Very Strange Problems with C90

Ok first off I don't want to make this bigger than it is. I love my laptop very much, I have just been having some very stange things happen in the last few days.

Firstly either when I put the laptop into standby or if it goes in by it's self, I cannot get it out of that state, Eventually it will turn off, and when I resume windows I see colored pattern on the screen and can't do anything. I am using the newest bios BTW (although it was doing the same with the old bios).

Secondly, during the past 2 day I have noticed my laptop performance has been much slower than before, so yesterday I ran 3dmark06 and got a score of 1804! That's almost half the score of stock. I have no idea why this is occurring.

Lastly I am finding that even in "Overclock" mode the fans are not ramping up as fast as they used to, not sure if this has something to do with the performance decrease or not. Do you know of any way I can manually control the speed of the exhaust fans?

Anyone ever had similar problems?

EDIT: The issue has been resolved with a clean install of Vista. I'm still not sure exactly what went wrong but everything is back to normal now.

 

strange indeed, have you installed alot of stuff recently and noticed it to happen after? My only guess is that new software has done something or that the registry got corrupted.

I think my fans do seem abit more calm now myself but thats probably because I do not use game mode anymore for anything. It was really only good for benchmarks and my review, for any kind of day to day use its pretty pointless, atleast with a e6700 it is.

 

I have been installing a lot of programs but none that should effect the performance.

 

My guess is that it could be the GPU overheating. Try running some Temp programs and post them so we can compare.

 

About the 3dmark score I would say to make sure the turbo gear is not in power svaing mode because the turbogear automatically underclocks the gpu when you do. Have you cleaned the registry and managed startup programs and such? The registry issues are often underrated by the forum people, fixing the registry often fixes many problems.

 

When it's idle the GPU runs around 75 degrees Celsius, and when I was running 3dmark it went up to around 82.

When idle the CPU runs about 55 and goes to about 65 when running a game/overclocked.

I will try opening the laptop tonight to make sure the cooling pipes are connected properly.

I was actually in "Overclock" mode when I got that score.

I have tried to keep the startup programs to a minimum, letting only the essentials start automatically. I'm not sure what you mean about cleaning the registry though.

 

Ok I changed my display drivers, but am still getting horrible performance.

It's driving me insane. How can I test to see if my GPU is defective. I have never
heard of someone getting half of their stock performance.

 

From the sound of it-hopefully its just a corrupt driver essential file. *shrugs* Just be sure to fully clean out the current driver, and install the new carefully... If you remembered to utterly clean it out before(driver cleaner... in safe mode if i recall right) and its still doing this... ah... good luck... Also, try as default of drivers as possible-ones you know worked.

Good luck-if that doesnt work-well-ugh. If you already remembered to DC it out before-sorry to resuggest it ^.^''

 

Where did you buy the laptop from?

I have a bad feeling in my stomach

 

Ya I didn't do the driver cleaner in safe mode thing, I'll look into that. As a very last resort I could reinstall windows. I just really dont want to do that since I have instaled quite a few programs and have set it up the way I like it. I'll try to "totaly" remove the drivers and see if that works first, thanks.

 

Didnt want to start a new thread. BUt starting today fear combat has been crashing on me. It will turn to a greenish tinge screen and then the whole computer will freeze up. Really annoying. I did not do any major changes lately.

 

Depending on what driver your using, you will have to disable powermizer in the nvidia control panel......that MAY be it...ALSO, make sure under 3d settings you dont have it on "quality" or have antialising on or anisotrophic filtering.

 

Also, make sure if you have any gpu overclocking programs, set your gpu back to factory clocks in the settings.

 

Thanks for the advice guys I will try that tonight.

Swoley2k, I did remember seeing the setting in the nvidia control pannel set to "quality". What should I set it to?

I have another question. Does anyone know if Turbo gear in powersave mode underclocks the GPU, because I am getting more of less the same score in powersave mode and the standard mode. So if the GPU should be underclocking, maybe my GPU be running in powersave mode all the time?

EDIT: On the bright side I think I hold the record for the lowest 3dmark06 score on a C90 =P

 

Performance.

No, it does not underclock the GPU, as far as I know.

 

Yes power-save mode does underclock the gpu. When I entered my c90 into power saving it underclocked my gpu.

 

Do you know by how much? is it anywhere near half? Because I was running Riva Tuner and my clocks were constant, and I mean EXACTLY constant, even the CPU would fluctuate slightly, which leads me to believe the readings are not accurate.

And @ clockfort I will try to set it to that tonight and see if that helps.

 

It drops the speeds into the 200 area for the Gpu. When mine gets back today Ill see what ntune says

 

Im 99% sure your proglem is with the gpu being underclocked. I recommend running the driver cd install program and let it copy over the drivers already on there. Also, check in the nvidia control panel to disable powermizer.

 

Sounds good, I'll give it a shot when I get home from work (4h).

 

IN power saving mode my gpu clocks down to 275 on the core and 200 on the memory.

 

Ok so I installed the drivers from the C90 CD, and changed the setting to "performance", but I am still getting the same thing (about 10 fps in the first scene with all of the soldiers (3dmark06).

I just ran riva tuner and here are my settings in standard mode, with the stock drivers, nothing overclocked.

Core clock\ROP domain, MHz 297.00 (constant)
Core clock/shader domain, MHz 594.00 (constant)
Memory clock, MHz 199.80 (constant)
CPU clock MHz 2300.00 - 2450.00

And with the GPU overclocked to 500/420 the cores are the same, which makes no sense. I'm really thinking that riva tuner's GPU display is not accurate.


I'm not sure what else I can do... besides doing a full OS wipe and starting over. Maybe I can try installing those Vista beta hotfixes.

 

try ntune.

 

I installed ntune and and even tried to overclock, but the strange thing is that there is no difference to the fps no matter how high I "overclock" it, either in that program or in Riva Tuner. It seems like the hardware is underclocking and no software can change that.

I am going to try to install xp on a partition now. That will at least let me know if this is a hardware problem, or possible something with the regestry being corrupted.

 

Reinstall windows and run the install all from the driver cd.

 

The color pattern look like this http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/kianshu2002/DSC01097.jpg ??

 

^ That looks similar to what happens to my screen when the comp freezes up during gaming.

 

according to other user in this forum he said is window update problem
i guess this is BSOD for window vista

 

No, it looks more like a solid color with slightly lighter patches.
If it happens again I will try to remember to take a pic of it.

Ya that really is the only way to know for sure if it's a hardware problem or not. I'll do that tonight *fingers crossed*

 

Well I have great news, reinstalling vista did the trick! I get just under 3k again in 3dmark06 and the fans run MUCH stronger in overclock mode (which is a good thing).

Thanks guys for the help.

 

If in doubt do a clean install, lol congrats elithx.

 

That's good news!

 

I'm happy for you, man!

 

The weird thing is that certain games (ie. CS:S) were still getting great fps (100+ all full settings), while others (ie. DiRT, Lost Planet), were crawling. I guess certain games are just not as GPU dependent as others.

As soon as I get home today I'll be installing all my games again!