650M Slow Performance Unplugged?

Hey all -- just received my HP dv6t-7000 which includes a 650M and I have a quick performance question. When I'm playing Diablo 3 (using v-sync in this case to easily demonstrate the issue), my FPS will drop below 60 once I unplug my laptop. I'm basically looking for a way to override this throttling issue which must be happening to save battery life when using a discrete GPU unplugged.

Any suggestions are appreciated! I'm assuming I somehow need access to advanced settings...I really hope it's not related to the laptop bios.

Couple things I've already checked:

1. It's not switching to the HD 4000 (can it even do that in-game?). I've force the HD 4000 and the performance is much worse than the current hit I'm experiencing.

2. My profile is set to "High Performance" and I don't see any option to control the 650M in there anyways (though I can control the HD 4000).

3. It's not a heat issue, this will happen each and every time when unplugging/plugging in.

4. I've tried changing the "power management" setting in the Nvidia control panel -- didn't help.

5. The actual FPS drop is from 66 to 34 FPS without v-sync.

 

The gpu automatically throttles down when on battery in order to save battery life.
I think its possible to overcome the issue, but I hadn't looked for a solution myself as I never needed it.

 

It's possible that the battery has a limit on the rate that it can safely discharge.

 

Thats how all notebooks work. You can`t get full clocks with battery no matter what you do.

Put it this way:
680M: 1344 shaders @ 135MHz, GDDR5 @ 324MHz = 1.5 hour
650M: 384 shaders @ 850MHz, GDDR5 @ 900MHz = ???

 

Not true. I can run my DV6z with 6750m at full speed as well as my NP6110 with 650m at full speed on battery. I don't because it will drain the battery way too fast. But sometimes there are limits imposed due to hardware restrictions from the battery drain rate as you stated.

 

Ok thats new for me, since I`ve never heard anyone obtain full speed on battery. Maybe I just come across the ones with restrictions.

Have you tested out how long time it takes to drain out the battery with NP6110?

 

So I'm SOL, huh? Hardware/battery restricted? Not a huge deal, I just feel like leaving a laptop plugged in all of the time kills the battery faster due to heat and constant charging.

 

You can take the battery out and still use the laptop while it's plugged into an outlet.

 

Not yet, but I did run it on battery for a little while and was able to play BF3 for about 30 minutes, of course after some fussing with settings, and limited FPS to 30 so it wouldn't push the GPU too hard, and by estimation could have played on battery for just under 2 hours. I'll mess with that later.

No it will not. Draining the battery is what kills the battery, although that is its job. And it will only be charging after it has been discharged. It doesn't take on a constant charge once it's full. It charges to 100% then most laptops allow down to 99, 98, 97 or even 95% before it charges again which can take weeks to drop to that level if it's plugged in all the time. Unless the laptop is very poorly designed, any heat generated from the machine won't harm it.

 

I think there is a limit to the power the battery can provided which prevents the GPU from running as fast as when it is plugged in.

@HTWingnut, if you have to change the settings and reduce FPS to play, then it sounds like it isn't running at 'full speed', or did you change the settings just to preserve battery life?

 

I changed settings to preserve battery life is all. At full throttle it would consume ~70-75W for intense gaming which would zap the battery in ~ 45 minutes with my 62WHr battery. I can manage to get it to consume ~35W on BF3 if I fix CPU @ 1200MHz, reduce GPU and vRAM clocks by 100MHz or so, and limit the FPS to 30 or 35. I'll have to play at lower settings but it works. I wouldn't recommend doing it often though because draining your battery that rapidly can cause it to lose maximum capacity rather quickly.

 

Full clocks, gaming, without FPS limiter = about 2 hours? I don`t believe you

EDIT: I read it wrong. Try without FPS limiter. Thats cheating

 

45 minutes at full power... maybe 1:45 to 1:50 minutes if I limit FPS and downclock a bit. But just the point is that it is possible on certain laptops, many however do downclock. Also with AMD cards I think that powermizer or something like that can be disabled to allow you to run full speed. I don't remember from my DV6z which is out of commission atm otherwise I'd check.

If you can also disable speed step your CPU should be able to run full throttle too. HP's do however impose a lot of limits on their laptops on battery.

 

45 minutes. Yeah thats sounds very plausible.

Wonder how long it would take the 680M on full clocks

 

I'm not about ready to try. I don't care for a battery meltdown, lol. Considering the system can run 150W for gaming, an 85WHr battery, you'll get all of 30 minutes if you're lucky. Although I may try to limit clocks and cap fps and see what I can do.