How to make the most of your G73JH battery (2:30-2:40 runtime)

Indeed. Less heat means less power consumption, which would have to mean better battery life. I haven't really tested it, but it should get over 3 hours with the 9 cell battery.

 

My browsing was script heavy pages like digg, slashdot,fark, and some youtube.

About the same I would guess, I'll check suspend at the 100/200 clocks.

Edit: yeah it sleeps and wakes up fine, did it 5 times.

 

I've booted and restarted many times. Maybe 20-30 minutes of youtube, they were all short clips so it's kind of hard to remember a full length.

 

As it turns out, there is indeed more to it than the 100MHz core clock. In my GX640, I found that the screen stayed black in waking up from sleep at 100/1000. However, when I tried 100/300, it woke up from sleep just fine.

Betaflame, could you check if your G73 has any trouble waking up when set to 100/1000? I'm interested in seeing if it's just the GX640, or if the 100/1000 clocks are just a poor choice in general by ATI.

 

I have a support issue about this with Asus. They sent my mail explaining this to the R&D department.

Keeping the power hungry and heat producing GDDR5 on 1000 MHz is just plain stupid in my book and since gaming on battery is also stupid the core clock could also go back to 200 MHz. Core and mem could easily run at 200 MHz.

Why doesn't that happen? I think it's either one of 2 reasons:

1) Ati's drivers don't handle re-clocking very well;
2) the 5870 is broken and can't handle reclocking;

What I have seen is that down clocking with the AMD clock tool works flawless but clocking up produces a grey screen for me. I have read that Ati has more problems with other chips(desktop) in which power saving downclocking produces grey screen problems. Their solution; don't clock down so much.

Either way. Something has gone wrong. Which one that is remains to be seen.

 

It cannot wake up at 100/1000

 

Because my GX640 works at 100/300, 300/1000 and 625/1000, the issue is neither the specific core clock nor the specific memory clock but the combination of 100MHz core with 1000MHz memory - I guess it doesn't like having the memory clocked 10 times faster than the core, which makes sense to me. I'd predict that clocks of 70/700 would encounter the same problem.

 

appreciate the testing betaflame

 

Can we please keep personal attacks and etiquette advice out of this thread and restricted to PMs so they can be ignored/deleted?

On topic, it seems like the GDDR5 draws more power than the fully clocked core when both are idling. Clocking that down first probably would have been a good idea (my 275 does it and my 6800Go used to, before it went poof)

anything below 100/200 seems to introduce the possibility of a GSOD, so I wouldn't venture below that.

 

This thread was started as a thread specifically for manually downclocking the HD 5870 in the G73JH, but I think it's perfectly sensible to generalise this thread to the HD 5850 and HD 5870 in all laptops that happen to use those cards, since the procedure is the exact same and the cards are the exact same apart from stock clock speeds. Given that both my GX640 and Betaflame's G73 dislike 100/1000, it seems there is quite a lot in common.

I will probably do some further testing with regards to the 1:10 ratio idea, though it's a little annoying and time-consuming having to restart the computer when it doesn't wake properly.

 

Have fun fellas. Goodbye.

EDIT: If anyone wants the saved pages of my posts for whatever reason, happy to send them.

Q

 

There, I did some editing myself, and I even changed "perhaps less so" to "much less so".

Assumptions are perfectly fine as long as you make clear what they are, and since this seems to have been done every time I don't think there has been a problem with that in this thread. Sadly, I didn't test the PP before I updated to 10.3, but if at some point in time I go back to the previous drivers I'll be able to find out.

 

I was under the impression that it was the CCC that was responsible for the clock changing.

 

I deleted the posts marked "please delete", but only those after my last deletions (since I already judged those before to be at least moderately useful).

Would you please try to think about the content and tone of your posts before you post them, rather than changing your mind about it later on and having someone delete them? That is not the job of the moderators...

That would save everyone time. Thanks.

 

Every high end GPU chip of the last 3-4 years downclocks it's memory when it's not doing anything. Why this doesn't happen with the 5870 is absolutely strange.

Untill I get some more info I stick to either of my 2 reasonings. Either the Ati drivers are the problem or the hardware is the problem.

 

I recall the automatic clocking was the problem behind a large number of the GSODs at the desktop 5870 and 5770 launch, so it's possible.

 

Alright I bite, and excuse my ignorance, but what does this mean?
And I agree with Ziddy, underclocking this machine to increase battery life is a rediculous idea, why not just get an I3 processor and downgrade the video card instead? Now I am going to drive my 2010 mustang home with the 1.4 L 4 cylinder engine (120 HP) I downgraded to ! Happy memorial day to all!!!

 

In order for that to be a good analogy, you would then have to swap back in your larger engine every time you needed the boost in power. Down clocking the GPU is more akin to Variable Displacement where certain cylinders are deactivated. When you need the power, just step (click) on the peddle (icon).

Happy Memorial Day.