Need help with serious problems with GX640

Ok, first of all, if you are afraid of long posts, stop reading here Anyway, this topic is about a series of problems (that may or may not be related) that are making my laptop unusable sometimes. I'm going to organize this post into a time line of sorts, describing the problems when they happened:

Early June - I start getting little artifacts when I play Bad Company 2. The problem only happens when I'm inside buildings. On Furmark, I barely get any artifacts at all, so I determine that my graphics card is probably ok. I try to update my ATI display driver. Once the installation is "complete," my screen zooms in and is at a very low resolution. I get a message telling me I have no driver installed or the driver isn't working properly. I try several things to fix this, like trying to reinstall the stock driers from the MSI cd, but nothing works. I eventually fix it by restoring the computer to an earlier date.

The computer runs fine until...

Tuesday, July 27 - After installing Starcraft 2, I decide to try to update my drivers again to get the game to run smoother at higher settings. I encounter the same problem. After some searching on the web, I find that it is best to uninstall the previous driver and use a program like driver sweeper to clean up the remnants of the driver. I try this several times (booting into safe mode to use driver sweeper), but nothing works. I end up restoring my computer to an earlier date.

Wednesday - I decide to try updating my drivers one more time. I use this guide: AMD Game Forums - Procedure to Update ATI Display Drivers. It's beyond thorough, with around 40 steps, but I wasn't going to take any chances. The driver update finally works.
The computer works fine, playing games smoothly.

Friday - I turn my computer on, but the screen goes black after the Windows loading screen (which was odd, because the computer had started up just fine several times after I updated the display driver). I restart, same thing. Then I go into safe mode and restore the computer to an earlier date (a date after I installed the new driver, so after the restore, I still had the 10.7 drivers). The computer gets to the login screen, but after I log in, the screen goes black again. After several minutes, I shut the computer down using the power button on the computer. I turn the computer on and press delete to go into the setup menu. I change the SATA type to IDE (I saw this on the internet about a different computer encountering a similar problem. I was willing to try anything and everything). After I did this, the computer froze at the Windows loading screen, restarted, and went into a repair program. The program tried to "repair" my computer, but on startup, the same thing happened, so it restored the computer to an earlier date (could have been the same one I just restored to). The same thing happened, so I went into the setup menu and changed SATA back to AHCI. The computer boots, and everything works fine. No black screen. At different times during the day, I boot up the computer. No problems, and it runs games just fine.

Saturday - Runs fine throughout the day. That night, I get the black screen problem again. I do some searching on Google and find out that the GX640's vbios has some problems when people install new drivers. I look into updating my bios and vbios, but it seems a little dangerous, and since I'm not that experienced with really in depth stuff like that, I decide to wait and have someone help me with it. I restore my computer to a date before I installed the new drivers, thinking that would solve the problem since the GX640 seems to have no problems with the stock drivers. The computer reboots, I login, and...black screen. I reboot several times, same thing. On the last boot, I sit at my computer for 5 or more minutes, and the computer finally gets to my desktop. I play Bad Company 2 for a few hours with no problems.

Today - I turn on my computer and don't encounter any problems. On the desktop, however the toolbar is a solid color, like when Aero doesn't work. I open up gpu-z, go to the sensors tab, and the core clock speed is at 100 mhz. I eventually realize that my laptop isn't plugged in. I plug it in, and the speed goes up to 625 mhz again. With the computer still plugged in, I try playing Bad Company 2. The game runs horribly, with the framerate probably in the teens. I restart the computer and try playing it again while my computer is plugged in. The game runs fine, but I notice the artifacts that were appearing in early April again. I try playing Bad Company 2 with my computer unplugged, and the game runs like a slideshow. I doubt the framerate was even in the teens. This is odd because I have played Bad Company 2 just fine while my computer was unplugged before.

So those are the problems I've been encountering. I hope it is not a hardware problem (I sent my first GX640 back because of overheating issues). I use a laptop cooler with a single large fan. The hottest my gpu has gotten after a few hours of play of BC2 (running HWMonitor in the background) is 79 degrees celsius (with the cpu being even cooler). With Starcraft 2, the maximum temperature was 82 degrees.

Anyway, sorry for the extremely long post. I know it may seem kind of odd that I have been so in depth and that I even organized my problems by date, but at this point, I don't want to leave anything out. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

How come you get 100Mhz as Core clock when unplugged? Are you playing on an external monitor?

Your problem seems pretty strange but did you try to disable Powerplay like the old posts advised to do? Or did you already update your vbios?

If it hasn't been done yet I would definitely try it since even the MSI website advises to flash the new vbios before installing the GPU driver on their website ;-)

Otherwise you could also try with Windows 7 driver and see if they do a better job than the ati driver!

 

Yep, Powerplay has been disabled. And no, I'm not using an external monitor, so the 100 mhz clock speed makes me worry that there is something wrong with my gpu. I haven't updated the vbios yet, but right now it shouldn't matter, as I am using the stock drivers right now.

 

Ok, I just found out today that Powerplay WAS enabled, even though I had turned it off before. It must have been enabled again after a driver update or restore. That's what was causing the clock speed to go down to 100 mhz; Powerplay was set to maximize battery length when the laptop was unplugged. The clock speed doesn't go down anymore when the laptop is unplugged now that Powerplay is disabled. I haven't been getting the black screens after the Windows loading screen yet, but I'm not really convinced it's gone yet, as the laptop has gone periods of time without that happening earlier this week. I just got off the phone with MSI tech support, and they said taking out the battery and holding the power button might help if I get the black screen again. They also said to download Intel Rapid Storage Technology and to update the display drivers to see if that helps the game performance. I tried playing Bad Company 2 today while my laptop was plugged in, and the game ran super slow. However, after I installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology and restarted, the game seemed to run fine. I'm not convinced this has solved it, though, because yesterday, the game ran slow once with the computer plugged in, but after a restart, it ran like normal. Any thoughts?

 

So how did it turn out? Could you fix ur issue?

 

I'm getting some help from a friend who's more experienced with computers than I am. The black screen issue seems to be resolved, but Bad Company 2 and Starcraft 2 both run slowly on higher settings most of the time. It's odd because sometimes I'll play BC2 and it'll run fine, but most of the time it's super slow. Thanks for the replies btw; I've also posted this question on another site, and you're the only one that's replied.

 

Ok ok... Otherwise I would advise you to try to flash your vbios, I can't tell you how much improvement it does since I directly did it when I got my laptop so I have nothing to compare with, but according to some comments here there was a lot of issues with the old vbios...

Still I don't wanna take any responsibility if you brick it ;D however even on the MSI website they say that you should update the vbios before installing the new driver... so in the worst case u can say that u simply followed the advice put on their website ;-)

Last question: You didn't change the ac adapter to a less big one? I had replaced it with a less bulky one from MSI and had big issues with my GPU... basically the power supply wasn't strong enough so my card was turning itself off for short milliseconds...
But I can definitely tell you that there is an issue with your laptop... this is not normal at all... did you do some benchmark with it like 3dmark 06? If you did post them here ;-)

 

Nope, using the ac adapter that came with the computer.

Ok, I just ran 3dmark06 (with stock drivers and vbios). The results are:
Total score: 10272
SM 2.0: 4717
SM 3.0: 4478
CPU: 2564

My computer had been running for a while if that makes a difference. I had restored recently, so Intel Rapid Storage Technology was uninstalled if that makes a difference, too.

 

My score at stock everything, so you can compare:

3DMark Score 11763
SM 2.0 Score 5031
SM 3.0 Score 5764
CPU Score 2724

Sounds like you're on Balanced mode or something.

 

But could that not be simply due to the old vbios that has some issue with the new ati driver (10.3 & up)?

 

I wasn't in balanced mode; I always made sure it was on gaming mode before I did anything intensive. I also frequently checked gpu-z and cpu-z, and they said the gpu was running at a clock speed of 625 MHz and that the cpu was running at around 2530 MHz.

Anyway, yesterday I updated the bios, vbios, and display driver (to catalyst 10.7), and my problems seem to be resolved. No black screens, and games are running great. I've restarted my computer many times to test my game performance, and they always ran smoothly on the highest settings.

I just ran 3dmark06 again, and I got much better scores:
Total 3dmark score: 11467
SM 2.0: 5009
SM 3.0: 5627
CPU: 2579

Are these scores normal for those who have the updated bios and catalyst drivers? Those scores are still lower than yours, though, Dakins. What gives?

 

I don't know. I haven't done any overclocking. I've got the latest VBIOS, Catalyst 10.7 and I'm running Windows 7 on the stock configuration. I wasn't using MSI's ECO power modes, just Windows 7's high performance power plan.

The power was plugged in and the test was running at the default 1280X1024 on an external monitor connected via HDMI. The GPU was still running at 625/1000. I'll do it again, without an external monitor and using Gaming mode, just to see if I can get results similar to yours.

Edit: Alright, here's my score on high performance without an external monitor

3DMark Score 12408
SM 2.0 Score 5453
SM 3.0 Score 6109
CPU Score 2755

I'll run it again on Gaming mode.

 

I just checked my 3dmark06 results again and saw that it said my cpu speed was 2261 MHz, even though before I ran the test, I checked cpu-z, which said it was running at around 2530 MHz. Is the speed value on 3dmark06 like a default value for all i5-430m's, or is something wrong?

Edit: Dakins, I just noticed that in your sig it says you have a 450m. Is the difference in our scores because you have a better cpu than me?

 

The CPU speed adjusts automatically depending on your usage. It's normal to see a lower value when idling. As for the 450m, it's the stock CPU for the 260US revision, but other than that, our laptops are identical. The individual 3DMark & CPU scores will be a bit higher in my case because the 450m has a slight edge (only noticeable in benchmarks). As for the SM tests, they should be the same, since we've got the same graphics card.

Edit: Here's Gaming mode

3DMark Score 12309
SM 2.0 Score 5313
SM 3.0 Score 6116
CPU Score 2760

 

Ok, this is kind of freaking me out now. I thought I had my laptop fixed. Do you have any idea what would cause this? Is it a hardware problem?

 

Ok, I'm going to make an updated post about my situation, as I feel I'm as far away from having a fully functional laptop as I was before. Even though the original problems have been resolved, others have cropped up; it's like a freaking vicious cycle. I have two issues that I know of:

1. I'm getting lower scores than everyone else on 3dmark06. By a significant amount, ranging from 200-500 point differences in the individual scores and around a 1000 or more point difference in the total 3dmark06 score. I have the latest BIOS, VBIOS, and 10.7 catalyst drivers, and I'm even getting slightly lower scores than min did in his review (he had stock everything then).

2. Games run well on highest settings, except for one weird issue. On Bad Company 2, the game is really choppy at the beginning of every multiplayer match I play, but after a few seconds it goes away and doesn't appear again till the next match. This doesn't happen in single player. This also happens in Starcraft 2, but it happens everywhere, not just multiplayer. The beginnings of the single player missons seem to suffer the worst.

Any help would really be appreciated, although at this point, I kind of want to get rid of this thing. My first GX640 was overheating, and now this one can't go a month without having serious problems. My patience with MSI is running out fast.

 

Hey man, I'm really sorry. The scores I gave you yesterday are erroneous; Overdrive was enabled for some reason, so my graphics card was actually overclocked. I ran 3dMark06 again, with stock clocks this time around:

3DMark Score 11823
SM 2.0 Score 5057
SM 3.0 Score 5750
CPU Score 2770

Our scores are nearly identical (SM tests). The only difference is the CPU, but that's okay. Your graphics card is fine.

Edit: Oh and for the lag thing, install Rapid Storage Technology from Intel as well as the latest chipset drivers. I get a feeling it's coming from the hard drive, so make sure it's running optimally. Other than that, defrag as usual.

Edit2: There's a new Intel Rapid Storage installer from July 20th that includes a new driver for the SATA AHCI controller. That could be helpful.

 

Ok, that's a relief. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I already have the rapid storage technology installed, but I'll try updating my chipset drivers. My hd is only fragmented 2 percent, but I'll defrag anyway, too.

 

Could be an antivirus or something that sends interrupt requests to your hard drive constantly. I personally disable the search indexing bullshi ft and Windows Defender on all of my computers.

 

Ok...btw what antivirus do you use? I've been using Avast. Is that decent?

 

Yes, Avast is top notch. So is AntiVir (if you can get over the nag screen).

I'd try disabling the antivirus' resident protection during games, just to prevent it from scanning each file that is accessed on the hard drive, making load times worse than they actually are.

 

Would that be the file system shield?

 

I don't know. They all have different names for it. Usually, it's just a matter of right-clicking the icon in the taskbar and disabling the guard or shield or whatever gimmick they chose to call it.