m9750 GPU overheating playin Bioshock.

Hi all, just wondering what temps people get when running games, i've got the laptop and installed Bioshock, it seems to run fine in xp for about 5 mins then the games freezes for about 5 secs then carrys on as normal then starts to do it more frequant. i quickly exited the game and checked the GPU temp and it was over 90 degrees C. Is this normal?

Just tried playin it again in windowed mode and monitored the temp at the same time and went to 98 degrees C and the screen went funny and it frooze.

 

I read somewhere a guy blew up his PSU (from a desktop) while playing Bioshock. Don't know if it's true, but apparently it does put some strainth (pardon the spelling?) on the system.

 

Check your drivers , BS needs newer drivers to run properly on Nvidia cards , I'm not saying its the solution for what look like overload/overheating by you description - but you'll know if its a driver issue .

Its not normal and shouldn't happen , I suggest also checking with other games/demos like MOH:airborne which is also GPU intensive . If the problem persists then something might be wrong with your cooling .

 

I think it has the latest. drivers already available for a GO 7950 GTX but they are months old. Surely it can't be driver related tho.

Has anyone else got a m9750 and playing Bioshock on it? If you do could you tell me what temps you are all getting incase it is much lower than mine then i will need to take it up with Alienware.

Thanks.

 

Sorry are you saying that i shouldn't be playing it on the notebook? How do i cool it down? im playing it on a flat surface (my desk) so shouldn't the notebook be able to deal with the heat, thats the way its designed/built?

 

That is very warm for the GPU. I suggest getting a cooling pad - the Zalman ZM-NC1000 is regarded as the best for 17" notebooks.

Once the graphics card(s) reach a certain temperature they will automatically downclock so they reduce temperature and don't fry themselves. And if they still get too hot, the computer will do an emergency shutdown.

For future reference, don't cross post on the forums. It is against the forum rules.

 

Sorry for that and thank you for responding. But should i need to buy a cooling pad, shouldn't it be able to handle the heat itself?

 

Quick question if I may Nella, where do you check your GPU temp from?

 

In the nVidia control panel.

 

Lol.. ask a silly question. Should have guessed Thanks Nella.

 

Have you cleaned your radiator and fans already?

 

I cant get to it in Vista but i have XP Pro loaded also and was able to see the temp in there.

 

No i haven't, i've only had the notebook just over a week.

 

Really? I consistently hit 90-92 degrees playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and don't run into problems, but perhaps I'm teetering on the edge. The core slowdown threshold is set for 110 by default in the Nvidia driver, so I figured that 90 degrees would be too soon to be having heat problems.

 

where?strange i dont see anything,i have to use some other programs:rivatuner (by the way,who can i unterclock slower than 100mhz for teh core and 200 for memory?for instance i'ld like to go to 20mhz and 50 for mem)

 

@Chaz - I'm not trying to be a "know it all" or anything. But if your sitting in your room that most likely is room temp. (72-74F), you should be able to play a game on your laptop without a cooling pad or anything like that. The people who build the laptop (in this case alienware) are responsible if one of their products can not handle the "stress" an application puts on their GPUS. After all, Alienware does do a "72 hour test" on your laptop.

Back on topic : Nvidia released brand new drivers because bioshock was having problems running on Nvidia cards. Check laptopvideo2go for news on the new drivers that have recently come out. Some of the guys in one of the fourms i belong to had really crappy gameplay until they download the new drivers for their desktop GPU's. Not sure if that applies to laptop ones though.

Also: Some of the m5550 (including mine) had problems with the Mobo/temp sensor so the fans wouldn't really kick in that well until the GPU was at 96C-100C, and by then it was in "slow-down" mode.

Sorry Chaz if that sounded hostile. It's just that a laptop should be able to cool itself, because then its not really portable if your carrying around the laptop + a cooler to a lanparty. I feel that a company is responsible if their laptop can't cool itself. However, it is a good temp solution.

 

I had trouble with Bioshock on my m9750 at the higher resolutions (1900x1200,1600x1200) although it played smoothly at the lower resolutions. The problem was stutter and eventually the game would shut down with an error message.

I downloaded the latest nVidia driver from TweakForce and a modified INF file from the same site (thanks to Chaz) and that fixed everything. I am running Bioshock on Vista and I ran it today with the new driver for over an hour with everything maxed out with no problems.

I don't currently have the nVidia app needed to monitor the GPU temps but I don't think it's overheating or I would have seen some degradation after an hour of play with this grpahics intensive game. I will get nTune installed and post my GPU temp with Bioshock for you.

 

the main issue with this notebook is that its thermal design is somewhat flawed due to one single fan handling both the CPU and the primary GPU.

I would really recommend a good cooler to use with this (and other gaming notebooks)... namely...

Zalman ZM-NC1000

 

I checked BioShock again after I installed nTune so I could check the GPU temperature. After about 15 or 20 minutes of play the temp topped out at about 91 C so I am thinking that is typical of an m9750 for graphics intensive gaming. My idle GPU temperature is 71C.

I think GPU max. opererating temps are higher than those of the CPU, but for now I would assume that if the game performance is about the same at the end of a long session as it is at the very beginning that the GPU is not overheating.

I will try to find a maximum operating temperature spec. for the 7950gtx GPU. If anyone else is running Bioshock on a 9750, please post your GPU temps. I would also be interested in knowing if 90C is a typical temp for this game.

 

I usually hit 80-90C in gaming with an ambient temperature of about 25-30C which is dangerously close to the usual nVidia threshhold

 

I just ran the 3Dmark06 tests and monitored the temp for that and it hit 95 degrees C, i also notice the fan on the left hand side spins for about 5 secs when i turn it on after not using for a few hours, its a bit noisey when it spins and then the fan stops, when it gets into vista it starts spinning again faster and the fans is noisey again, if i tilt the notebook the noise comes and goes. Think i might have a fan problem?

 

Ok, so now i have taken off the plate which covers the CPU, Graphics and memory at has dropped the temp to 81-83 degrees which is a hell of a lot better, i cant take the plate off everytime i want to play a game. Is this something that i should take up with alienware? i'm totally confused as to what to do, my girlfriend is saying send it back and get a refund but i dont really want to as its a great machine.

 

I ran Rthdribl at native resolution and ny gpu temperature peaked out at around 96C. Rthdribl is probably one of the most vigorous stress tests that one can give a gpu so I think 96C is about as hot as the 7950gtx gpu will ever get and typically it will run cooler than that for most games.

From what I have read so far on this issue, the danger zone for these gpus is temperatures > 100C where shortened life may become an issue. Below that temperature, the part should last several years or more. Of course, the cooler the better. I would not fault AW for this because the GPU is running within spec. There is only so much you can do with a laptop because of the confined space.

Another thing that probably contributes to shortened life more than running at an elevated temperature is temperature cycling and the delta T of the cycle. This stresses the silicon more than keeping it at a relatively constant temperature. This is why I keep my 9750 on and powered up most of the time-even when I'm not using it. No hibernate or sleep mode-just screensaver-24 hours a day. This is a lot less stressful on the gpu than cold starting the laptop from 25C to gaming temperatures.

 

thank you for that reply its very helpful. I just rang Alienware to talk to them about it and they got me to take the notebook apart to check to see if there was enough thermal paste, it didn't seem like alot. they also told me that it is stock thermal paste so i am going to clean the paste off and use my arctic 5 that i have. Hopefully that should help a little.

 

give us news,are you using some for teh CPU?

 

im not planning to for the CPU as that seems to run fine at 68 C under a full load for 10mins+

 

I'd have to agree. If that were the case, i'd buy a Falcon NW fragbox for about the same price and bring that. As for me, i'm still experiencing slowdowns at 80degC with my 5750 and most likely will be shipping it back after labor day after a lengthy discussion with AW customer support.

 

Let me know if the reapplication of heat sink compound lowers the gpu temp significantly. I might try that myself if it works.

 

Unfortunatly it didn't make any difference, still gets very hot, loaded up Bioshock and watched the temp reach 95 and turned it off so it didn't get any hotter. I've bought a cooling pad and will give that a go.

 

I was hoping the heatsink compound would cool things down. Just to let you know, I played Bioshock for 20 minutes or so and the temp never got above 97 peak. The fans kick in and prevent the temp from going any higher. As long as the temp stays below 100 C I think you're ok. I have a Sony Vaio laptop thats been running for four years with a Pentium 4 that peaks out over 80 C and it's still running strong.

You can always run the game at a lower resolution and it should lower the gpu temp somewhat (I haven't checked that yet).

I guess all of the m9750s are running that hot for games that have intensive graphics like Bioshock. It would be interesting to here what AW says about this. Did you contact them?

 

I did and they told me to check the thermal paste. i'm gonna try a cooling pad, if that doesn't give an improvement i will contact them again.

 

Maybe it's a loose heatsink, just a guess im not great with laptop heat dissipation and whatnot...

 

I'm pretty sure this is what alienware will tell you in general terms...

1.) check/update drivers and bios. Run tests (SP and 3dmark)

2.) check the connections, reseat vid card and/or heatsink...

3.) Check the thermal paste and replace if necessary

4.) replace the heatsink

5.) replace the vid card.

6.) Send the unit back for diagnosis (they'll do stress prime and 3d tests or at least this is what tech support told me...).

7.) Send the unit back again for diagnosis. (the current step i'm on)

 

How long has all of that taken you so far to resolve?

 

I've been going back and forth with them for over 4 months now on my m5750. This is not counting my OS getting corrupted which was solved easily by reinstalling XP pro. Each of those steps gave the same result (graphics slowing down, temps reaching 80degC) and all on the same game. I could try Bioshock or another recently released graphics intensive game, but WoW's graphics are 3 years old and is the only thing I play on that laptop. If it can't handle World of Warcraft, i don't think it will be able to handle bioshock.

 

so I just got my 9750 a few days ago (one day shy of 11 weeks since I ordered) and am very happy. I have finally got to the point where I have everything transferred and am ready to game. I played Bioshock for about 10 min and the temp slowly crept up constantly. In the high 90s it started slowing down and the image got distorted. I got some black boxes appearing and it got up to 102 so I shutdown. I'm using the newest 163.69 drivers in Vista. Any thoughts and also Nella, did the cooling pad work for you?

 

I run BioShock frequently on my m9750 and don't experience any slowdowns after running it for extended times (> 20 min). However, my gpu temperature does reach the mid-90's. This temperature does not affect either the gpu core clock or gpu memory clock speeds even after some 40 minutes of play with the temp in the mid 90's. I also do not experience any artifacting after extended play. I am using the 163.69 driver.

Your temp should never go over 100 C however-this is cause for concern since that is the warning temp for this gpu.

 

well I propped the back up, rolled back to alienwares official drivers, turned down the settings, enabled vertical sync and ran in dx-9 (right clicking on icon before playing it) and it stayed in the mid-high 90s which I guess is safe. I did notice on my checklists when I got it the rep put down dx version=10. I figured maybe he was in a hurry (he shoulda got the other 199 parts of inspection right tho) Just now, I ran dxdiag and it says dx version 10 there too......weird. Why would that be?

 

Sorry for the late response, after using the cooling pad for the 1st time and playing Bioshock i didnt notice the difference but after changing the thermal paste and using that with the cooling pad it doesn't seem to higher that the early 90's. I think that it needed time for the paste to set properly before it was fully efective.

 

How does this five degree drop in gpu temp affect game performance? How do your gpu and memory clock speeds compare? What I am getting at is it really worth it to go to all that trouble just to lower the temp by 5C if there is little or no impact on game performance? I doubt that running the gpu in the low 90's vs the high 90's will make much difference in the longevity of the device either.

 

guys...my 9750 had dx-10 on it since it came. Should I uninstall it and downlod 9 to or does it matter since I will only be using the stuff that I can actually run.

I lowered my settings and played bioshock for about 2 hours finally last nite. I got into the high 90's and up to 102 at one point, but mostly it ran at more resonable temps.....mostly.

 

I don't think reverting back to dx-9 will get you anything. I run on DX10 and don't experience any problems running BioShock. DX10 is supposed to be backward compatible with dx9 and earlier versions and I don't believe the dx10 features are even used except when using a DX10 card so you are effectively running dx-9 anyway.

In think the single most helpful thing that you did was lower your game settings which reduces the amount of graphics rendering load that the gpu has to perform thus lowering the temp somewhat.

 

Just let it go - it doesn't matter.

 

I have a : Alienware M9750 @ 2.0ghz / 2Gb Ram / 1x 160Gb 7200 RPM HD / 1x 7950 GTX . When i first installed bioshock and played at max resolution I had very little chop. For some reason lately it takes a long time to load the game and has a lot of chop at full resolution. I was just wondering if anyone has experienced this or if just me.

Thanks.

 

When was the last time you updated your drivers? That is the first thing I would do. Use the 169.04; follow the graphics card driver update guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64910

 

Is this compatible with Vista? i downloaded the 163.67 mobile vista, but I am waiting to see what you guys think before i install. Let me know if this is the one you suggest. Nvidia says i am currently at 156.63. Thanks again

 

Just curious but did everyone check their fans at all??? Gophn is usually on the mark with this one with higher temps and poor performance. Just wanted to toss this out there.

 

well i have the t7200 OC @ 2.2ghz, dual 7950GTX and i can play Bioshock no probs at max, the maximum heat i get with Crysis,Bioshock at max settings is 82c

 

and Jikeel can you post some benchies about your Blackhawk XR5 somewhere thank you

 

Well, the difference is that if you're gaming in the high 90s you're flirting with the upper temp limit of your GPU and it will automatically downclock to save the chip. This will produce a stutter in-game and will be annoying if it occurs often.

The lower you are from the high temp threshold, the better.