Did MSI Support ruin my notebook?

I know this is for hardware upgrades but this IS related to that topic. My GT70's 675m burned out a few weeks ago and i just got the laptop back from MSI RMA service (Warranty now expired). They installed a new 880m, but games actually run worse. I don't over clock, and i turn the fan on full before i game. is my i7-3610QM too weak or incompatible with the 880?

 

What are your temperatures? Also, double check you're not running on the Intel IGP and make sure your power profile is set to performance.

 

Double check the heat, your Laptop is known to be under-specced for thermal management. I think it has a single fan for the GPU and CPU. Those 880m cards output a huge amount of heat.

 

I'm fairly new to the laptop scene but I was made aware of the heatsink revision on the 880M's over previous top-end card heatsinks to help deal with the extra heat from the GPU. It could be possible they simply replaced the GPU and left you with the 675M heatsink which would not be helpful at all.

What temperatures are you seeing while in game?

 

Are you sure they put an 880M in it?

Regardless it should be twice as fast so check temps.

 

I'll get you gents the data when I get home after work.

Edit: I'm pretty sure the temp hits 50c and status there.

 

Yeah sounds weird that they would do that... Even so, let's say they put a 880M in.. I think the main problem might be the heatsink might not be totally fitting with the card and you'll need to bridge the gaps with thermal pads.. additionally, probably need to repaste the GPU..

 

Okay, here is my proper reply. Temps are peaking at 56 degrees C.


Also, IM'm fairly certain it is indeed an 880m,
.

MSI support recommends i do a factory recovery to "adapt teh system to teh new card". I ahve yetr to pen teh cover adn see what the heatsink situation is.

 

49% GPU Usage....

 

Exactly my reaction. It's only going half way to awesome and telling me "YOU GET NO MORE!". Even Dota 2 doesnt play at constant 60 FPS. MSI told me since it was jsut RMA'd my warranty was extended by 90 days.

 

Tried other games to see if you have the same problems there? Could be game specific.
Tried checking you are not capping the FPS (say 60FPS) under some settings? That could be why its stopping at 49% because no more power is needed to reach 60FPS
Tried new geforce drivers? Could be driver issues (like with beta).
Tried looking under power options under windows? Could be something fishy there
Tried reflashing the vbios with the MSI one here?

GTX 880M should be miles better than the 675M.

 

You're well within the thermal limit there so no need to worry about the heatsink until you're experiencing high thermals (93C) and GPU downclocking.

What it sounds like to me (and I'm going to make an assumption here, correct me if I'm wrong) is you're using vsync and when you go from little action to a lot of action on the map, you're experiencing a frame drop while the GPU realises "Hey, we're not at 60 FPS anymore, more power to the main thrusters!".

 

Tried Wolfenstein new order (this is still on medium settings from when i had my 675) without vsync and there was little to no difference. Empty halway and i got 17 FPS just becuase i waslked.

 

Yep there's definitely something wrong.

Try what Cloudfire has suggested. But before flashing the vbios perhaps try completely reinstalling the nvidia drivers.

 

Did you double check power profile for high performance?

 

Yeah, It's set to high performance,a nd i went into Nvidia Contr4ol panel and it was alrady on High performance. Im going to try the vBIOS and then i will recover teh computer as a last resort. I've already tried 3 drivers including a beta. I really hate RMA'ing cuz it costs me 100 bucks and 3 weeks to ship the damned thing.


I've tried to NVflash that bios, but i chickened out since my attempts to back up the current rom on it havent been successful, and im sure not gonna brick it.

Update: NVFlashed that BIOS and nothing much changed, going to try a fresh install of windows.

 

Well the reformat improved things but not drastically. Dota 2 still barely tops 3 FPS, and it should hit and stay a solid 60 with this hardware.

 

Ok, hold on. I need to find out something. What CLOCKS are your 880M running at?
I'd like if you can open a game (windowed mode preferably) and run it, making sure it's forced to your 880M via nVidia control panel, and run GPU-Z and open its sensors page. GPU utilization is a pointless reading if you don't know your card clocks.

As an example, I had a problem with Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition before. I was using DSFix and playing for ages. Then one day I updated DSFix because my version was out of date I realized. Turns out that updating DSFix somehow either improved or changed the way Dark Souls used my GPU... it didn't need much power. My card ended up downclocking to mostly 2D clocks; 400MHz memory from 1250MHz (effective 1600MHz memory versus 5000MHz stock), and downclocking my core dynamically from 850MHz at stock to anywhere between 400MHz and 770MHz. The memory (and core) were starving the game for power, causing numerous drops below 30fps and showing my utilization as high across the board, because it was... it was using a lot of nothing. I ended up having to force the game to downsample from 2560 x 1440 so that it actually demanded "enough" power from my video card to keep it running at the high clocks.

Anyway, the above was just to show that utilization CAN be high while clock speeds can be as low as your 2D clocks. So check your clock speeds and let us know; screenshots'd help too if you want.

 

Here is the GPU-z results from a game of dota with bots.



Hope this sheds some light.

 

What about your CPU temperatures and clocks? Intel XTU can monitor these.

 

You have a utility performance cap there. That performance cap shouldn't be there. Something on your system is definitely messing with that. Can you show me the wolfenstein game GPU-Z screenshot please? If possible, just grab your whole screen, GPU-Z + wolfenstein (with an FPS counter on the game like fraps)

 

Okay, i played New Order for about 10 minutes (i actually got a head ache from the sub 30 FPS).

The only way i could get the Game screen to show anything was to screen shot it at the menu or loading screen, other wise it was solid black in the screen shot,

Really hope this shows something

Had to fight with the forum some to get it to show at a readable resolution

http://i.imgur.com/BwLf1K6.jpg

 

Ok, what that's showing me is that somehow, something is artificially capping the performance of your GPU. The white spaces under "percap reason" show that it's not currently being capped; which could happen at say... a death screen, or using the main menu, etc. I don't wanna believe it's your card being dead, but unless you're using some obscure software... hmm.

I hate doing this to you, but I wanna try something. I'd like if you can set a sort of psuedo clean-boot status, this'll help.

First, I need you to set a clean boot. Basically, you're going to disable all non-microsoft services from your computer on restart, then manually enable your nVidia drivers and intel drivers (before restarting/applying). Anything else I want the PC to boot without it running, including MSI afterburner. When you boot your system, simply start wolfenstein, load in the level, then instantly do the same kind of screenshot with GPU-Z and say... fraps' free trial running. You just need to see the actual FPS on the screen, and I wanna see the sensor tab from GPU-Z again. If you wish to get a solid screencap, you can install and use lightscreen. Simply set it to capture the whole monitor by pressing printscreen (or any button you want; set it up in the options) and then upload it whenever. A full-screen print will grab multiple monitors; but again you'll probably need wolfenstein in borderless windowed or windowed mode.

What I aim to do with this is remove any non-normal influence from your system. If your game runs well, then some other program is screwing with your GPU. See a clean install of windows won't fix this (as I think you said you did it already?) if you're willingly reinstalling the program that's for whatever reason capping your performance (of course without knowing what it is). If this STILL is giving that issue, I suggest you explain to them in the RMA that your GPU is DOA and you need a new one. They should not charge you anything for a DOA unit, as it's honestly their fault for not testing the thing in the first place. If the percap reason was TDP, then I would have told you that you needed a bigger power supply, but util capping is definitely something else.

 

They wont charge me period as i'm within the 90 Day RMA warranty grace period for the previous RMA.

 

clean boot had no effect, actually made things slightly worse. This is really aggravating.

 

Okay. You should contact MSI and explain all of this to them and in the new RMA, demand that they actually test and make certain the card and system works properly before they give it back to you. Something is screwing with your 880M. Also, I suggest going back to the stock vBIOS before you return it. Just in case.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the effort. Will flash it back to stock and tell MSI they need to test it before they mail it this time. I dont even think they booted my laptop up before packing it.

 

Eh believe me, you aren't the worst horror story I've seen. Hell, this one guy got a machine with SLI 880Ms that had no thermal paste on the primary GPU. How... in the universe... they even managed to pass that through QA... I will never know.

 

That's pretty bad. Hopefully there is something they can actually do to mine to fix it.

 

Could you by chance borrow more powerful compatible PSU from someone, or try it at a shop, and check if it helps? The thing is, you luckily got a much more powerful yet also a bit more power-hungry GPU for shipping costs, I'd try to discover all options before giving it away if I were you.

 

Yeah, there are no shops in the area and no one around has a similar notebook.

 

Okay, ran a few games on Battery, No AC adapter. Dota 2 sailed at 58 FPS minimum, no hiccups. Now Wolfenstein stayed alike 24, but as soon as i plugged in the power cord, it was all over from 45 to 14. Also,GPU-Z went from PWR limited to Util limited.

 

Hold on, lemme hang myself from the ceiling upside down like a bat and see if something in this world starts to make sense now.

 

Result

thats a link to a comparison using 3dmark vantage

 

Deletedelete

 

MSI is now claiming that this is the performance I can expect from a I7-3610MQ paired with a GTX880M

 

That's baloney.

 

lololololololol wut. No. Tell MSI to go and re-check their crap.

 

They are trying to say that the new 880m cannot out perform a 675m? Fools

 

This is literally what they've told me, and have stopped responding.

http://i.imgur.com/UBxfahV.png

Meanwhile, Borderlands 2 plays at 17 FPS with 40 FPS spikes. Should be hitting 60 constant.

 

seems like your power profile has reversed, usually when you are running on battery, gpu is down clocked to conserve battery, and when you plugged into a power source, it kicks in to full gear. unfortunately in your case, it seems to have reversed. have you tried, a clean install of your windows, and install the latest drivers.

 

Yep! Already did that And updated to the new WHQL drivers Nvidia released.

 

Their last reply is "Casey, the only thing we can offer is to have the notebook come in for hardware testing to confirm there is an issue. Although it would of not been set back to you if there was since they are tested before shipping. Nonetheless, we can offer this and pay for the shipping both ways." Very frustrated.

Oh, and the card has no problem hitting 99% utilization when running 3d mark 2013.

 

I would send it back in. It is simply not operating properly. I would print the examples of it not working correctly and include in the box when you ship it back. This has helped in the past with HP service for me. I had a similar issue except it was CPU throttling, but only when plugged in. When on battery it would run full tilt.

I also had links to the software that would show the problem right on my desktop. I tried to make it as easy as possible for them to see the throttling in action.