Windows 7: 9800m GS Clocks and Bus Speed

Hello all,

My G50 (in sig) is running Windows 7 and doesn't get more than an hour of battery life most days, and I found two problems but don't know how to fix it:

-ForceWare clocks keep jumping all over the place during normal usage, ranging from the stock 169/338/100 to 3D clocks and everything inbetween.

-The PCIe x16 bus is constantly running at x16 speed. In Vista they would jump down to 1x when idling.

I have tried updating to the latest 190.xx series beta driver for notebooks on nVidia's CUDA website, but that just made my clocks stick at 3D settings all the time. I know this notebook supposed to be isn't one for portability, but I mean come on...

Thanks,
Duct Tape Dude

 

The Core/Shader/Memory clocks naturally jump from 2D/Throttle/3D but will only jump to Extra when truly needed (starting a game, etc.) I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

As for the PCIe bus, what program are you using to read it's current speed? GPU-Z v0.3.5 currently reads my PCIe speed @ 1x @ Windows 7 desktop.

 

Wow an hour huh? Thats crazy.

Mine gets about 3 hours with the stock battery. Its interesting how all these notebooks manage there power.

With 7, are you seeing increased battery life over Vista?

 

By 3D clocks I mean Extra. It's running at GTS Speeds and the PCIe is at 16x. I'm using Everest and GPU-Z, they both report the same results. The Forceware clocks literally jump all over the place, one moment it's 169/338/100 and the next it's 600/1500/800 and everything inbetween.

Well it's usually about 2 hours on my 6-cell (52.8Whr) on Balanced if everything's working right. Vista performed the same, though 7 seems to add another 10-20 minutes if I'm doing nothing intensive (idle power consumption is much lower). But these clock speeds are killing any gains I'd normally get.


I just flashed my Extra clocks down to 1.07V (instead of 1.11V) and my idle voltage to 0.8V. It only adds like 5 minutes to the battery life--when my clocks are behaving.

 

Don't know what to tell you, my clocks jump just as much as yours do (when not totally idle), so I think it's totally normal. As for battery life, 2 hours sounds just about right for a 6-cell, my X5 came with a 9-cell and I can usually squeeze a little over 3 hours out of it with the right settings. Balanced isn't the best setting to use to conserve battery power.

Have you tried to undervolt your CPU yet? You might be able to squeeze some more time off that 6-cell.

 

That's encouaging to hear-- are you running Win7?

2 hours is what I got in Vista, but what I'm saying is something in 7 messes with my GPU clocks half the time for some reason and that's what gives me only 1 hour of battery life. The clocks never jumped around in Vista. I'm wondering whether it's drivers or what...

I do get 2 hours on a fresh restart most of the time.

I haven't undervolted since my multiplier is 8.5x and I really didn't know what I was doing lol
(Of course here I am undervolting my GPU with custom voltages and clocks...)

Is there like a GPU task manager or some kind of program to force a certain ForceWare level?

 

Running W7 x64 RTM 7600, I can 7zip all the drivers that I used for my system for you and upload them somewhere if you'd like.

As for undervolting, I'm using CrystalCPUID. Takes a while to find the lowest stable voltage; but once you find it, it's cake.

No GPU task manager that I know of, but there is a Powermizer switch somewhere, you might try that. You can turn Powermizer on and off when you want to with it. Word of caution though, turning it off with set your GPU to a constant Extra clocks and not downclock even at idle. You might want to try turning powermizer off, then back on (remember to reboot in between off and on).

 

Same version as mine, I have Professional straight from MSDN-AA. My drivers are the same exact ones I used in Vista x64, so if you have those it should be the same. If anything this would be a power settings, chipset or GPU driver issue, and I'm sure I have the latest chipset version. Forceware 190.xx made my powermizer function turn off (Extra clocks all the time).

I've found that if I'm doing things that aren't too intensive (web browsing, etc), the clocks do stay down and the only problem is the PCIe bus is stuck on x16--which is a smaller problem than originally.
...I wonder if it has to do with the GPU rendering the Aero interface?

I'll look into that some more... I tinkered with that program a bit before. Only thing is I'd like to keep my OC of 2.71 GHz available so I probably won't UV too far. I had good enough battery life without any UVing.

Hmm I think that would amplify the problem-- it's not that Powermizer doesn't work, it's that it keeps switching clockspeeds on me.

Thanks for the replies, it's been encouraging at the very least!

 

Try this, hit the windows key + R and type in regedit.

Then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{**a series of numbers that are different**}\0000\PerfLevelSrc

double click it and type in 3333. Close it and then restart your computer. This is the default setting it should be set to for powermizer to function properly. If it is already set, to this don't change anything.

 

Aero, maybe. Heck W7 is still a new born OS. We'll just have to wait for updates that bring in some performance enhancements.

If you installed 190.xx (it should default to powermizer off=AC, on=battery) with a modified inf, you could use the powermizer switch to fix the static Extra clocks.

As for undervolting your CPU, just OC before testing undervolts. That way you get your most stable undervolt for your highest stable OC (it's what I did). The P7450 that came with my X5 runs a factory 1.250V @2.13GHz, and stayed constant when OC'ed via direct console to 2.3GHz; but now I OC to 2.4GHz with a 0.975V undervolt (my ram limits me going any higher). In my opinion, that undervolt is well worth the hassle of testing stability for hours on end.

 

404: Key not found I opened regedit and looked for the key, then searched for it and didn't find it...
I don't think it's a powermizer problem though since the clocks do go down, they just don't stay down. I think 7's Aero is the problem-- see below. Thanks so much for the input, though!

Aero definitely! I switched the scheme to Windows 7 Basic and POOF the problem is gone! You're definitely right. It's probably not holding back on its 3D settings as well as it did in Vista.

I didn't catch that part where it was Powermizer off on AC and on on DC power. Maybe I'll try those drivers again sometime.

Hmm I think I'll give this another whirl. Squeak an extra few minutes of battery life out, and I can always revert it to stock voltages when gaming since I'll be plugged in anyway.



Thanks so much guys, especially ZeroBarrier, you've been great.

 

I have one more suggestion, ditch the 190.xx drivers with the modded inf. I've read only negative experiences with them on mobile platforms, I recommend you stick to the 186.82 WHQL (for mobile platform). You can find a link to them at the laptopvideo2go forums, X64 Here and X86 Here.

I'm currently using them myself and they work flawlessly, my clocks jump much less than with the previous 186.81 WHQL from nVidia's site. Just one thing that bugs me, I can't resume from sleep. I get a black screen where I have to hard reset my laptop when I try to resume from sleep, lights come on, HDD spins and then nothing else, totally unresponsive (hibernate works perfect though). I guess it's fine, I don't use sleep very often for it to matter too much, but it still bugs me (I like when things work perfectly, lol).

One last word of advice, CrystalCPUID didn't read the correct voltages of my CPU (CrystalCPUID read 1.038V and 1.087V but Everest and CPU-Z read 0.925 and 0.975), so be careful about that. Do small increments while running IntelBurn Test or Orthos (highly recommend IntelBurn Test) until you get an error or BSOD and remember that number. Once you get back into windows try one or two steps above that voltage and test for stability for at least 15 min. to half an hour.

Post your results here. I'd love to see your numbers once you hit that sweet spot.