M17x R4 - MSI GTX 1070 Performance Issues

I'm running an MSI GTX 1070 in my M17x R4 with a 3940XM, 16GB 2133MHz Ram,330W PSU, 120Hz screen, Windows 10 (64-bit). I'm experiencing extreme performance throttling when playing games. I used 3D Mark Demo to benchmark the system and have scored ~5300 in Time Spy. For some reason, the system will exhibit these performance issues and will land me in the ~3200 range in Time Spy. I've tried multiple drivers and switched between the DCH and standard version of Nvidia's drivers with no luck. DDU was used every time between driver versions. Initially, I would score 5300 in Time Spy upon fresh install of the driver. Somewhere along the lines of Restarting, Shutting Down, Hibernating, and switching between a 240W PSU on my bed and the 330W PSU on my desk I would start experiencing these performance issues correlating to the 3200 Time Spy score. (Note: I would not run Time Spy while on the 240W PSU.) Now upon fresh install, it's straight to the 3200 score. The only thing consistent is the blank PhysX 32-bit icon in windows control panel.

NVIDIA PhysX (32-bit) Icon in Windows control panel

 

Temps on your GPU?

 

Temps are fine. I uploaded a performance log in MSI Afterburner to show how it's acting. It's switching between Power %, Power Limit, and No Load Limit rapidly.

 

You could run the 1070 just fine on the 240w, it's only rated for 115w.

 

@TheReciever The 1070 has a 150W TDP Bios mod so I'll definitely need to extra juice from the 330W PSU. That's besides the point though. I've tried Throttle Stop too and disabled the BD Prochot with no luck. Lowering the power limit from 100% (150W) to 75% (112.5W) has no effect either. What other things could I try?

 

You flashed it to 150w? Because despite all the ebay listing claiming 150w its actually 115w.

 

I'm not sure what eBay listing you're talking about. I bought the card from @win32asmguy with it already pre-flashed with the 150W Bios mod.

 

Dump the VBIOS with GPU-Z and post it. I would think that you are encountering where the CPU current limit gets set back to 32A by default of the BIOS. Go check that with XTU

Maybe do a GPU-Z log while running the Heaven benchmark Should show your GPU mhz

 

I am sorry to bother you I have the same setup as you and am trying to get the Nvidea Inf for the gtx 1070 mxm that i would need to get the 1070 to work properly is there anyway i could get the inf from you, or could you point me to a completed inf file a can get thanks

 

Here's the VBIOS dump and two GPU-Z logs while running the Heaven benchmark at 1920X1080 Full Screen on Ultra Settings DX11. One log is on the 240W adapter and the other is on the 330W adapter. I wasn't able to verify the 32A current reading in XTU because I couldn't figure out where to find it.

 

I can help teach you how to modify your inf file to get the graphics driver to install correctly. Just give me a private message and we will go from there so I can keep this thread on topic.

 

Strange. Your temps look good but your GPU load goes up to near 99% and kind of just stays there. Higher voltage GPU on the core too.

My GPU % seemed to bounce around and my log kind of shows a steadily rising GPU temp up

You might want to try a 125W VBIOS and see if you still have the issues.

 

How might I go about trying a 125W VBIOS? Will I need a flasher or can I just use a VBIOS update software? Is manually setting the power limit in MSI Afterburner the equivalent to changing the TDP limit in the VBIOS? Because I've manually set it to 75% which should have been 112.5W and had the same results. I have an unlocked A13 BIOS is that helps anything.

 

Another member sent me a NVFlash folder with pretty much everything setup. I went from a 115W TDP VBIOS that was actually hitting nearly 160W to a 125W TDP VBIOS where GPU-Z is reporting like ~128W max which I feel is safer.

 

Are you able to flash yours with a 150W TDP to try and replicate my issue? Also, can you point me in the right direction for tutorials on using NVflash as well as modifying my VBIOS?
Just to be sure we have the same MSI 1070 card, mine is the one below except that it is a v1.2

 

I have a Zotac card. I can ask the GPU Guru who hooked me up with the VBIOS to reach out to you.

What did you score in Heaven? What about firestrike?

 

I appreciate you reaching out to GPU Guru. I ran Heaven and Fire Strike benchmarks and scored 2348 and 7735 respectively. One thing I noticed is that when I saw that you used Mobile Pascal TDP Tweaker to show your VBIOS, I thought I could use the program to view my own VBIOS. I discovered that it is showing the Target TDP at 151W and the Limit at 185W. Maybe this Limit value is the culprit? I have no idea.

Earlier you stated "I would think that you are encountering where the CPU current limit gets set back to 32A by default of the BIOS. Go check that with XTU"
How do I check it with XTU and how do I verify it in the BIOS?

 

I think your VBIOS is trying to run the card pretty hard and then ends up throttling. Your Heaven max FPS is way high but then your min is lower and then your average is lower. I am not sure how to read the GPU-Z log to see if you are GPU throttling or not.

This might be related to your low firestrike: The 32A for CPU core current is hard coded in the Dell BIOS. I would have XTU adjust it up but on reboots I would often find it set back again lower. It should be in the advanced OC area of XTU. That would cause my firestrike score to drop a lot since I think the CPU was not able to feed the 1070 correctly. Try setting to 112A and running firestrike again.

I posted about the core current limit not loading via XTU correctly but seems no one else seemed to care?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...default-of-32a-for-core-current-limit.830571/

I just find it strange since you can pretty much use the unlocked BIOS to do all the OC you would want, just missing that core current as an editable field. I find that XTU gets confused between reboots of the R4 since sometimes the BIOS will load the DRAM settings as "Default" while prior boot I did "Advanced" (I forget the exact field name) and specified all the DRAM fields to exactly the specs of the RAM installed vs. a generic profile. This then ends up sometimes running my RAM as 1600 when, for unknown reasons, the BIOS goes back to "Default" vs. 1866Mhz when it proceeds with a reboot honoring my "Advanced" settings.

I would not have to deal with XTU at all if core current was in the OC BIOS and I think the issue of the RAM fields changing would stop if the BIOS/XTU weren't trying to "correct each other" as I could then just program the XMP of the RAM sticks themselves with the fields I wanted and not deal with the "Advanced" area of the BIOS.

I just got over it by never rebooting the laptop and changing the lid closed function to hibernate. That and the nag of HWInfo freezing when running with the battery installed (battery using same Bus as the HWInfo and packets collide) caused me to move onto the 51m. I would probably still be using the R4 if the HDMI-In and fans worked flawlessly with the 1070.

 

Can you PM
@Baddemichl

He would know what vBIOS set at 125W would work.

 

So I am trying to Private or Conversation, but I am not locating it i have more than 5 messages but i dont see the option to conversate any way you could start a conversation, sorry being a dumbass

 

Sorry for the delay in replying, work had me working over the last few weekends. When I opened XTU up I confirmed that the CPU core current was indeed set to 32A. After raising it to your suggested 112A, I noticed that my RAM speed went from being displayed in yellow at 2133MHz down to the default blue at 1333MHz. So I toggled between the default memory tab to the custom tab, then back to the default tab to get it to switch back to the 2133MHz speed and ran Heaven. It was still throttling no matter what I changed in XTU. Nothing seemed to stick, just like the trouble you were having. Then I figured, why not just mess with setting the XMP profiles in the BIOS since my RAM speed was being affected by XTU. BAM! Full functionality just by setting it to the XMP Profile 1 setting in the BIOS. My fans have always worked automatically, so I guess our luck on getting everything to work properly with modded laptops is sometimes left up to the lotto. My Heaven score is now 4373. Thank you so much for your time and help. I greatly appreciate it.

 

Glad to help! Found a lot of good info in the forums so happy to pass along.

Really neat that you do not have to run HWInfo for your GPU fans. I found that to be so annoying. What do you score in firestrike now?

 

I didn't need HWinfo for my GPU fans to work nor did I experience any fan lockups with HWinfo while I was using it. Not sure why your fans didn't cooperate. What Card were tou using and what alienware was it?

And, for a non extreme processor, Could I change the core current from 32A to 112A In throttle stop?

 

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