525m throttled down? -shrugs-

Hey guys, I was just wondering if this was normal..I have a laptop with a 525m card on it and I checked it out before buying at notebookcheck to see the specs at what not. Seemed really decent for the casual gaming I do.

Heres the 525m link site - NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Check over the specs of that for a few seconds. The core clock is 600 and the shader is 1200.

Now heres the physical proof of CPU-Z telling me what I have.






Now either notebookcheck is becoming highly unreliable or CPU-Z is lying to me.

I previously owned an m11x (my username, duhh lol) and heres the 335m speeds.




yeah i know two different cards and what not and varying number of cores and their structures (fermi relation with the 525m) but the speeds are comparable to that of the 335m.


TL;DR (dont know why it is) - Why are the speeds of my 525m so slow?

 

Your GPU downclocks when not at load to save power.

 

Check with GPU-Z and see what the Default Clocks are. If they read what they should, then what you are experiencing now is just throttling under power saving. The throttle ends when you start running a game or something with high GPU load.

 

Yes I know, I know how all that stuff works, but these are supposed to be the max clocks for using a 3D application...


@star forge

I ran the CPU-Z while under BF3 with my power chord attached...I mean what more does it take to put it to max?

But ill try GPU-Z and post whats up.

 

And GPU-Z posted what CPU-Z had but with more detail...I dont get it >_>

Its on high performance setting w/ power chord attached

I dont get why its being throttled down. Edit - this is on normal tasking (chrome with like 30 tabs, word doc, etc )
Im going to run BF3 and see whats up with a GPU-Z pic

 

Yuppppp still the same results!

High performance setting
power chord attached

I mean whats there to throttle about...can anyone with a 525m post their gpu-z pics or cpu-z

I really wanna know if im the only one with this >_<

edit- could it be that the bios prevents it from going higher? the max voltage i get is 0.90

 

Edit - Nevermind.

 

I have a GT 525M and The normal clocks should be:

600MHz - Core
1200MHz - Shader
900MHz - Memory

Maybe your card is factory downclocked? You can use MSI Afterburner if you want to "OC" it to stock clocks, anyway, here is a screenshot of my GPU-Z:

And here is the accurate? clocks :

 

Thank you sinister

Yeah thats what Im thinking but I have no idea why Samsung would do that. This is a decent video card, no reason to make it into the 300 series for graphics...

Would MSI afterburner void warranty or such things? Thats what im worried about.

Also would the factory downclock be rid of through a bios update (going to check all updates and see if i missed any)

edit: wait your GPU codename is different from mine

 

this is mine when i turned on dragon age ii

 

So its only the rc512 that got the underclocked graphics -_______- lol..

Powerful computer and they nerf the graphics card which is already decent at stock.

I talked to samsung rep and he was stumped that it was underclocked. He thinks samsung did that just to conserve on heat and power.

full throttle heat UNDERCLOCKED = 70 Celsius

I asked him if "overclocking" back to stock settings would void the warranty but he says he cant find anything about it in the policy; better safe than sorry.

125mhz decrease on core is a pretty big step backwards as well as 250mhz on shader

 

Its the same with Toshiba L745 with GT525M, underclocked to 475MHz instead of 600MHz.

 

Im just trying to figure out if its a hardware limitation or something to do with a bios.

Anywho for those with Rc512-s02. They dont have the updates for it on the samsung website; hell they even took the item down because of the intel recall. So I cant do anything with chipset/bios updates or anything

-shrugs- We have every right to "overclock" the cards back to stock right?

 

I wouldn't worry about the warranty, If you have got to give your laptop, revert to stock clocks and uninstall Afterburner. Simple as that If you're planning to oc to stock clocks, I don't see a problem with that; It is after all the clocks decided by the manufacture.

 

Exactly! But I was thinking wouldnt that leave burn marks or something related of the sort; worst case scenerio i fry my graphics trying to get it to stock speeds, cant they physically check the gpu?

The areas that have no information on your GPU-Z any way you can find those out? I wanna compare such specs

thanks in advance

edit: I figure if nothing can be done (I am getting this laptop replaced with the updated Intel Chipsets (faulty sandybridge inside this atm) I might just trade for an xps 15

 

have never ever heard of burn marks, worst thing that happened to me was a shutdown or a driver crash, easily fixed by lowering clocks.

Anyway, I doubt you would run into problems at 600MHz.

EDIT: My card can do DX 11 but I'm not so sure about the pixel fillrate and the others. I don't know why they aren't filled... but oh well...

 

Gotcha thanks dude(ette)!

Well Im going to have a nice talk with samsung rep concerning the gpu and ask about the underclocked.

 

I am going to keep following
im interested in this
(i dont game i dont have the attention span) however if i ever did want to use the full potential, i want to know how to unlock my gpu. theres no reason to have a discrete gpu and have it downran to match hd 3000. thats just retarded samsung. Love your products but fix your stuff samsung!

 

explain,
you also have a rc512-s02
how are you having them replace it? im very interested. i got shoved off when i talked to there customer service.

 

He's replacing it because of the faulty motherboard thats in his/her laptop.

 

i have the SAMElaptop with the same motherboard issue, however samsung told me screw off. =\

 

2/3 of the samsung reps (1 of them being online) told me that Im fine, its the working model

the 3rd one believed me and said he will take care of it.

then i realized he never took my order and I never recieved a call, so I talked to a different rep and he made sure that Im getting the fixed chipset.


but back to the 525m 0_0 Im going to try the afterburner or Nvidia System Tools to tweak it back to stock after I get my replacement.

edit: sorrow I think you just dealt with bad reps (unlucky) all the reps were nice to me but none of them were aware of the intel recall, except the 3rd and 4th. The 4th rep was just fixing a small mistake the 3rd rep made.

But yeah, once the replacement comes in, ill try the afterburner and post temp pics of before and after. Im told that alot of laptops underclock their graphics -_- to meet their heat and battery lifespans.

I mean if I want battery Ill just disable a bunch of options and undervolt some things, but if I want power...i dont want the company to underclock it D:

 

Hey are these temperatures alright for laptop gaming? Much appreciated. BF3 has noticable improvements with the core clocks "overclocked" to standard speeds.

Edit- those arent the i7 speeds, it only lowered after I minimized BF3
Edit 2 - BF3 Beta was the ultimate stress test for my gpu..it was at 99% the entire time with Auto settings (texture high, everything else medium but shadows (low) and some other stuff 4x aliasing and SOAO or some crap.

 

80's are fine. Repaste to get them lower, MX-4/TX-4 are good pastes.

 

So are AS5 and IC7. Either way you are good to go at this rate.

 

Do I need to get them repasted like soon 0_0, i mean you said theyre fine.

Whats like "ok-I-better-get-some-thermal-paste-up-in-here" kinda temperature zones?

cpu = 90 or higher?
gpu = 80 or higher?

also, since its at stock speeds now, am I to expect shorter life span now?

 

PM me later, after you have yours recalled/swapped out, going to be using you as a reference if they give me alot of crap, sreiously. MY FRIEND HAD THE SAME LAPTOP SAME ISSUE AND TEHY ACKNOWLEDGED HIM, YOU CANNOT DENY ME.

dead serious, once yours all 100% done, let me know your name etc, and im going to be use you as reference to your case so they will fix mine to if thats alright with you.

i mean, the chic i had, literally hung up on me, never had that happen before, such a ..

 

Just draw up articles from the internet referencing the recall, take pictures of the programs depicting your revision, bring up the article saying the revised chipset etc etc. If your still under warranty, samsung should be able to do it. Keep arguing and you will reach higher tiers with priority support.

and about the referencing, Im going to be blunt.

I am paranoid with people knowing who I am on the internet. Just keep calling and reason with them like I did. If theres one thing I learned from tech support from companies is that, they hate their job. So if you give them attitude they will give you crap service. Just be nice with them and argue your point.

With me, I make em laugh and/or sympathize with their 24/7 job. The 3rd and 4th guys (apparently theyre friends) after just talking to them about my problem (chipset and gpu) wished me good luck and said hopefully we'll meet in BF3.

 

D;
when i referenced programs/internet resources they told me that is not a validity of validating a problem with there computers and it wasnt in there system for recall so its not an issue they will address.
oh well.

if i dont game, do you think i should just forget it?.
i literally dont play games, all i do is browse/chat/facebook. n movies.

 

Id just say keep calling; if you find the exact manufactored date of your laptop and it is before they started shipping the new chipset, bring that up. They will have your exact manufactored date if you call.


Back on topic: Im loving the "stock" 525m.

Thank you so much guys for all your help!

 

when was yours made again? mine was manufacturered in april.

 

Sorrow you have the updated chipset. Lmao...

Mine was manufactored in febuary. Lol samsung was right dude, you have it fixed. February was the beginning of the shipping and by April all laptops had it implemented.

 

Yes. Recall initiated Jan 31st 2011. "Fixed" laptops began shipping in March (I think HP and Dell might have been sooner; late Feb, don't exactly remember )

 

Yeah basically anything before April has a chance of faulty chipset.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but those temps are fine right? high 80s is nothing to worry about for the long run?

Thanks.

 

My laptop CPU regularly gets into the low-mid 80s when gaming for hours at a time. However, I'm using stock thermal paste; no overlocking.
In my opinion, the Sandy Bridge CPUs run "hotter" than the previous generation; and thus your temperatures are within the expected norm. Again, imo.


Good luck

 

Both of them 90 or higher is not good imo some ppl will say it is fine. I personally would change my paste where you are at just because I would want it to be cooler(optimal is in the 70's or lower), but if it is not causing any issues it's not a problem. Sometimes My GPU's will hit in the low 80's under heavy heavy load, but it is not a big deal at this point. because I idle low and most games run under 80's. your temps are fine, but if you wanted to say OC the 525m past stock you would need to change paste probably.

EDIT: I also agree that it seems the Sandies do run hotter than prev Core i gen. @ OP I think you are fine as long as you have no throttling and everything is running fine I would just not worry about it, but Lower temps = Longer life.

 

Gotcha thanks a bunch guys!

I dont plan on overclocking my i7; imo its already super powerful for my tasks (was doing fine coming from a 1.6ghz C2D UlV) but yeah I think opening my laptop and applying AS5 will void warranty or some crap ya know?

Honestly the scariest things to me about laptops is the risk of voiding their warranties.

Im just glad I can return my 525m card to stock speeds; I have 2 profiles; stock speed and regular (475mhz for the less intensive games).

Im confused by what you meant by throttling; as in pushing it to its limit and beyond? In the computer world Ive only known that throttling = bad (in terms of brute force)

But thank you guys for your responses; +1 on rep to both! =]


edit- BF3 Beta really pushed my computer, the other game I tested was Dragon Nest (dont hate me for playing korean mmo's, this is fun T_T (but im quitting for my courses at uni =D)

and the temps were within Bf3 range but slightlyyyy lower; max gpu was like 73-75 and cpu stayed around the same maybe 1-3 degrees cooler.

I have no experience with sandybridge in the past, so to me this seems all so high. My m11x had superb cooling. cpu was (even though it was weak) was max around 55-60 and gpu (335m, somewhat normal..ish) was max 60-65.

so in my perspective I got scared at these readings 0-0

 

I meat like Thermal limit Throttling which for my laptop is around 95'c + on my CPU in my R2, but You should be fine if you ever do start noticing this throttling( framerates in games will constantly dip and go up then dip and go back up) Verify it is thermal throttling by always having a monitoring program running like HWINFO32/64 and if it is thermal throttling. Call tech support if their are warranty concerns or repaste if no issues with the warranty.

 

Gotcha, and jesus christ 95c >_> you overclock while in crossfire? Thats madness yo O_O''

I dont think ill ever overclock my i7 or 525m only under one condition: reapply thermal paste. So those temperatures that I posted with the stress test of BF3 should be the max Ill ever see

I eddited my previous post that included another game, Dragon Nest a less intensive game than Bf3 ( DN runs max settings at 50-60fps) and its only like 3-5 degrees Celsius cooler on gpu and 1-3 less on cpu.

I mean I come from an m11x R1 (awesome cooling power) as my first laptop, then jumped to this badboy. Those spikes in temp scared me haha

 

Yah I am currently OC on both GPU's at 850/1200

It is a big difference from an AW. Lol, maybe that is why I think 80+ is high.

 

That.Is.Ridiculous. I mean holy **** lmao. That gpu-z is factoring both cards at once right?

And yeah it really is a big difference from AW, I honestly think after having this samsung laptop (dont get me wrong, I love this thing <333 and my m11x that I had) that AW alot of the money is going just into the chassis and cooling lol.

Its ridiculous how much power you can get off a really cooled (well ventilated?) laptop.

 

That is per each card so everything there x2(ROPs, shader, P. Fill rate, T. Fill rate, Memory Bandwidth) Not the clocks though. Yah, The chassis and cooling are amazing on AW's. I love my R2 and the modding community here @ NBR is awesome so I can get more life outta it by upgrading to 6970's/6990's. This is my First Alienware as well.

 

sorry for caps but...PER CARD >_________________________>?!?!?!??!!?

Holy ********* lmao

I woulda kept my m11x r1 (my first alienware as well) if there was room to mod it performance wise (besides pin mod for voltage increase) What mods are you referring to, switching graphics cards or are there more 0_0

I wish I could mod my rc512. I think during my downtime im going to try what an m11x owner did (his work was impeccable, look through the subsection and find the heatsink mod) where he implemented his own heatsink that cooled it under full load i think by 10 degrees C.

 

This is the rc512 gameplay with Auto settings (shown ingame )

the MAX temps for i7 were high 80s (87-89) with the ultimate cap at 91 on 1 core

the max temps on the 525m was consistently at 79-80 with the ultimate cap at 82

this was with roughly 30-45mins of play (5min video)

Battlefield 3 Samsung Rc512 - YouTube

edit- sorry for quality, uncompressed = 1.1gb lol. compressed = 200mb

 

I decided to record some gameplay vids of Dragon Nest. underclocks going in, decided right before recording to overclock to stock clocks, and then record.

was good for about halfway through the stage run, when I got a BSOD telling me my graphics adapter was blah blah and that the typical restart and fix hardware changes thing.

It was at nvidia stock clocks, and i was running these clocks on BF3 which are more intensive (by ALOT) than DN and it ran fine without any problems. Could it be because I OC'd during the game?

edit - last recorded temp right before crash was 82 celsius; im worried the bsod is a sign that I might damage the gpu

 

so basically, our pcs suck?

il just stick to facebook and taking notes in class. lol god im such a waste of a quad core computer. i literally need nothing.

 

I think that BSOD was a fluke (most likely for OC during a game) cause I just ran that and recorded a 5min battle (4.4gb file jeeez) and it was fine.

max cpu = 85-87 on all cores
max gpu = 76