W3J - 3Dmark05 only 3042?!?!

As some of you know, I've recently recived my W3J back from ASUS.


When I ran 3Dmark 05, I only scored 3042 (ran it twice, using task manager to close useless programs).

I know it isn't the processor (Scored 1m 17 sec on super pi to 2M)

Anyone know why I'm scoring so low?

I checked the Catalyst control centre... and my X1600 is clocked at 446MHz core and memory...


I'm using Power 4 gear... I'm not sure which mode though... because I ended that process....

What method can I use to ensure that power management softwares are not underclocking the system?


Thank you, any help is greatly appreciated

(maybe you can't tell, but I'm kinda worried......it's 3:24am and I'm still benchmarkng/troubleshooting)

Edit: just checked, I'm using the "Super performance" mode in Power 4 gear. Forgot to mention that my copy of 3Dmark05 is the free editon... the one where you can't change the settings.

 

I would download the latest mobility cats from ati here

Then you should remove your current video drivers via the add or remove programs in the control panel, reboot your computer, cancel the detect new hardware and then install the new video drivers you downloaded. Reboot and re-run 3dmark05. You should be getting around 4200.

 

4219 here..this is with omegas though

 

Wow, I didn't know that the stock drivers were that ****ty....


I scored 3042 --> 4166 with the new drivers...


Thank you for you help.

 

Asus ships the W3 with the x1600 underclocked, to help with the thermal profile . They pretty much do this with all of their Ensemble units, for the same reason.

 

I don't think the W3 is that underclocked... the S/Z96 on the other hand... that is clocked at 450/370. Still get around 3900 in 3Dm'05. Atleast it runs cooler and uses less power that way.

 

Dont forget if you are concerned about heat and are using the ati mobility cats with the catalyst control center you can use powerplay to control your clocks. The default high performance clocks when it is plugged in is 445/445. If you switch it to balanced it drops the clock to 391/243. If you set it for optimal battery life it clocks it to 324/135. You can adjust these settings for your ac and battery profiles in the catalyst control settings. If you are concerned about heat just run it on optimal battery life at all times unless you are gaming. Then you can use ati tool to clock it up to 515/555 for gaming if you need it. By the way at 515/555 you can get around 4850 in 3dmark05.

 

honestly..as far as heat goes underclocking at least to 324/125 does almost nothing..using everest to monitor temps while i was surfing it took the same amount of time for the fan to come on as it did when it was at default clock 445/445..perhaps it does save batteries..but it really does not do anything for heat..its too bad we can't undervolt the proc below .95..i think that would make a larger difference

 

WTH!!!!!!!!! I got 2357 before and 2498 after the new drivers!!! What the heck is wrong with my machine???????????? This is a W3J with 2GB of ram. 2.0GHz

WTFFFFFFFF! I have the profile set to High Performance and all I have in msconfig is

HControl
SynTPEnh
ABLKSR
EOUWiz
BatteryLife
Ati2mdxx
ctfmon
Bluetooth Manager

 

Deus. Are you running that on battery? And what are your ATI Powerplay settings? What drivers are you using?

 

LoL... looks more like a 3dm06 score!!

 

Actually... it does. But isn't that a tad high for the X1600 for 3Dm06? Not sure... I have an underclocked X1600 in my Z96, and I haven't run 3Dm06 on it.

Deus, get back to us with answers to out questions?

 

Stupid plug was not all the way in. Ok..I get the dumb ass award for today


4219 with the new cat. drivers

 

What plug? The power plug? You mean you were running on battery, with powerplay enabled? HAHAHA! Glad to hear it's running fine!

 

Wow... the AC cord makes that much of a diff in the power profiles?!?!


Deus... you are the reason "What the Deus?" is even an expression!!

 

Mike,

When powerplay is enabled, the X1600 clocks itself WAY down to save power. This makes graphical work almost impossible, but extends battery life for normal use. I am surprised it even got 2500 with powerplay enabled. When powerplay is set to performance, or disabled, the laptop will run just as fast on battery as it does on AC.

And also... his name is Deus. Not duece. Pronounced day-oos. It means "god" in latin. Hehe. =)

 

Well aren't you clever... Do you laugh?

 

Rideo.

Hehehehehehehehe.

 

Hey guys,

The latest Catalyst drivers are 6.6? Am I correct?

 

You are talking about 3Dmark05 and not 3Dmark06, correct?

 

3DMark05 I had it running on battery so it scored lower. I got 4219 when plugged in

 

No get the 6.7's from here

 

I got 3912 in 3dmarko5 with the 3.8.252 omega drivers and powerplay turned off. I had 30 processes running and I'm pretty sure they are all necessary. I also converted my HDD to NTFS. I don't have ati tray tools or ati tools installed so I dont have it oc'd.

Any ideas to why Im not getting the 4200 like everybody else? Or does everybody else oc their cards? Thanks
Dan

 

Ok, I stopped some very uneeded services and managed to get 4211 with 05

 

EarthDan, use ATI's Catalyst Mobility drivers(6.7) instead of Omega's. You can find the download link somewhere on the forum.

 

Which ones? I'm prob. going to mess around w/ it tonight - (install Cats, ...etc but I don't want to waste a lot of time screwing around...or making mistakes)

 

I cannot remember which services I additional disabled but for msconfig all I have running is

HControl
SynTPEnh
ABLSKR
BatteryLife
ifrmwrk
EOUWiz

 

Cool...

Catalyst vs. Omega??

 

I would vote for Catalyst. They have been more recently updated, and provide pretty much identical performance. ATI drivers have not been "hacked/modded" and therefore should be more stable. It's more a general preference right now. Install whichever you like best.

 

I use Catalyst

 

So do I. I never really liked the idea of using modded drivers. Tried them once about a year ago and all they did was cause problems. I think I'll stick to official drivers. =)

 

im running the same drivers as you with at least 15 processes in the background and got those scores at 445/445 (4219 in 3dmark05)

 

But do I need that catalyst program that runs in the background gooing all the time? I found that really annoying. Or can I just install the drivers? I don't overclock but is this still a possibility with the 6.7?
And I'm assuming I have to uninstall the omegas, reboot, install the catalsyt right?
thanks so much
Dan

 

You configurations in CCC(Catalyst control center) affect performance, as expected. Try configuring the settings for performance rather than image quality. You do not need to have CCC running in the system tray. I have disabled it from boot. I only have it running when I am making changing to graphical settings.

 

hmm i may do the same..since performance is the same now..i believe thats the right order for replacing drivers..can someone confirm?

 

jterp7- do you have the refresh w3j or the original?

 

That's how I normally do it. Some people will tell you to use driver cleaners... I never have, nor even found it necessary.

 

hmm i just replaced mine with 6.7s..and after it finished installing and restarted CCC had some issues requiring a hard restart..its strange..i didn't notice it before but with the 6.7s i see the so called graininess i didn't see before..i haven't benched yet but i'll post here when i get a chance

 

so Im guessing that 4200 is possible with the refresh w3j
and around 3900 is right for the original w3j? I thought that the 1.83 to 2.0 GHz didnt make that much difference but I guess it does (at least in this test).

 

Jterp7:

What drivers EXACTLY were you using before? And are you sure there was no graininess with the previous drivers? You might just not have noticed it.

EarthDan:

Perhaps. I don't know. I get a little over 3800 with my Z96, with a T2400(1.83ghz) and that X1600 is underclocked on the memory. I would think the difference to be more like 4100 vs. 4200.

 

wowza- I just installed the catalyst 6.7 drivers only and I got 4179 in 3dmark05. Big jump from the 3900 with the omegas. Now the only problem is that I dont have the powerplay option because i didnt install the CCC.

 

My 1.83 Ghz W3j scores 4175 with the latest ati drivers in 3dmark05 so i think you are wrong earthdan, it was 39XX(something) with the orginal drivers. And thats with some 60+ processes running(have to do something about that do).

And the 3dmark score mainly depends on the gpu if you aint looking at the specific processor test.

 

Yeah, without CCC you can't change any of the settings. Some of the settings can have a big impact on performance. Most just deal with image quality and preferences though. You can use ATI tray tools instead, but I like CCC better. Although I MUST agree that CCC is coded rather poorly and takes far to long to do anything, I find that it has a better option interface than ATI TT, plus you only run it when you need to make changes.

Just a simple change of enabling triple buffering in Open GL boosted my Doom3 framerate in 1280x1024 from 30FPS to 50FPS. That is with VSync on, of course. With Vsync off, I get 50fps as well. Enabling triple buffering pretty much removes the performance cost of VSync in the case of Doom 3 and Quake 4.

 

The processor test factors into the final result. Just by popping in a 2 ghz Merom into a Z96J, a 10% finaly score increase was noted over a 2ghz Yonah. And the processor test scores were something like double for the merom over the yonah.

 

JPZ- for some reason when I first was using CCC there would always be something running in the processes-cant rember what it was called but it had to do with CCC. It bothered me that it was using up memory and constantly doing something-

-but you say you only need to run it when you need to change something (like powerplay)?

Tegis- I promise it was the omega drivers that I was getting 39xx with. I dont think I actually ran 3dmark05 with 6.5. Anyways still getting ~4200 with 6.7 drivers with no CCC.

Is CCC the only thing I can use powerplay with?
thanks
Dan

 

You can use powerplay with ATI TT.

You can disable CCC from startup. The application is CLI.exe. If you want more info on how to disable it from startup, just ask. Once disabled from startup, you just have to rightclick desktop and click CCC. When you are donw making chances, right click the tray icon and click exit. It won't startup automatically when you start your computer, but the changes in your settings will be in effect. I only run CCC when I want to chance powerplay settings(if I go from coding to gaming on battery and need to disable powerplay, for instance) or if I want to mess with mipmapping or something.

 

oh ok that sounds easy enough- before for some reason, once I had started cli.exe it kept going in the processes even after I had turned it off from the tray icon. Thats part of the reason why I didnt like it. I'll give it another go then. Thanks for your help and reassurance JPZ.
Dan

edit: just installed CCC but with no auto startup. checked programs running and there were 35. ran CCC. closed CCC. Checked prgrams running and there were 37- CLI.exe is still running (twice). I think I will have to uninstall cuz I cant stand that CLI

 

JPZ- would you mind telling me how to set the powerplay settings with ATI tray tools. thanks so much
Dan

 

Oh great. I don't remember. I never use ATI TT. I just used it for 5 minutes the other day because of the generic FPS counter. Needed to test a program I've been writing. Just look around. It shouldn't be that hard to find.

How did you disable CLI from startup? msconfig? Does it really matter if it is running in the background after you open it up to make changes?

 

I disabled it with msconfig. It does kinda matter if it runs in the background because before when I was using it, it seemed to use up a lot of resources. It seems like CCC is so bulky whereas ATI tray tools is nice and tidy. It also loads up much more quickly. I really only want to have the 6.7 drivers and powerplay but powerplay only seems available with CCC or omega (omegas are slower tho). It also seems that after I installed Ati tray tools that my card is now seriously underclocked. I tried fiddling around but powerplay doesnt appear to be there. Anyone else know whats goin on? thanks
Dan