780M stuck at half speed

I have an AW 17 with a 780M.

I was looping Unigine Heaven (1080p, 4xAA, Ultra) for the third or fourth time and the temperature was stable at 80C for some time already when the framerates dropped.
Checking the GPU-Z logs, it turns out the GPU's clock went from 849MHz (VDDC=1.0V) to 614MHz (VDDC=0.9V).

I stopped the bench and let the computer cool down to idle temps, and upon restarting the bench, it was still locked at 614MHz (VDDC=0.9V), the temp was around 60C.
After that, I tried Unigine Valley, a game, MadVR with some heavy processing, the GPU was still locked at 614MHz (VDDC=0.9V).

I don't think it is thermal throttling since the temperatures where reasonably cool when I restarted the various benches, rather, the voltage and clocks would drop when the GPU wasn't used to full capacity, but neither would go above 614MHz and 0.9V even when needed.

A restart of the computer, and the GPU ran at 849MHz again, and the voltage went up to 1.0V again, I tried looping Unigine heaven again and encountered the same issue. I suspect that the voltage was locked because of a power issue, though I really have no idea.

(Stock clocks, 326.80 beta, AW bios A04, stock vbios, no third party software like MSI Afterburner and the like)

TL;DR: Looped Unigine Heaven 3 times, Framerate drop, 849Mhz (V=1.0V) => 614MHz (V=0.9V), stuck at 614MHz (V=0.9V) regardless of temperature, reboot unlocks full speed temporarily until unigine loop

 

You are lucky, mine 780m is not working at all,

anyways, even from new, i would repaste it, Dell uses toothpaste for cpu/gpu, and dell techies have terrible paste job skills. But the laptops are pretty super-duper

I have heard 780m can throttle at 71'C

Dell paste job looks worse than seeing somebody eating while sitting on a toilet....

......pass me the toilet paper please

Posted from my iPad

 

Yeah, I tried that... and possibly got a screw jammed while doing, so the heat sink is stuck.

 

use 0.5mm drill, and very small flat screwdriver.

drill into the screw about 1-2mm in the center.

gently put screwdriver in, try to push it in a bit or gently knock from top to lock the flat end in the screw, this will surely remove it, i have done it once


look this was my screw ( back in the times when i had MSI laptop )



and this are the tools to remove it

 

Thank you, but I don't think it's a heat issue, as I mentioned, the issue occurs regardless of the temperature of the GPU.

 

Flash Bios, flash Vbios, reinstall drivers + fresh windows install.

That is from what i would start.....

 

What model do you have?

 

I did reinstall the drivers, but reinstalling Windows may is way too time consuming especially if you consider all the other programs.
Especially since a disk image won't work.

What do you mean? AW17 with 780M, Stock clocks, 326.80 beta, AW bios A04, stock vbios, no third party software like MSI Afterburner and the like, as indicated in the OP.

 

This is exactly my problem and the reason why I keep seeing sudden frame drops.

GPU core clock keeps dropping from

849 MHZ to 614 MHZ

And simultaneously the voltage drops from

1 VDDC to 0.9 VDDC

See pattern in the graphs below taken with GPU-Z after running the Heaven benchmark:



Tried a ton of things, here's another one running the same benchmark with a small attempt at an OC using PrecisionX (+52 GPU, +101 Mem with a temp target of 92 C). Get worse scores trying to OC on Heaven and 3DMarks11 then on stock clocks. But anyways, you can see the same pattern in the graphs here:



Quite disappointing really as it's holding back this beast of a machine. Guess there's nothing else to do than to get that unlocked vBIOS which I suppose would help here?

For reference, I'm on the A05 bios and 331.65 driver and I've been getting random frame drops since buying the computer with all the different drivers and bioses I've used. GPU temps goes to max 79 C during the Heaven benchmark above, while hovering around 74 degrees mostly so it shouldn't be a heat issue really.

 

The simple fix is flashing the vbios with svl7's 780m unlocked bios mod! NVIDIA Kepler VBIOS mods - Overclocking Editions, modified clocks, voltage tweaks

 

Cheers, that's what I've been looking at, but what I'm seeing is kind of scary and at a glance quite incomprehensible for me. All those dos commands that I don't understand But I guess I'll have to look into it.

I noticed I had forgotten to activate the fans on my cooling pad and re-ran the benchmark and the temps never went above 76 C. The down-clocking didn't happen and my scores went up slightly. Obviously the card is throttling at 77+ C which I believe has been reported earlier. Think I remember reading Alienware / Dell upped the throttling limit from somewhere high 60s to 77 C in one of the recent bios releases.

I think I finally get it (I'm slow like that). No wonder Alienware computers score lower than MSI / Clevo build in benchmarks with the same specs yet superior cooling. You see threads from MSI / Clevo owners worrying about 90 C + temps on their graphic cards, while we get throttling threads. Only way to match (and considering cooling, probably surpass) the other 780m laptops is using an unlocked VBIOS which will void your expensive warranty. You buy an AW17 and you get the best built, arguably the best cooled and quietest (in competition with the ASUS) as well as the most accessible (hardware-wise) of the laptops. It's marketed to gamers who like to fiddle around with hardware and OCing, yet they are the most conservative with temperatures. That's pretty cheap of them.

Don't get me wrong, I love this machine but as a consumer I don't agree with this business decision considering how they market it and seeing as their products is the most expensive on the market.

Very well, I guess an unlocked VBIOS and a GPU repaste is the only way forward. Kinda wish I hadn't paid for that extra year of warranty.

 

Stock NVIDIA vBIOS always seem to have similar issues for the past few years. System performance is gimped with a stock vBIOS. The tweaked vBIOS files from svl7 make NVIDIA hardware awesome... has been like this since Fermi... best GPU hardware available, but not a good vBIOS.

 

Is it possible to reflash the vbois before contacting tech? it would be hard to tell, unless your gpu is blown

 

Yes it sure is, but they wouldnt be able to tell if the vbios was flashed anyway.

 

Well the service in the UK is pretty good, discuss over the phone, maybe a remote desktop as proof (they check the performance with benchmark) and if its no good they send a replacement next day. I'm not sure if they check after whether your gpu was flashed or not.

 

I don't think you understand. OP's gpu is not faulty. Just needs a few performance tweaks.