GTX 460M still throttling (arrrrgh!)

M15x i7-740QM stock. Updated from 260M to 460M and furmark + prime95 always throttles, with 460M stuttering badly; as does furmark alone (w/o prime), but only occasionally. Does not seem to throttle during 3DMark11.

Latest mobo bios (A09, with latest EC) did not help.

Latest vbios as well (A02) and nothing changes except clocks.

Tried both latest Dell and latest nVidia drivers.

Everything is stock.

Stealth not enabled (triple checked).

Does not seem temp related - under furmark only gets as hot as 79-80 Celsius.

Any suggestions, please?

 

Bump, as I see someone else still has the same concern as I do.

My card's stock clocks are 570/1250. It throttles a couple times a minute consistently. If I raise the clocks even the slightest, say to only 600/1250, it happens with much more frequency, sometimes as much as once every 7-10 seconds or so.

The hottest my card will get is 65 degrees C, but the card will throttle anywhere between 60-65. I notice this happening when playing The Witcher 2 and SWToR in particular. It is really frustrating to have this happen when many people post accounts of running their clocks in the 800 range flawlessly.

 

Furmark always throttles. I believe it's the nVidia driver and does it to protect the card or something.

 

This is one theory (i.e., a power-draw protection on nvidia cards), but it has a flaw - in my case, at least, starting prime95 vastly aggravates the issue in furmark. So either the nvidia protection is affected by a cpu-intensive task (why would this be the case?), or it's not an nvidia issue but a dell issue (perhaps a dell power-draw issue).

And, btw, in my case furmark throttles, but not skyrim or 3dmark11. And I have the new 460M bios @ 675 core.

 

I'd say that it might very well be both. If I try to run Furmark on mine, the nvidia drivers (I assume) just shuts down the computer after 2 minutes (temp around 70c). For as long as I've been on these forums, there has been throttling issues with the Nvidia cards in this computer - in particular when running Furmark or (gaming) with Nvidia+XM processors.

However I don't think anyone has actually reported in-game throttling with QM+Nvidia.

Unlike Furmark and Prime95, Skyrim or 3DMark won't put both CPU and GPU at 100% constantly. Likely the engineers at Dell never really designed the laptop to operate at those power levels.

 

my point exactly. it's more likely a dell (design) issue than an nvidia issue, though the two are admittedly related.

what is less clear to me is how people can run a QM and a 6970M together smoothly...

 

Again. No game loads both CPU and GPU 100% at the same time.

 

its prob a dell issue as I can run Folding@home(which maxes both the CPU and GPU) just fine. What drivers are you guys running and what size PSU do you guys using? just trying to see if we can narrow down the issue a bit.

 

Exactly. So? My only point was that, though this may be an nvidia issue, it's also more broadly an M15x issue. And since I have seen other laptops where the 460m does not throttle under furmark - e.g. G53 -, it's more likely it's a dell issue.

I am not at all sure folding@home maxes out both. I am using an original dell 150W brick.

 

Oh most certainly. This laptop has always had throttling issues when doing Furmark.

 

still pondering why it does this for you. I can run both prime95 and furmark simultaneously and get no throttleing, so I'm thinking that between the 460m and your processor that your maybe exceeding the maximum wattage of your PSU? I Wonder if there is some way to monitor both voltages and see if its the case. Sounds like it could also be an obscure bios issue too(similar to the 580m power throttle). No way to really confirm it that i know of.

 

It's been well established that the 150W max of the m15x is easily exceeded running CPU+GPU at max. In my opinion this is just a design flaw in this laptop.

I never have problems with throttling with mine during gaming. Furmark just shuts my computer down.

 

I am having the same problem, though in games too. Geforce 460m, 820QM CPU, and Skyrim and SWTOR throttles every few minutes unless I enact a 40fps frame limiter (effectively reducing the GPU usage).

100% GPU usage and 66% CPU usage results in a flicker of the screen followed by a drop to min clocks on the GPU. I am using the A09 bios, and latest VBios for the graphics card.

Thankfully, the frame limiter prevents almost all stuttering, and still gives me nice and smooth gameplay. Keeps the laptop a bit cooler too. Still an annoying work around :/

Not sure why some of us have this throttling and some of us do not. I wonder if they up-rev'd the power management system in the laptops at some point.

 

you could call dell and see if they have a way to fix it, but Its prob somthing in the bios so you don't fry your machine.

 

yup, but it still does not answer the question as to why his machine does this and mine, which is almost identical (740QM vs 820QM, same GPU), does not throttle in any games I have tried so far...

there is something nefarious here

 

hmmm are you both running the same sets of bios, Vbios, and graphics card drivers?

 

it seems so