Gaming on laptop runs fine except for short moments of crappy framerate.

Whizzkid_amer

I recently bought a Samsung NP550P7C. It runs an Intel i7 Ivy Bridge and nVidia Geforce GT650M. When I play hardware-demanding games like Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 on maximum graphics, I get a decent, playable framerate. However after a while, the framerate drops to approx. 3 or 4 FPS for about 15-20 seconds, after which the FPS goes back up to normal. This doesn't happen with other less-demanding games, or even games like Mass Effect 3 on maximum graphics. The longer I play, the more frequent the moments of serious lag happen, to the point where I get about 30 seconds of gameplay until I have to pause until the framerate goes back to normal. I close everything running in the background but it still happens. Any ideas?

Straight_Man

Hmm, weird appearing question: How much RAM did you get in it?

shwaip

I'd guess overheating.

Thrax

I would also guess the same. Sounds like the GPU is throttling.

Cliff_Forster

Attempt a little experiment. Turn off your virtual memory (page file) reboot, play Crysis 2 at the same settings you have been playing in and see what happens. You could get to a similar point and just crash, or you could see an improvement in how the game handles its memory resources. My bet is the 5400 RPM hard drive is bottle necking your memory and graphics in games that have an extreme amount of texture data. If you turn the pagefile off and experience any change in behavior, it likely means the hard drive is your issue. If not, I like overheating like the others have said, in that case little you can do with a laptop.

CB

Well, you can do something about overheating, sometimes. My laptop was crashing due to heat pretty frequently, so I got these to stick under the back feet of the system. The increased airflow keeps the system cooler, they don't slide around, they're cheap, and they're portable.

You could also take it apart and clean the dust out of, but that takes more effort.

Tushon

You can also try logging GPU temps, to confirm that it is even the issue at hand.

Thrax

...which you would do with the logging functionality of GPU-Z.

Tushon

Thrax said:

...which you would do with the logging functionality of GPU-Z.

Whizzkid_amer

The laptop has 6GB of RAM plus 2GB in the graphics card. I usually keep it ventilated, and I use a temperature logger for the CPU- which hovers around the 85 degrees C mark when I'm playing these games. I'll log the GPU temperature, and I'll try the page file idea. I hope its this one as I'm planning on installing an SSD at some point- easier to fix than a heating issue!

Tushon

Quick fix for heating is giving it a good cleaning (i.e. disassembling all user serviceable parts and blowing out with air compressor/compressed air cans to remove as much dust and other matter from the heatsinks), longer, way more involved is redoing the thermal paste/pads as appropriate on your heatsinks and getting crazy cleaning while you're in there. GPU temp log will tell us better, but I'm with the others on a heating problem being fairly likely given that CPU temp

Whizzkid_amer

I bought the laptop quite recently, only a couple of months ago, so I doubt cleaning it will help very much- but I could be wrong. I turned off the page file and after about 5 minutes it started happening again- but much more frequently, but for shorter periods of time.
I tried to match the time it was happening to the temperature according to the log, but I couldn't be sure. It would reach maximum temperatures of 85 degrees when the GPU load was 99%, dropping to about 77 degrees when I'd come out of the game to look at the log. I noticed the GPU Core Clock would crash from 835.3MHz to 118.8MHz, which is when the temerature would come down- which could either be because I came out of the program or because of the temperature (but bearing in mind, the game window was still up behind the log, so it was still using the GPU). I'd attach a copy of the log to this post (which you used to be able to do), but I can't see how.

Thrax

You can run the game in windowed mode and put GPU-Z on top of that. If the clockspeed drops below 835MHz when the game is running, then the GPU is overheating and throttling to protect itself

Now, 85C is not unreasonable for a GPU under load, but I suspect it's going higher and you're not seeing that because it's cooling down in the time it takes you to tab out and check the log.

Whizzkid_amer

I tried running Mass Effect 3 and found the load GPU wouldn't go higher than 91%, and a maximum temperature of 82 degrees. It wouldn't slow down at any point.
Sorry, that's what I meant- I was running Crysis 2 in windowed mode with GPU-Z running on top, so the game was running while I was looking at GPU-Z. Weirdly the temperature GPU-Z would show wouldn't go above 82 degrees, it was only when I checked the written log in notepad did I see the maximum temperature of 85 degrees.
Samsung laptops come pre-loaded with a bunch of software to protect and maintain the computers- could it be programmed to throttle the GPU when it reaches a determined temperature? Also I have a layman's idea of what GPU throttling is- is it as simple as just the GPU taking a breather when its under stress?

Tushon

The driver's (NVIDIA or AMD software) have throttling built-in to safeguard your hardware. Third party software can lower it further, but 85C is a safe max to hit before throttling. You need to increase the cooling capacity (i.e. using a laptop cooling pad or other wise increase available heat dissipation) or lower your graphics settings in games that cause the stuttering. Do you have the GPU Clock speed logging alongside the temperature?

Whizzkid_amer

So at what temperature does damage start happening to components such as the GPU, and the laptop compnents themselves? I intend to get a proper cooling system for it soon, any recommendations?
I'm trying to avoid lowering the settings if I can because to me it defeats the point of getting a high-end graphics powered laptop, but I guess I may have to :/. The GPU clock speed is logged alongside the temperature.

Tushon

Are you seeing GPU clock drops along with hitting the max temps (maybe I missed that if you already said it)? That would explain the stuttering then recovery (clock drops to cool card, once it hits a low enough threshold, it clocks back up, heats, repeat).

You have to go with what provides a satisfactory experience. If your game stutters while playing every few minutes or every 30 seconds, then recovers ... that wouldn't be satisfactory to me. I'm with you on wanting maxed settings, but you have to temper expectations with a laptop. I had a shit Acer laptop that could play WoW on lowest graphics with a bag of frozen vegetables under the hottest portions of laptop and still only managed 20-25 FPS while raiding. Anyways, it's about what works, so you have to find a medium for your game between expectations and reality.

shwaip

there may be an option somewhere in the power settings to have the fan run a bit faster/louder.

you can also try changing the power profile to high performance (sometimes this makes the fan run faster) or changing it to balanced.

there may also be something in the alienware power manager that lets you mess with the cooling profile.

Whizzkid_amer

It seems to happen after a while of being at a high temperature, but on taking a closer look, it isn't the same every time. Sometimes its 85 degrees, sometimes 84, even 88 (the log was quite large, I've only just seen it had gone above 85). So it doesn't seem to be a determined threshold. Is there really no way to upload a .txt file to Icrontic any more? Used to be quite useful with solving problems haha.

Yeah I get what you're saying. I'm just a little disappointed because I'd been waiting for a laptop that would let me play games like Crysis 2 on max settings and thought this was it- never mind. Which particular settings would reduce the load on the GPU?

Jokke

Whizzkid_amer said:

Which particular settings would reduce the load on the GPU?

AA and shadow settings, in my limited experience.

shwaip

you can put it on pastebin (or sign up for dropbox http://db.tt/LHTRscS is my referral link) or something similar and link it. attaching files is a subscriber-only feature

Whizzkid_amer

http://pastebin.com/wvfvtwtJ Take a look at this- if you can make sense of it, it didn't eactly copy well. So does the slow speed of the hard drive have anything to do with it?

Whizzkid_amer

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nnu03nrmhvsfl1m/GPU-Z Log.txt Try this instead.

Tushon

It appears to be throttling when hitting near 85C from that log.

Whizzkid_amer

Any ideas on how to raise the throttling threshold, or would that likely cause my laptop damage? I can't find anything that increases the fan speed, only slows it down.

Tushon

Try MSI afterburner , then the custom fan profiles in the settings.

Whizzkid_amer

It wouldn't let me alter the fan speed controls, I think because the GPU dosn't have a dedicated fan- it relies on the CPU fan to keep it cool. I'll get hold of one of those laptop cooling pads or something and see if that helps.
I did try running 3DMark 11 basic version, and for some reason the clock speed wouldn't increase, it just stayed at 135 MHz- but thats probably due to some settings, or because its the basic version.
Anyway, thanks for your help people, I'll keep looking to see if I can change the throttling settings somewhere- although Samsung don't pre-load their laptops with too much software, it does manage to intefere in irritating ways.

Tushon

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php may be able to report at least what fans are present and I suspect you are correct. I don't know if you can manually tweak that fan or not ... maybe BIOS has an always on or something similar. You can try forcing 3D mode in the NVIDIA control panel, under "Manage 3D Settings" > Change "Power Management Mode" to "Prefer Maximum Performance" temporarily. I had to do that for some programs on my old rig to get the card to stay at max speed when it failed to go up otherwise.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-306.23-whql-driver.html (in case you didn't try latest drivers with clean install as a hail mary ... though this will not likely reduce heating issue at all)