M1530 random framerate drop problem...

When playing games such as Empire Total War, BF 2142, BF 2, etc, everything will start fine, the frame rates are extremely smooth, but give it 5 minutes and I will experience about 1 minute of play where the frame rate has been cut in half. This happens instantly and then after ~1 minute cuts back to silky smooth frame rates again.

For the life of me I cannot work out what is causing the problem.

I have run memory tests, anti-virus scans, spyware scans, etc, and all have come up with nothing. There is nothing suspicious working around in the background when I play either.

The one anomoly is that when the computer is idle or doing light CAD work, the temperatures are at a reasonable level (CPU- 50DC, GPU 58DC), when loading up games however the temperature will rise dramatically. The GPU can get up to 87DC and the CPU cores to 80.

Despite this, the games run silky smooth for 70% of the time.

 

Those temps are normal.

I am going to ask the obvious and see if you have updated your video drivers.. also your BIOS. This usually fixes 95% of problems.

 

hmm ive had those problems at 87C in my geforce 8600gt, so it may be downclocking to protect itself from overheating, or it may be dieing from excessive heat exposure and heat cycles ( some users have reported this right before they get artifacts on screen and their gpu dies *sigh* )

the funny thing is , my last motherboard downclocked itself at about 86C, and this new one seems to be able to go up until about 89C, but there is this loss of overall video performance that can only be explained by a damaged GPU core...

dont know if its the same problem, but you could try cleaning the vents with compressed air, update drivers, etc ,etc before taking action and calling dell.

best of luck!

 

Problem seems to have gone simply because I picked the thing up and gave it a massive shake then blew in all the vents.

It is odd that something so trivial could cause such a strange intermittent problem.

 

hehe, yeah that usually happens, you wouldnt beleive how much dust gets into the fan and vents, mostly because its like a vacuum cleaner on you desk, or on your legs, if you like it that way

i had a problem once, in the science fair, they were blowing up corn powder with some kind of pressure chamber, and i was working a heavy 3D render on the other side, the powder actually got into the motor of my fan and started to stick in there because of all the humidity, cookie dough anyone? i had to do a massive cleaning of my fan, and i eventually removed all the dough in there.... that was a nightmare...