G1-difference is speed while on a/c or unplugged

Ok, I dont know when this started happening or I never noticed but the laptop goes into somesort of gfx reduction in speed when unplugged. I turned off the nvidia battery optimizer but that didnt work.

In World Of Warcraft, I can go from a high 120fps plugged in, to a slow 45fps when unplugged. I could live with that, but thats not the slowest part in wow. In outdoors, while plugged in, I'll be around 40-80fps. When unplugged its unplayable at 13-33fps.

In comand in conquer 3, I can go all max on a/c. Once I unplug its like moving 2fps. Augh. I could've sworn I played these games when not on battery.

Please help me get full speed. At this rate, my Sony SZ160p played better while unplugged.

 

It's easy, the GPUs have some sort of power management that reduces the clock and hence the power consumption when the laptop in on battery mode.
You can try out the GPU power manager (I think it's in the nVidia driver settings or something) and tell it to run at full power even on the battery.

 

Forgot to add, I'm in super performace while plugged and high performance while unplugged. I could've sworn that made no difference before.

mujtaba- You missed that part. I already had disabled that in the nvidia control panel. And yes, I know its clocking down. I just don't want it to clock down. I also dont remember it clocking down that bad, that wow became unplayable.

 

Makes no difference.(At least for my X1600).
It will underclock the GPU even if you are on High-performance.
You should go to the driver settings to set the clock to the max.

 

never thought about that. I'll check the speed of the gpu. hopfully, I can see itss under clocking and just over clock it again.

 

Also...it is better if you just uninstall Power4Gear. It is nice, but there are (in my opinion) better one out there. Check out NHC. (Notebook Hardware Controller).
You can set profiles on that for most clock speeds and it also monitors your temps so you don't over-do it.

 

hmm some problems:
1) I tried to check my gpu speed while in the game. it doesnt change. It seems the computer is throttling the gpu in another way where the nvidia drivers isnt seeing a slower clock speed.
2) I "exited" the ausu power4 gear but that didnt work either.

I'll try uninstall the whole program and see if that makes a difference.
btw, I dont see any settings in the power4gear that mentions the gpu or cpu speed.

 

it doesn't say so, but I'm almost positive it does it. (Power4Gear only allows Dynamic Switching, so you can't tell your CPU to run at full speed on battery, at least I can't)

 

Power4Gear does nothing to the GPU.

The GPU speed is controlled by a thing called "NVidia PowerMizer". It's under the display settings in Windows XP. I don't know where it is in Vista.

That's what you need to be looking for, I believe.

 

Ok, I tried to uninstall the power4gear. Made no difference. I still get a little icon on the upper left that tells me when I'm on a/c or battert when I unplug the pwoer chord. And in my games I can see the fps drop from 120fps to 33fps.

Alex- I use nhc already. But just use it for monitoring. Btw, I did make sure the powermizer in that program was also off.

ebe- Thanks, but as I first mentioned, I made sure that option in the nvidia cotrol panel was turned off. I'm pretty sure, theres something that's still telling my computer that when I'm on battery, to throttle the gpu down.

Any other ideas?

 

Find a utility that will allow you to turn off Dynamic Switching, see if that helps, try NHC

 

alex- Its not dynamic switching for cpu. I have the NHC and it is going full speed while in the game. But the G1 is somehow knowing its being unplugged and auto throttling the gpu. There must be a setting I'm missing unless it's hard coded into the laptop, which I'm gonna be ticked if I can't. Because unplugged, its no faster than my old sz160p.

 

Oh I see, yeah, that is very strange. Contact Asus to see if that is a common issue, and see if it is fixable (I don't think it would ever be designed to act against the user's wishes like that). There may be a miscoded BIOS or other device handler overriding your instructions. All I can really say is that I have never heard of a problem where even after uninstalling/disabling all powersave software the hardware still doesn't run full speed.

I have one more idea though, it is possible that the battery (through defect or not, I dunno) is simply not providing the Wattage or Ampage or Voltage (I couldn't be sure which) that the video card simply physically can not run at full speed. This is another issue that you can check easily (compare the Watt/Amp/Volt ratings on the battery to those for the Go 7700). You could check to see if it is a defect by trying a different battery.

I really hope that this gets resolved for you!

 

I just wanted to make sure you had tried the powermizer.

Well, other ideas:

1. Check BIOS see if it's not a setting there.
2. Disable all software related to power control / ACPI (Power4Gear NHC RMclock etc.) Check if it's still happenning.
3. Reinstall/update video card drivers. Check if problem still happenning.
4. Restore OS to factory state (system recovery). Check if problem still happenning.
5. RMA? I don't know about this last step, but those before you could try in sequence (as long as you can afford them, e.g. you might not want to lose your applications/settings of the OS at this point).

Edit: as to:

This is very unlikely to be the case; I would assume if the battery would malfunction enough to not provide enough power for the GPU to run fullspeed, it would malfunction enough to not be able to power the CPU and possibly other components, either.

It would not be much use to compare the ratings on the battery since those should be (and will be) designed to support properly all the components in the notebook, i.e. power drawn by fullspeed GPU and CPU and all the rest < power available from the battery.

 

tried all but #4/5. I don't think its a defect. I know the Dell XPS did this because while unplugged because the GPU used up so much power. But I dont remember the G1 doing this when I got it. But I wish they give an option to turn that off. If my battery lasted an hour with battery gaming, then fine. It should be my option to run fullspeed or not fullspeed.

I know you're not arguing with me on that, I'm just venting. Its like buying a sports car only to see it turn off half the cylinders from firing because you would use up to much gas.

 

hahaha I like that, I agree.

 

np. I emailed them. Hopefully I'll get a reply before tuesday

 

To get all the performance available on the G1 I use the Notebook Hardware Control application.

I totally unistalled Power4Gear and replaced it with NHC. With this app you can set the notebook to be 100% in graphics and 100% in CPU at the cost of higher battery consumption of course, but it's great to have the option at your fingertips if you need it....

 

RaymanMX- Are you sure youre running full speed? I thought I did that and my GPU was still being throttled. Please check for me. Remember, battery power and a/c power. I'm pretty sure your computer will be way slower when unplugged.

Here are my 3dmark06 scores. If you notice my signature, my Sony SZ160p with a SLOWER processor and GPU ran faster. Thats pretty sad. I sure hope I'm missing something.

On battery
3dmark06: 650
sm2.0 Score: 237
hdr/sm3.0 score: 215
cpu score: 1642

On A/C power
3dmark06: 2430
sm2.0 Score: 949
hdr/sm3.0 score: 842
cpu score: 1653

 

my 2 cents
1. check bios (After disabling all the battery level warnings and auto shut downs etc, I got an extra 30 min out of my battery in my R40)
2. format system with orig XP or vista disc, not the Asus restore disc. Tad extreme for some people but that is what I do whenever I get a laptop or computer. Sure way to fix it, unless it is hardware set.
3. get soldering gun! :GEEK:

 

feffrey- did 1&2. I'm actually dualboot setup on my G1. Why#3?

 

Maybe he is a soldering gun salesman.

 

Well if you also tried installing a fresh XP, then I'm all out of ideas.

It might be a hard/firmware switch then, and there might be that you can't to anything about it...

I would suggest trying a live Linux distribution like Knoppix to see if it's still happening but I have no idea how to check GPU performance in Linux, maybe others know. If it doesn't do it in Linux then it's the Windows. Otherwise, very likely the hardware.

 

Anybody else with a g1, can you verify if this is happening to yours?

 

A fresh install didn't work? A friend of mine has a G1 I'll ask him.
As for the soldering gun, I meant take apart your laptop and de-solder what ever annoying chip that is, jokingly

 

I know exactly what you mean starstreak and I'm totally sure I'm squeezing all the performance while on battery power. I ran 3dmark05 and got the same results with and without AC power.

Here's my specs:

ASUS G1P
Windows XP Pro SP2 (latest patches)
XTreme-G Mobileforce XP Drivers (Moded NVidia Drivers)
Notebook Hardware Control 2.0 Pre-Release-04 PE (Under CPU Speed/Clock Modulation I have both settings (AC and DC) at 100% and under Graphic I have checked the nVidia PowerMizer Control at Max Performance on both AC/DC.)

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

Are you on Vista starstreak? Maybe Windows is dicking around with your GPU?

 

Thanks- At least now I know I should be able to fix this issue.

 

Oh so far this is the answer I got. And yes, I did select that mode. Waiting on a reply from that reply.

Dear Valued ASUS Customer,

Please ensure that you use the High Performance Setting with the power4gear utility that shipped with your unit.

Best Regards,
Notebook Technical Support Team
D. Painter


---------- Original Message ----------
From :
[Sent : 5/21/2007 4:48:34 AM
To :
Subject : Notebook G1



[[Problem Description]
My computer is auto throttling the GPU when unplugged from a/c, which is making slower than my
old laptop in gaming. How can I tell it to stop throttling. This makes the games I have unplayable. I
tried uninstalling the power4gear. I made sure the nvidia drivers had the powermizer feature turned
off. But every time I unplug the laptop, it has the little icon on the screen that shows battery or a/c
power and it throttles my GPU so I run about 3x slower. Please show me a way to get around that.

If there isnt a way, this isn't a gaming laptop. Its more of a gaming home computer that can be
moved. And thats not what I wanted.

 

Tech support people wade through hundreds of emails per day, and after a while start to take on the "Customer is retarded" attitude. It isn't just Asus, just what happens to almost everyone in the job. The best idea would be to call notebook technical support, let them know you are an advanced user and that you think there is a problem.

 

Oh, I'm not calling them name or anything, dont get that last post wrong. Someone asked me to post what Asus is saying about this. At least the first thing out of his mouth was that I'm stuck at a slower speed. So I'm still hoping for something good.
And it seems like one person isnt having this problem.

And to answer someone else, I'm running this in WinXP Media ed

 

Back up and reformat. If it's still like that, it's either Bios or hardware issues and RMA. If it isn't, problem solved and you can install stuff again.

 

fabarati- don't want to go that far yet till I know for sure. I have BOTH winxp and vista on this computer. Both sides are having this issue so I don't think its a software, unless its something that was installed when I was installing all the asus programs. Could be hardware. Which is why I'm waiting for asus to write back.

 

yeah, I know what you mean. My lappy is in need of a reformat after my (ab)use of vista, but it's just to much work for me to want to do it now.

 

OK this royally sucks! I bought gaming notebook computer. Now I find out while on battery its crippled. I really would like to know how to get around this.

Dear Customer,

Thank You for contacting ASUS Notebook Technical Support.

The G1 will run at lower clock speeds when running on Battery mode. The High Performance mode is only available when using A/C power because of the power requirements of the components of the laptop.

If there is anything else that we can help assist you with, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank You,

ASUS Notebook Tech Support
Lynard Arandia
888-678-3688 #3

 

I think you can tell the driver to make the GPU run at full speed even while on battery.
At least the ATI powerplay has this option.

 

I wish I can figure out how. I turned off all the powermizer options (Nvidias version of powerplay I think.) and even tried to remove that power4gear junk. Still I get a notice indicator when I switch from AC to battery so theres something else I'm missing.

 

I don't think you're missing anything... if it's really the case that the GPU would require more power than the battery can supply (which I couldn't believe at first), then I think the switch is in the firmware or even in the hardware.

This, I agree with you, sucks, since you're not able to game at full power on battery, on a designated gaming rig. They did overstretch it a little bit with this GPU it seems... I guess you could call it bad design, but it sells...

 

We have heard from G1 owners that don't have this problem though. Seriously call up the Asus notebook tech support line (set aside an hour) and explain to them fully the issue. Then you will know for sure.

 

I should but at work right now. Its easier to bother them via email and you guys here to troubleshoot.

 

oh well =P. But when you get home call, and if it is what we fear it is, ask them if that was changed on the G1S, just for curiousity

 

Ok, it seems that I didn't explain myself on my last post.

My recommendation is that you install NHC (Notebook Hardware Control) which can be downloaded free from this location and set your CPU to use 100% and the Graphics to use high performance settings and that's it. You don't need to format your G1 and start over as someone said...

It won't hurt your machine, trust me....

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

He did all that. I gave him the link to NHC on the first page. The point is no software can prevent it.

 

Yup. I have the newest NHC. Had it for a while now. I just never noticed that it was throttling down untill recently when I tried to game while on the go.
RayanMX- Can you try and run 3dmark06 once on battery and once on a/c and tell me what your score is? It'll be like a night and day difference. If not, then I'm sure I still have something installed that shouldn't be.

 

Ok, I'm down to reinstalling the OS. Before I do that, is there anybody else with a g1 that DOEESN'T have the problem of the G1 slowing down while on battery power?

 

As far as I've seen, you're the only one with the problem that it stays slowed down. My A8js slows down, but it doesn't stay that way if I don't want it to.

 

Had I known about the A8js I would've gone with that. I like the 14in, would've been about the same size as the SZ160 I had. Only thing I see bad is it comes with a 6cell battery instead of a 8. Then again, maybe the offset of the screen size would give you about the same battery life.
And while I understand you're talking about a different model altogether, yourss give you the same 3dmark scores plugged or unplugged?

 

Yup. But my present drivers don't have powermizer and I overclock/underclock manually. Which is waht you can do. Download AtiTools and set you clocks to the standard ones (default for me is Core: 450/memory: 400).

OT:
Lol Seinfeild: "For I am Constanza, lord of all idiots!"

 

Um atitools? We have nvidia gpus