Asus G1s performance problem

I've been the owner of a G1s for more than a year now and at the beginning I praised the performances and the relative low heat produced under heavy load, but in the last months I had a drastical loss in performance and a general instability in the laptop. I tried to format and reinstall using the recovery DVD, but I got no improvement.
I changed many drivers from laptopvideo2go, but still no improvements to notice, the laptop get very hot even on standby, sometime it reset on his own and generally games perform worse than ever.

To give you an example...
In the early days I used to play CoD4 MP 1280x800 with medium-to-high graphic settings and everything was fine, no lag, no stutter, nice performance.
Yesterday I was forced to put 800x600 and the lowest graphic settings just to be able to aim at someone, and it was still laggy and barely playable.

What happened? Someone had this problem too? What I can do to bring back my beloved G1s?

 

Probably a cleanup is in order. The heatsink out vent must be full of dust, together with the fan.

Once you do that, also check that the card upclocks properly when under load (to avoid powermizer bugs).

 

dust or your gpu is dying. its a 8600m gt after all

 

a proper cleanup should do the trick as mentioned already

 

I recently cleaned all vents and heat-sinks so dust cannot be the problem, how can I check about powermizer problems?
I really hope my GPU is not dying I cannot afford a new laptop!

 

Is it possible you did something that is blocking the fan from operating at proper speeds?

Computers don't just start to heat up out of no where if they were running cool before, something with your cooling system is out of wack.

 

Also, did you make sure to use thermal paste and mount the heatsink properly when you last cleaned it up?

 

ehm, no wait, I didn't pull off the vents or heatsink, I just opened the rear caps and used a compressed-air spray to remove dust.
Now I'm running the driver version 176.28, wich is issued by asus, I never tried to overclock the GPU, and I never messed up with vent speed,
everything is driver stock.

 

When you open the CPU compartment, there is a silver "foil" that connects the GPU heatsink with the CPU heatsink. If you peel that back you should see the fins of the CPU heatsink.

I find that dust and other unwanted particles build up in there and generally cause higher temps.

Try cleaning that if you haven't already, be sure to only peel the "foil" only back enough to clean out the dust, and replace it when finished.

 

Also, compressed air usually doesn't do much good for the dust collected at the heatsink "out" grill/vent. And that is the main problem with overheating, usually. Manual cleaning is best for that... (unless it voids warranty)

 

Ok, I did a more accurate cleaning, but still I didn't found too much dirt so I'm still appalled about the loss in performance.
Actually I'm using the 176.28 driver, issued by Asus, can you someone suggest me a better driver? I heard that the 175.xx series is good but too many people have discordant beliefs about which driver is the best...

 

I'm starting to suspect GPU failure now...

How are the clocks? Does the card upclock properly when pushed?

 

Most likely... mine was having the same problem, but with addition of random crashing. It's been RMA'd to ASUS now.

OP, maybe you should reinstall the OS and install the newest drivers to see if there is a software conflict somewhere. Otherwise, have ASUS look into it.

 

According to GPU-Z version .28 GPU clock is 450MHz, Memory clock 700MHz and Shader clock is 950MHz.
GPU Temperature is 78° C and CPU core temp is 62° C.
This snapshot is taken 1 hour and half after a gaming session, the system is completely idle, room temperature is around 25° C

After this test I launched a CoD 4 session and my reading changed in the following:
GPU clock 450MHz, Memory clock 700MHz, Shader clock 950MHz.
GPU Temperature increased up to to 85° C and CPU core temp ramped up to 81° C.
This snapshot is taken after only 5 minutes of random running ans shoooting in a empty multiplayer map, room temperature is still around 25° C
During this test CoD ran quite smooth, but still at 800x600 with every effect option (ragdoll, bullet scars, reflection, AA, ecc) turned off and textures set on "Automatic".
I uesed to play the game without problems using 1280x800 and most effects turned on...
I also fear that temperatures keeps going up the longer I play, but now I cannot do a long time test so for now this is everything I can post...

 

Those seem to be the normal clocks although I'm not sure, I do not have that card (a google search should give an answer to that).

The load temperature seems reasonable considering this is the G1S! Many G1S's actually get beyond 95 degrees GPU temp on load, and start stuttering... But of course you only ran for 5 minutes so it's not really significant.

The idle temps are a bit high, indeed, but again, considering that this is the G1S, they may be normal.

As to the problem, I don't know. Just to make sure that it's not a power management bug, did you try disabling powermizer using PowermizerSwitch? And then trying to see if the game speed improves.

 

I didn't try to disable Powermizer yet because I'm a bit afraid that a longer than usual gaming session could fry my GPU. It's safe to remove powermizer protection? does the GPU auto-shutdown due to high temp before it's damaged?

 

It should. And the thermal throttling should also be independent of PowerMizer. But I am only guessing, I do not know for sure, so proceed with caution and at your own responsibility.

 

Ok, now that's fun... I downloaded Powermizer Switch only to discover that Powermizers was ALREADY disabled in my system!

Well maybe it's time to call Asus support to get some info, but I'm a bit afraid 'cause Asus Italy support is not exactly what they call "a friendly and helpful support"...

 

That suggests problems with the GPU drivers. Perhaps the problem is also related to the ATK power management drivers?

 

I'll try to download and install again ATK drivers.
What make me afraid is that the system is a fresh install and the GPU drivers installed are issued by Asus.... maybe I should check again laptopvideo2go...

Thank you E.B.E. for you help and your quick replies