xps 15 L521x Throttling fix - so far

not sure what I did because I tried so many things, but it seems that the throttling problem has subsided, so I just want to post what I did here so maybe other ppl might have some luck..

Before, gaming would sees the GPU throttle to 405mhz and even 120mhz after about 5-10 minutes playing (BF3, non-native, low, multiplayer with fps 20-40fps)

Tried all of these:

1) Disable turboboost in Throttlestop - the option is greyed out in bios a13
2) Lower multiplier in Throttlestop - make the performance worse
3) Downclock GPU slightly to prevent throttle. I tried MSI afterburner and EVGA Precision X and no change is made to either clock or memory.

Then I found a post (sorry can't credit it as I forgot where I see it), he/she suggests to lower the CPU percentage (in power advanced option) so to prevent turbo boost. In this way, the GPU would also not throttle. I tried that and it doesn't seem to work. HOWEVER, in the EVGA precision X software, there is an option called FRAME RATE TARGET. I just choose 80 FPS in there and started BF3 multiplayer. Granted, I played at lower resolution and low quality across the board, but the framerate is pretty good at 50-80. PLUS, the performance log shows that there is absolutely no throttling happening and the clock is constant at 704mhz for at least 1 hour of gaming time.(memory clock is 1998Mhz or something).

So not sure how these steps could make a difference but they work for now. Though, of course, I play at lower resoltuion and turn off all eye candies to have the smoothest performance for online.

 

Hi - I just bought an xps L521x for my mum (56 y/o). It has 8gb ram, i7 3632qm and the 640m nvidia 2gb graphics. She want's to play game, but, her games are not like the games you think. She loves the look of the laptop and the screen, do you think it will be ok for her? the most demanding game she will want to play will be sim city 4 i think. Any help would be much appriciated, as i have already bought it and it arrives soon, but i can return it for a refund if needed. I was thinking about buying her an E6530 with the same specs, as that's a thicker laptop I'm guessing the cooling will be better? But it only has the NVS 5200m graphics, but should be fine for her. What do you think i should do?

Thanks
Rob