Mobility Radeon 5730M stuck at idle speeds

I've searched numerous sites plus this one and have found similar, but not quite the same of a problem.

I bought the system April '11 and up until now have not had any issues. I hadn't used the machine for about the past month and a half due to moving so I figured I get it out and update it.

At first I didn't notice anything wrong with how it was working until I tried using a 3D program. I went and downloaded GPU-z to look at the clock speeds and 2 days ago they were 100/150 idle. Now they are constantly 300/300 idle.

It will stay at 300 even after playing Crysis. I checked the logs and nada - no increase. I read that 300 is idle for dual displays, but I have no other monitors hooked up or showing on my system. I checked the dropdown for displays in CCC and it only shows one.

I updated to 12.1 drivers hoping to fix this, but it did not. Then I thought maybe I could force it out of these idle speeds with Furmark, but Furmark refused to run. Eventually I got 3D Mark 11 and ran the benchmark. The first test got about 3FPS. So on to OC'ing.

I tried ATI Tray Tools and it was showing outrageous clock speeds. Having both the OC tool and GPU-z side-by-side they showed different things. Notably the sensor on GPU-z said the memory was clocked at 300 and the ATI tool said over 1100!

Fiddling with various settings in the ATI tool made changes, but nothing close to OC'ing as I could not get the GPU to go over spec, 650. Deciding that the discrepancies between the two did not warrant a bricked card I removed the ATI tools and double checked nothing was going crazy fast.

I moved onto AMD GPU Clock Tool. This one was a little more straight forward and allowed my card to operate to at least spec. GPU-z sensor tab would at least show 400/800 idle and 650/800 3D with the voltage going to 1.1v as intended.

I would really like it to run stock with no 3rd party programs so my question is this: how do I get it out of this idle rut? I acts like it is running on battery power while plugged in. I've tried power drain, removing the battery while it's running and Fn-F2/F7.

I did have a problem with the OSD, but fixed that with a quick reinstall so I can tell if it's in Stealth Mode or not, but it really seems to be stuck. Any help or insight would be much appreciated.

 

have you checked power play?

have you tried doing a power drain with cmos battery out. to kinda reset everything?

 

I did Powerplay turned off and that never helped.

Before I read your reply I downloaded a different version of AMD GPU Clock Tool. This one said it was for the 5850, but was apparently useable on older hardare. It was different from the version I tried before, both GUI and the fact it actually worked. At first I could use it to OC my 5730 and restarting my computer gave the expected result of the card returning to its previous state of 300/300 no matter what.

Then I decided to hit the Set Defaults button and it reset the card to what it was supposed to be, 100/150, and what happens - the card starts acting right. It goes to 650/800 during benchmarking and returns to idle speeds. A few restarts of the computer and GPU-z confirmed it.

Now I can run Crysis at 1920x1080 with most settings on High/No AA. I ran the card briefly at 850/1050 and all seemed stable. No huge difference in temps.


Now to get rid of input lag in certain games. It seems in some games, Borderlands for example, when I move the mouse it takes a ms or 2 for the cursor to move. I can't recall if I have vsync enabled or not, but I usually leave it off unless I get real heavy tearing.