doing its job lol. its showing stock clocks on Gpu Z now.

 

Hi Signus,
I am not sure if you meant you solved the problem?

make sure you look through this thread for info, but maybe the problem is with your power management, did you make sure the active plan in fx fusion is high performance? and in the high performance, did you look in the advanced tabs, in the GPU, that it is both to max performance for battery and plugged setting? and lastly, make sure when you turn on the laptop, that you are plugged in, and in rivatuner, that you got "force clock on start up" box checked to the stock settings, and that your stealth mode is not on. M15x rocks!

 

yep its fix and thnx for some more info on what to do.

 

Probably been suggested before, but if battery life is not a problem can we not just set our BIOS clocks/VIDs to all be the same? Then whatever the GPU tries it will be locked at the same speed.

Dunno if that's safe or if anyone tried that. Has anyone tried disabling speedstep also? does that make any difference on the CPU side of things?

 

I have spent ages to sort out the restarting issues. It boils down to this when using rivatuner the problem comes up. If I don't use rivatuner even if it is installed the laptop does not restart. May be something to do with the unsigned driver issue in windows 7. I've tried every possible solution.. HELP JOKER.....

 

i'm not current with your previous posts, but from what i understand your having a problem with your laptop randomly restarting? or when you try to shutdown, it restarts instead?

As you said it's only with rivatuner on..did you randomly adjust the clocks? This can cause system instability if clocked toohigh, or even if the ratios are not kept the same if im not mistaken...

if you haven't messed around with the clocks, then i must ask what drivers are you using? I would suggest updating the latest 195.xx drivers from the Nvidia site, as they work best with rivatuner.

 

I'm glad to say that my CPU or GPU never go higher than 69c so never had throttling issues yet. I've clocked up the GPU (260m) to 680/950/1700 and it runs perfect

Perhaps if I had the 920XM it would produce more heat/powerdrain.

 

Yup same here...haven't overclocked though.

Also i was just wondering, are those clocks with or without flashing to 1v? i'm thinking of giving my 260 a lil boost without going through the hassle of flashing... (i've done it before.. but i'm just lazy lol). Also what FPS improvements have you seen with those clocks? Thanks

 

At 680/950/1700 (typo before) it runs solid. I did have one crash though so I downed it to 660/950/1650.. That's the safest I've gotten so far.

I didn't up the voltage, I get a max of 67c like this. FPS improvement depends on game of course, but somewhere between 5 and 10%. For example, Dragon age origins couldn't run smooth using v-sync until I clocked up.

Me too RE Flashing. I don't want to force the machine to be clocked always. Only if I feel I need it I had flashed the bios on my old machine but I want to be sure this machine is stable before I go poking around

 

Thanks. i think i'll give it a shot some time soon.. see if those clocks run stable on my card.

 

what did you use to OC your GPU...

 

Used Stock Clocks.. 550/1350/950


I have tried this with 186.47 and 195.xx drivers as well. Tried it with a fresh install as well. I have also swapped hard drive from the other m15x which doesn't have this problem with rivatuner .. i.e. if I was installing in the wrong order or something.. Still restarts when I click shut down. And Flashed the BIOS as well to A03 again(it was already on A03) to confirm if it was due bios

If I am not wrong it is something to do with the difference in the GPU hardware between these 2 same spec M15x.... It shuts down properly when i unplug it...


Shall I swap the GPU's and try.. only if I do not need to rip apart my laptop.

 

Hey... this thread is going dead I suppose... Anyone HELP!!

 

I think it's a driver issue. It never happened to me so I can't help, sorry!

I'm using the newest 195.62 driver incidentally.

 

are u using rivatuner...

 

no, I never had any throttling issues and overclock with NSU so I took it off

 

Used Nvidia system tools but it doesn't show up on GPU-z sensors... even when playing games

 

Hey... tried this nvidia beta driver 195.xx and fps jumped in resident evil benchmark and overclocked t 600/1000/1700.

On stock clocks standard driver for 1920x1080 no AA no Vsync - 45fps

On beta driver OC to 600/1000/1700 65fps.. damn thats huge fps gain..

stock settings for RE benchmark

550/950/1350 - 195.62 driver 82fps

600/1000/1700 - 195 beta - 89fps

Max temp OC 73 usually stayed at 67

 

Perhaps you just needed to reinstall the driver. Sometimes that helps.. I'm using 195.62 but not a beta. From the Nvidia site.

Yeah overclocking rocks!! I'm not pushing my Memory clock too much though, it get's sensitive around 1050 for me, but haven't tried extensive testing yet.

 

thnx.. no there is still problem rivatuner but NSU roxx...

3dVantage GPU 5986 with OC

on stock with rivatuner GPU 4962..

using 195.81 beta driver

rep+ for nsu recommendation..

 

its nice to see the 260 handle those clocks without upping the voltage, especially the shader!

Sweet!

 

I've left my RAM at 950 (I never see more that 60% memory controller load on GPU-Z).. It generates more instability for my chip and more heat. The other two run fine at 680/1700 (using the 2.5x ratio which may or may not be important)

The safest most stable clock I got was 660x1650x950 and temps never go above 68c which is pretty cool in every sense

 

No update on this? Anyone ever try pleading their case with AW and perhaps raising the issue?.. perhaps some annoying is in order? HEH :<

 

its not really an issues for most people, beside there is a fix if you do have it.

 

for fix the GPU throttling, anyone knows what it does? does it disable powermizer?

 

^^^ no it doesn't disable powermizer, think of it as a kind of oc'ing, it just locks your your gpu clocks to stay at a constant 3d clocks. so it will be on 3d clocks no matter what you are doing.

 

Is that the only fix so far? I am yet another victim. It happens while playing WoW... Its quite annoying. :< Anyone?

 

haven't heard it happening in wow before, but isn't wow more cpu intensive, maybe just run the throttle stop without rivatuner.

 

well, I guess it also depends on whats happening in the background ?

Anyway, Whats the issue with the fix? You should be really glad there is a fix at all!

 

WoW isn't anything intensive really... i'd focus on your latency ( or ping) and your bandwidth... but i do know that ppl get low frames sometimes while raiding....

also, i heard there's a fix to optimize the game to run on multi-core systems? Inappropiate you know what im talking about right?

 

huh? what the heck is this multi core stuff everyone is talking about. yeah i have nevered tried wow, so everything i say is just a wild guess.lol. people say it like crack, once you start you can never stop, and i'm real bad at addictive stuff, so i'm never gonna touch it.

 

Yea I never noticed it with WoW since it ran so flawlessly...You cant tell the difference between 100 frames and 60 etc.

But with Crysis and AvP, you can really tell the difference between 30-40 FPS and 15-20.

 

ahahahahah @ being bad at addictive stuff loll.. you kill me

and ok ok scratch that... wasnt you then... sorry lol...

 

try this

Gamebooster (disables services and tasks to make sure they don't take up cpu-time while you're playing a game)
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html


http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6031397#post6031397

Forcing physical cores for games --- as J advised

 

I think you are referring to processAffinityMask... u can set it various options. 85 or 255 is used for i7.

255 = WoW uses all Cores and HyperThreaded Virtual Cores.

85 = WoW uses All 4 Physical Cores.

What is happening in WoW is the GPU throttles, I notice it because it drops from a locked 60FPS anywhere to like 30s .. I look at GPUz and its at 383MHz for the core clock. I like smooth constant FPS, this for sure is annoying.

I thought maybe that setting too might help. It does not stop the throttling at all. It does however make a giant difference in some situations. Now I can be in a crowded city and reach high FPS. Huge difference.

But the point of me asking about this is clearly there have been similar problems on other systems in the past that got Dell's attention and were fixed.. Why not a proper fix here? Is this not "Alienware" Or ? I will try the fix posted here. I am a bit disappointed that they just ignore a problem with a system they still sell.

Thanks.

 

^^^^is it an actual cycle effect, it goes up and then down in a cycle? or does it just drop down for awhile then back up from time to time.

and dell is not acknowledging the problem, they just say its just powimizer doing it job. i guess we have to wait for a game to cause throttling on all machines before they are willing to fix it.

 

While playing it drops down for a bit then goes back. Randomly but many times.

Does this happen on the i7 M17x?

 

it had major issues the 1st month of release but its resolved now, so no throttling on M17x. i'm also really doubting that you have it on your M15x too.

 

just use rivatuner and throttlestop.. it should solve the issue...

 

Well yea but I shouldnt HAVE to do that.

I used to get non stop throttle...the fix does work, but id rather not have 3rd party software on my computer for just playing a simple game.

I never noticed the throttle in WoW but its VERY apparent in Crysis and AvP. Unplayable...

TY for the temporary fix though.

 

yeah it suck, but its better then nothing. i wish they issues a fix for it too, but since most people stop complaining about it, we're not gonna see a fix. maybe a game will come out that will cause throttling on all M15x maybe then we will see a fix.

 

I've been making some improvements to ThrottleStop lately including power profiles and the ability to automatically switch profiles based on CPU or Nvidia GPU core temperature. The anti-throttling algorithm has also been improved. Definitely worth a look.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/ThrottleStop.zip

I've got a few more goodies to add before version 2.00 is official so check back next week.

 

awesome, thanks again for your hard work.

 

does using throtle stop and rivatuner produce a lot of heat?

 

Awesome thanks, I had been getting the winring0.dll error but this new version has fixed it

 

Nice!! Thanks Unclewebb!