FPS drop/ Brightness help

I don't know what's doing this anymore but its getting really annoying. First, for some reason now games that I can normally run with 60+ FPS, it randomly drops to 10-15 FPS. My GPU Observer gadget would show that it maxes out at 205 MHz for the core clock and about 300-ish for the memory clock. I tried going back to factory then reinstalling the 280.19 update, but I guess that didn't help. Should I go back to 275.50 or even the 275.33?

Also for some reason my brightness would suddenly go to 100% when I'm playing a game. I thought it was the power hybrid gear thing and I uninstalled it, but it still happens. As a note, I have the G53SW-A1 and I play with the high performance setting that allows for the 100% of CPU power, and its plugged into the AC adapter when I play games. Any help would be appreciated.

 

You are probably experiencing the throttle issue with Sandy setups. Run ThrottleStop, go into options, and enable the control for Bidirectional PROCHOT. Then on the main screen, untick BD PROCHOT and save.

You have to run TS on every boot in order to disable the throttling.

 

Well the BD PROCHOT was already unticked, but it's not like it dips for a few seconds. It would drop to 10-15 FPS and stay like that unless I restarted the computer. I tried going back to 275.33 and see if it continues to happen with that. May you know anything about that brightness issue I have?

 

Could be from changing power profiles. When you install the Verde drivers, are you using the Express install, or optional clean install?

 

Out of interest, which one should we be using?

 

When I did the 275.33 re-install, I chose custom and did the optional clean install. As for power profiles, I only have the High Performance, Balanced, and Energy Saver left. I keep it on High Performance, and every time the brightness goes up, I would think it's because it changed power profiles, but it didn't. It's still at High Performance. When I had the Power hybrid gear thing, the screen brightness meant it would switch from High Performance to Entertainment.

 

Bad news. I still got the huge FPS drop again even with the 275.33 drivers. Screen froze for about a second then my FPS drops to 10-15 FPS again and stays like that. GPU Observer says the same thing while the Nvidia Control Panel says that I have it set to my custom clocks.

 

Try disabling or uninstall Splendid for the brightness issue. Does only one game do this, or all? If one, then it may be the game doing it, and not initializing well. If so, what game is it?

 

No this happens on any game I'm playing. I uninstalled it, so lets see what happens. The FPS drop just happened again and I'm starting to wonder if it's a heat issue that's dropping my clocks. I use 800/1400/1600 as my clocks and the temperature goes no higher than about 83 degrees Celsius when gaming. Is that too much for the card or is it more software issue based?

 

Does it do this on stock speeds?

 

I haven't used the stock clocks long enough to see if it did. Should I try switching back to factory settings? Also, will the program that I'm using for the clocks affect this issue? I use the Nvidia system tools.

 

Note: Uninstalling Splendid didn't help. Booted up a game and within seconds, screen brightness maxed out. I also changed from Nvidia system tools to MSI Afterburner and down clocked a bit to see if that helps with the FPS drop.

 

Can you try running ThrottleStop with the Log File option checked so you have a record of your CPU while gaming. Go into the Options window and enable Nvidia GPU temperature monitoring while you are at it. After this, go play a game for half an hour and then when you are done, exit ThrottleStop and upload the ThrottleStopLog.txt file to somewhere convenient like MediaFire so I can have a look at it.

The G73 and G53 have a known throttling problem when playing some games. It sure sounds like you are experiencing the same problem. Also post a screen shot of how you have ThrottleStop set up.

Here's an example of how the G73SW chokes while playing GTA IV and of the significant improvement when running ThrottleStop.

‪Asus G73SW CPU Throttling in GTA 4‬‏ - YouTube

 

Alright I did what you said with the Log file and uploaded to MediaFire. Sorry if it came out long, I was just doing normal chatting beforehand. Once you see the temperature go up was when I was in a match on MW2. After that I sat in the lobby for a bit, then continued on.
Picture of TS:

That's a picture of it while it's in Battery Saving Mode, Adapter plugged in. I also have the exit time set to 5 seconds, so it starts up with windows then leaves soon after.

---> Link to Log File<---

 

The first important thing in the ThrottleStop documentation is that you need to use ThrottleStop with the Windows high performance profile. The above picture shows that your multiplier is locked at the minimum value which is 8.0. That's not good. Time to go have a look at the log file.

Edit: Here's an interesting section of your log file:

Code:

  DATE     TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  CHIPM  PWR_mW  TEMP  GPU
08/08/11 15:53:00  23.93   16.4  100.0  100.0       0   76    93
08/08/11 15:53:01  24.06   16.3  100.0  100.0       0   74    93
08/08/11 15:53:02  24.46   17.3  100.0  100.0       0   75    93
08/08/11 15:53:03  25.70   22.6  100.0  100.0       0   81    91
08/08/11 15:53:04  26.00   53.6  100.0  100.0       0   79    91
08/08/11 15:53:05  25.60   16.7  100.0  100.0       0   75    91
08/08/11 15:53:06  24.93   13.4  100.0  100.0       0   73    90
08/08/11 15:53:07  24.61   12.7  100.0  100.0       0   75    90
08/08/11 15:53:08  24.31   10.7  100.0  100.0       0   73    90
08/08/11 15:53:09  24.86   10.7  100.0  100.0       0   73    89
08/08/11 15:53:10  24.94   10.5  100.0  100.0       0   72    89
08/08/11 15:53:11  24.70   12.3  100.0  100.0       0   72    89
08/08/11 15:53:12  21.26   12.2  100.0  100.0       0   75    87
08/08/11 15:53:13  23.37   21.4  100.0  100.0       0   77    87
08/08/11 15:53:14  23.60   21.8  100.0  100.0       0   77    87
08/08/11 15:53:15  24.16   23.4  100.0  100.0       0   77    85
08/08/11 15:53:16  23.90   20.2  100.0  100.0       0   76    85
08/08/11 15:53:17  23.77   19.8  100.0  100.0       0   77    85
08/08/11 15:53:18  23.82   20.2  100.0  100.0       0   77    83
08/08/11 15:53:19  23.78   19.7  100.0  100.0       0   77    83
08/08/11 15:53:20  23.84   19.9  100.0  100.0       0   77    83
08/08/11 15:53:21  23.85   20.0  100.0  100.0       0   77    82
08/08/11 15:53:22  23.92   20.2  100.0  100.0       0   76    82
08/08/11 15:53:23  23.97   20.6  100.0  100.0       0   78    82
08/08/11 15:53:24  23.99   20.8  100.0  100.0       0   77    81
08/08/11 15:53:25  24.00   20.8  100.0  100.0       0   77    81
08/08/11 15:53:26  23.95   20.4  100.0  100.0       0   77    81
08/08/11 15:53:27  23.90   20.2  100.0  100.0       0   77    80
08/08/11 15:53:28  24.00   20.5  100.0  100.0       0   77    80
08/08/11 15:53:29  23.95   20.8  100.0  100.0       0   77    80
08/08/11 15:53:30  23.96   20.9  100.0  100.0       0   77    80
08/08/11 15:53:32  23.97   21.1  100.0  100.0       0   78    80
08/08/11 15:53:33  24.01   21.3  100.0  100.0       0   78    80
08/08/11 15:53:34  24.08   22.0  100.0  100.0       0   77    79
08/08/11 15:53:35  24.15   23.7  100.0  100.0       0   78    79
08/08/11 15:53:36  24.23   23.8  100.0  100.0       0   78    79
08/08/11 15:53:37  24.30   23.4  100.0  100.0       0   78    78
08/08/11 15:53:38  24.27   22.7  100.0  100.0       0   78    78
08/08/11 15:53:39  24.18   22.6  100.0  100.0       0   78    78
08/08/11 15:53:40  24.25   23.1  100.0  100.0       0   79    77
08/08/11 15:53:41  24.22   23.5  100.0  100.0       0   79    77
08/08/11 15:53:42  24.31   23.7  100.0  100.0       0   79    77
08/08/11 15:53:43  24.51   23.9  100.0  100.0       0   79    77
08/08/11 15:53:44  24.32   23.9  100.0  100.0       0   80    77
08/08/11 15:53:45  24.40   23.5  100.0  100.0       0   79    77
08/08/11 15:53:46  24.35   23.5  100.0  100.0       0   79    76
08/08/11 15:53:47  24.31   23.3  100.0  100.0       0   80    76
08/08/11 15:53:48  24.38   23.5  100.0  100.0       0   79    76
08/08/11 15:53:49  24.38   23.4  100.0  100.0       0   80    76
08/08/11 15:53:50  24.37   24.1  100.0  100.0       0   80    76
08/08/11 15:53:51  24.35   24.2  100.0  100.0       0   80    76
08/08/11 15:53:52  24.27   23.9  100.0  100.0       0   80    75
08/08/11 15:53:53  24.38   24.3  100.0  100.0       0   80    75
08/08/11 15:53:54  24.68   26.8  100.0  100.0       0   81    75
08/08/11 15:53:55  24.49   24.1  100.0  100.0       0   80    75
08/08/11 15:53:56  24.71   25.0  100.0  100.0       0   81    75
08/08/11 15:53:57  24.66   25.4  100.0  100.0       0   80    75
08/08/11 15:53:58  24.47   25.5  100.0  100.0       0   80    75
08/08/11 15:53:59  24.38   24.5  100.0  100.0       0   80    75
08/08/11 15:54:00  23.38   20.4  100.0  100.0       0   79    75
08/08/11 15:54:01  24.76   27.2  100.0  100.0       0   80    74
08/08/11 15:54:02  24.17   16.2  100.0  100.0       0   79    74
08/08/11 15:54:03  25.99   43.2  100.0  100.0       0   83    74
08/08/11 15:54:04  26.00   64.7  100.0  100.0       0   83    75
08/08/11 15:54:05  26.00   68.3  100.0  100.0       0   83    75
08/08/11 15:54:06  25.79   48.6  100.0  100.0       0   78    75
08/08/11 15:54:07  22.36   14.7  100.0  100.0       0   75    77
08/08/11 15:54:08  23.05   14.7  100.0  100.0       0   75    77
08/08/11 15:54:09  23.44   15.9  100.0  100.0       0   76    77
08/08/11 15:54:10  24.24   18.8  100.0  100.0       0   75    78
08/08/11 15:54:11  24.12   18.2  100.0  100.0       0   76    78
08/08/11 15:54:12  24.25   20.8  100.0  100.0       0   77    78
08/08/11 15:54:13  23.23   18.1  100.0  100.0       0   75    80

At 15:53:00, your GPU peaks at 93C. The CPU is not throttling and based on the CO%, you are still gaming but all of a sudden the GPU temperature slowly decreases. This is typically a sign of GPU throttling. I believe these GPUs can throttle internally and it may not show up in monitoring programs like GPU-Z. It would be a good idea to run a GPU-Z log file at the same time but this new throttling might not show up as any difference in GPU or memory speed. There is another spec in the log file where this type of throttling might show up.

During this throttling, the GPU cools down to 74C before it starts to increase higher again. If you notice games slowing down for a while and then returning to full speed for a while and sort of going through cycles, it might be because of the GPU throttling until the GPU temperature has got under a preset limit before returning to full speed again.

Try doing some more testing and turn on ThrottleStop and check the Set Multiplier box and set that to the maximum which should be Turbo. Try running a GPU-Z log at the same time and keep track of what you are doing and if you notice any throttling episodes, keep track of what time they occur at.

 

I did what you said with ThrottleStop and made the Set Multiplier up to Turbo. With the GPU throttling how do I prevent that from happening? I was recently playing BF:BC2 and was getting drops to about 10-15 FPS for a few seconds then it would come back up. It hasn't been like before where it would drop, and stay like that completely.

 

The big problem is your GPU is getting too hot and then throttles. I'm not sure what the best utility is at the moment to disable GPU throttling but that's not going to work because an unthrottled GPU will only run hotter. You have to improve your GPU cooling. Start by removing the GPU heatsink, redo the thermal paste with something like ICD7 and clean the fan.

I'm not sure what other mods you can do to this model to control the GPU heat. Any mod that increases the contact pressure between the GPU and the heatsink would be a good idea.

Try using the ThrottleStop Disable Turbo feature. This will reduce your CPU performance but when gaming, you might not notice the difference. The reduced heat could result in a better overall gaming experience if it helps prevent the GPU from throttling.

If this game used to run OK until recently, the problem might be related to an updated Nvidia driver. Drivers are always being modified, usually for better performance, but if a new and improved driver works the GPU harder, that's going to create extra heat. Games that use DX11 look great but the extra heat might be more than your laptop can handle.

 

I don't think it's the paste. I think it might be the driver update. Don't recall having this issue with the original update on this. I've updated to 280.26 and I'll see with that. If that doesn't help, should I use Asus' driver update?
PS: The set multiplier/clocks is like that on battery savings mode going to 798 Mhz. If I activate the set multiplier, not much changes for high performance, but my battery savings mode becomes useless so I've left that back unticked.