m17x GPU downclocking -diagnosis and conclusion

Well I recently noticed just 2 days ago that my GPU was downclocking when I unplugged the power supply cable. This left me unable to play a quick game or run 3dmark while at the local coffee shop. Gaming isn't really meant for battery power but I often can play a round or two of counter strike before I begin on the at hand for the day. After trying a few things I contacted alienware via email with my recent findings and I must say they responded quickly. They immediately wanted more information about my issue. They also wanted me to make sure I had the latest GPU driver from their website. Well I'll let my reply to them explain the rest.


-To Alienware

I have been using RivaTuner v2.09 when I recently noticed that unplugging the power cable changes the memory clock for the GPU's from 799.20mhz to 100.00mhz. After noticing this I installed Ntune so I could monitor both the core clock and the memory clock. I checked to make sure the laptop is not in stealth mode and that the power settings are set to high performance. I also made sure that the gpu is set to max performance on both battery and power supply. When monitoring ntune the gpu clocks are normally set to 625.00mhz for the core and 799.00mhz for the memory. When I unplug the power supply cable the core changes to 168.00mhz and the memory changes to 100.00mhz.. Well in the middle of typing this I realized that I had recently updated my video drivers. So I reinstalled the video drivers from the support site and unplugged the power supply. The gpu is no longer downclocking when running on battery power. Reinstalled the latest nvidia drivers and again the gpu's downclock when unplugging the power supply cable. Therefore the Drivers are the cause of the downclocking while running on battery power. So I'm sending you this update so you may further assist future customer should they encounter this issue.. Thank you for your help!

Thought this might be interesting for some of you. If anyones using the new 177.89 drivers could you please unplug your power cable and see if your encountering the same situation?

 

Wow... Interesting story, so i'm guessing your now using the stock drivers?

What version are they, i used the version from the support DVD that came with my m17x as I coulnld't access the hize at the time but, i think they are the same?

At least it was only a driver issue like mine not playing DVD's...

Thanks for the heads-up though (",)

OB

P.S. If you were at a coffee shop......... How about using an Area-51 Mug (",)

 

>.> I'ts called powermizer.....the system is supposed to downclock while on battery, if you don't want it to downlclock it should be as simple as turning powermizer off.

 

LOL didn't think of that (",)

Thanks for the heads up

OB

 

in xp you can easily turn off powermizer. in vista powermizer is built in so its harder to turn it off but it still can. all you have to do is go into your registry and turn it off manually in vista.

Guide is here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=261929

 

so is powermizer a fancy way of saying powersaver mode?

 

its nvidia's built in system to not make your battery life 5 mins. if the video card runs full on battery, your battery life will really suffer and it basically kills the who point of owning a laptop if your battery life is really poor.

 

Ah this makes sense. OB the drivers I'm using now are 167.49 they must not of the power optimizer feature. When I upgraded to the 177.89 I started experiencing this issue. So when I get home today I'll disable the powermizer and post my findings. Thx for the info!

 

Don't suppose you can try the 177.92 drivers (they are the latest with the DVD playing/BD playing fix) can you?

Thanks

OB

 

Well I updated to the 177.92's and it appears that they perform the same way. So now I'm going to try and disable powermizer.

 

I have disabled it following the guide from here Disabling Powermizer and it seems to have worked.

I have also found a PhysX setting in control panel that seems to be enalbed. Seems the new version installs the PhysX package and enables it by default. I'm going to try and turn it off and see if it gives better performance.

OB