M17x R3 random lagspikes

Hi,

My M17x R3 has random lagspikes with various games. First it was Diablo 3, I have some nice normal fps, and then after a few minutes a 30sec-1min lagburst and then normal fps again. When playing bioshock infinite (an AMD game) I have no issues at all. Now I'm playing Watch Dogs, and I'm having the same issues as Diablo 3.

First I thought it was the GPU. I've tried all different kinds of drivers (stock, 14.2, 14,4, 14.6 Beta). I've monitered the temperature, nothing weird there. I've even disable the throtling by manually overclocking it with 1Mhz in Afterburner. Nothing helped.

So I thought maybe its my Harddrive and Pagefile swap. Even though I have an SSD, I added a Pagefile. Didnt help. I've moved the games to my other HDD (non SSD), didn't help either.

And then I noticed. In Game sometimes my CPU throttles to 0.77Ghz This is the moment when lagspikes occur. After that brief moment it goes back to 1.8Ghz (not sure why not 2.2Ghz). My temps are around 80 - 95(max) C
So I tried forcing 2.2Ghz using ThrottleStop, and while it works, as soon as I alt + tab into the game, it drops to 0.77Ghz.

Anyone have an Idea? Is the game bad optimized or does the GPU suck up so much power, it kills the CPU? I have no clue anymore

Im running windows 8.1 64bit, high performance powerplan. Processor 2720 i7, GPU 6990m

 

a quick update. I added some OSD while playing Watch Dogs and like normal I saw drops in CPU Clockspeed. But at 1 time I had a drop in GPU speed (to 100 Mhz). So I thought, it has to be the battery. So I changed the battery with the one my girlfriend uses (same model and wattage), but still no change. So next what I did is resetting the high performance plan to default, but that didnt matter either.

I'm out of ideas, my BIOS is on version 12. Could this be a sofrware issue (bugged Watch Dogs or Windows 8.1) or is this a hardware issue (only thing left would be the motherboard)

 

Is this only happening on battery? If so 'as designed', full power for a 100w GPU would kill a battery in around 15 mins, along with an overheat risk!

 

Watch Dog known for have some issues with the Ati Card. Including stutering issues like you experienced right now. You need to wait for the patch from the developer...

 

But it's alsoo the CPU that drops to 0.767.5 Ghz while the temperatures are around 80C. It shouldn't do that when you're using . Maybe that's a quadcore issue with Watch Dogs but couldnt really find people having similar problems.

I booted up Diablo 3 as comparison and it's GPU temparature rose to 103 C and it swtiched from 700 Mhz to 413 Mhz up and down. So that explains the lag in Diablo. I've ordered some Artic mx4 termal paste, so it maybe solves this issue and perhaps hopefully the issue with watch dogs also. It's a bummer when you spend 70 euro for a game and have lagspikes every 5-10min.

Btw I'm always connected to power.The only time it's not an a powersource, is when the freaking power cable disconnects They should adopt apples magnetic solution in r5.

 

I haven't seen this problem except using MSIKombustor. The card never goes over 65c but the clock cycles every second or so between 888 and 222Mhz - I'm thinking this is the latest driver causing too much power draw?.

Yours sounds like a simple overheat on the GPU (as well as Watch Dogs needing a patch!). The factory does have some issues around QC and I've seen a couple of terrible jobs from new - one even had a pad missing!

Good luck

 

For the fun of it, I ran the demo version of 3d mark 11.

AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR3

A score of 3114...

Also the cpu clock was max at 1.87Ghz (reported stock is 2.2Ghz)

Whats a normal score for a nearly stock m17x R3?

 

I fixed it! So I bought some Artic mx4 and repasted my GPU and CPU and cleaned out the dust (re-used the existing thermal pads).Temperatures dropped from 103C GPU to 73C (full load) and my CPU dropped from 81C to 61C. Never expected such a big drop! No more lag!

 

Cool, thought that was going to be it! Much more like the temps you should see on stock

Have fun

 

The temperatures never bothered me much, they were always high in the 80-90's since day 1. Thought it was normal for a game laptop (other sites confirmed it). That's why I didn't think of it first, but rather an aging adapter (wear 58%) or the SSD I placed a month a go, or the ATI driver I installed last week. I repasted as a last resort. If this wasn't it, I'd throw it in the bin. So... Happy again!!

 

Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of the latest AW machines running this hot - and many saying it is OK?? If I see over 70c then I start to look for a cause - but feel safe up to 75c .

If you are coming from desktops then you know the chips can handle quite a bit of heat (100C in many cases) but in the limited space a laptop provides it's the cumulative effect of so many hot components close together. I saw a thermal image taken of a running card and the hottest components (as expected) were the VRM's, ~100c!

I guess you have changed quite a few things that could have been the cause so I'm glad it was an easy fix

 

i got m17xr3 but i have nvdia 560m as graphic card

so i want to know do u have any lag or stuttering issue while playing Watch dogs.

Im having that issue :/

 

No all the issues are gone. I mean I don't have perfect fps (20-30 on high). But the random lag is gone (drops to 2-3 fps). But remember I had high temparatures. You should use a tool to monitor both cpu as gpu temperatures (I used MSI afterburner but I think that AMD only)