8600gt annoying downclocks

ever since i tried the 175.70 and 175.80 i have been experiencing annoying downclocks when i play games
then i decided to go back to 174.78, but the problem is still there!! WHAT THE ****!

i have no idea what is going on so if someone is experiencing the same prob or has a solution, feel free to tell me

 

Yeh that happened to me too, nevertheless ive discovered a way to fix it and its working fine for me so far. Im OCed to 640/875 with no downclocks.

Basically go to BIOS --> performance options --> look for speed step--> turn off

The description will say that enabling speed step improves performance, but i found that while gaming it actually increase heat and cause GPU instability.

Try it, I hope it works for you.

If you want to push it a step further, get foreware 174.31 which runs cooler than other drivers.

 

i have no idea how to go to BIOS to do that. mind explaining it to me ?

 

Yeh just restart your comp and press F12, try F2 if F12 doesnt work. Think about putting up your laptop info in your signature by editing user cp. It'll help other plp help you.

 

yea i just went into the MULTIBOOT menu by pressing F12 upon restart ( i dunno if thats bios) and i couldnt find the PERFORMANCE OPTIONS

==

the tabs on the top are INFO, MAIN, SECURITY, and some other thing.

 

Downclocking is a sign of overheating most of the time.
Check your temps with HWMonitor and/or Ati tool and see at what temp the downclocking occurs.

 

I agree 100%. I've never heard of Speedstep downclocking a GPU. A GPU downclocking itself is almost always due to overheating. Also, with some Dell models, turning off Speedstep actually sets your CPU in powersaving mode 100% of the time.

 

Yes, without speed step your CPU operates at 50% voltage and power, which brings down heat significantly. Since GPU and CPU all share that one laptop compartment, having lower CPU temps allow youto OC to higher clocks which actually increases performance overall.

In 3d mark, my stable OC score after disabling speed step went from 550/850 to 645/875. Game performance actually increased noticeably despite lower cpu core. I say test it out give it a try if downclocking is bothering your gaming.

 

You have it backwards. Disabling speed step runs your frequency at its max default frequency all the time. What this does is trigger the fans more or at a higher RPM thus keeping your gpu cooler. What happens is some games barely use the cpu so the fans go into a lower state while the gpu is still heating up, then it eventually crashes.

With speedstep enabled it lowers its frequency and vcore sometimes to match the needs thus saving power and lowering heat. Often the cpu temp controls the fans so with speedstep enabled it has a higher chance of overheating in non-cpu intensive games.

 

I see, makes sense. Theres potential for tweaking there. So if speed step is disabled, but you use rightmark cpu utility to force P-state transition 11x so you can run at max processor speed, does it offset disabling speed step?

And also it seems that you can bypass disabling speed step if you can set cpu fan to run at max all the time.. is there a way to do this?

 

dude i am almost 80% sure that its not heat, because i played gears of war at 93 to 95 and nothing happens. I think it has something to do with poweroptimizer in the 175.xx and 177.xx. However, i disabled poweroptmizer upon install... but the same thing still happens....

i will run some games and monitor the temps with different apps

 

Not true on some Dell's. I know it sounds weird, but it's true. It even warns you when you disable it in the bios that your CPU will not throttle up to full speed if disabled. My latest Dell Vostro is my only system where Speedstep works like this.

 

If you need to downclock your CPU to keep your GPU from downclocking, you have some issues that need to be corrected. You shouldn't have to downclock your CPU just to keep your GPU up to speed. I still suspect heat, but as badadee suggested, you could try a different driver such as Dell's 174.31. I have no such issues with it.

 

I still haven't seen the OP mention temps, but my money is on overheating due to either OCing of fan blocking(or vents,for that matter)...

 

Sounds like overheating to me as well, but might as well try and clean the computer's vents with compressed air.

Try the latest drivers and disable any energy saving features. Also, make sure you don't go too far on overclocking your card or else you'll be one more of those "I think I killed my card and now OMG what do I do now?" guys.

 

I spose it might have changed on newer models, but on my dell 6400 and current xps m1210, disabling speedstep in the bios locks the cpu at its "lowest" state. Good for saving battery and heat, awful for performance.

To the OP, are you trying to game on battery?

 

Yeah, it's normal on all my other Dells too. On my new Vostro, it's backwards. Disable Speedstep, and it locks the CPU into 100% powersaving mode.

 

Well thats odd, speedstep was designed to save energy when necessary so disabling it would run your system at its default frequency and vcore all the time.

 

That doesnt sound backwards to me, it sounds the same, do you mean 100% perfromance mode?

 

Nope. My Dell Vostro has it backwards. In the Bios, if you disable Speedstep it says: "Place the system into lowest performance state, and prevent Intel Speedstep or the Operating System from adjusting the processors' performance."

 

Mine does the same.
(Vostro 1500)

 

Yup. Same system I have. Very weird that they have it configured this way.

 

I apparently have a limited BIOS that lets me change time and some simple options, so how am i going to access the other options such as the speed step??

 

Yeah mine is similar not many options. Look under advanced then cpu settings or simply cpu settings. Speedstep should be there.

 

I cant find it, does it help if i update my bios?

 

Doubt it, but its remotely possible. All bioses are not the same, some have all sorts of settings while others have barely anything.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=261929

hope that helps

 

Guess I misunderstood, when you quoted me and said your Vostro did it backwards, when in fact it does the same thing, pretty sure all of Dells mainstream otebooks are confgured like that, my old I6400 was, as well as my XPS M1210.

 

I found a much more simplier way which requires only the registry editor to do it.
Here's a screenshot to proof my point:

Click to Enlarge


What I did was to find "PerfLevelSrc" without the quotes in your registry. I tried many times, there should be only one of "PerfLevelSrc" in the registry. Using the Ctrl + F would be much easier than to go through the registy directory one by one and also bypasses the time to look for your unique ID.

Double Click on it, and change it to "3322" as seen in the screenshot. Changing it all to 2222 will disable powermizer on battery which is not recommended.

I've been using this for nearly 2 months. It downclocks itself while on battery, but remains originally clocked while on AC. Easy, simple and effective. Didn't effect a dime on my battery life. The reason why I needed to disable powermizer is because of my AutoCAD and Maya (Viewport) being laggy and a noticeable drop in FPS while rotating after leaving my laptop on idle. I had to move the mouse around in motion in order for a smooth scrolling. I then realised it was the downclocking that causes the problem. I ran tests on it, left my machine on idle for 2 hours, came back, started using the mouse and finally, its scrolling was still as smooth as it was. Disabling powermizer solved the problem completely.

Using a Dell Inspiron 1720 with 8600M GT btw.

I value your feedback, people.

 

So theres no need to set the PowerMizerLevelAC to 1 from the original 3 value?

 

I have an ASUS G1Sn-B1 laptop and I'm currently using the 177.26 forceware on my 9500M GS. I've been overclocking and it seems that as soon as I put the core clock slider to exactly 550 or any higher, the core downclocks all the way down to 100MHz, regardless of the temperatures - It's as evident as a switch. Wierd thing is: The shader and memory clocks remain at my settings, and only the core clock goes down - So I would assume this has nothing to do with my rivatuner or system low performance profiles, also because they should only go down to 200MHz. Again, it's when the slider is at 550 and I hit apply, 548 works fine (no artifacts and low temp). I should also note that the Hardware monitoring graph shows the actual clock at 594 when the slider is at 548, so it could be an actual 600MHz threshold I'm crossing here. Anyone got any suggestions, or experiencing the same issue?

 

I did but its really up to you. changing the value from 3= power saver to 1=FULL POWER AHEAD is really up to you. If u follow the guide it taught to pretty much put the power lag to sleep. Hope that helps pm me if you have more questions..

 

Off Topic, but Lakers Sad Panda here.

Oh and I am a Penguins Fan, and yall know what happened there....

 

I got a question on this matter:

I tried it out and it works GREAT when not running any games whatsoever. Question is, when I start playing a game [WoW particularly] it starts at full clock speeds but after a while, it'll drop down to mid level clock speed. Why?

My machine:

Dell D830 latitude
Nvidia quadro nvs 140m using latest dell driver

low clock speeds are at 169 core 100 memory.
mid clock speeds are at 275 core 200 memory.
max clock speeds are at 400/400 core/memory.

on desktop operation, it runs at 400/400 but when I start WoWing, it will eventually drop down to 275/200. How can I keep it at 400/400?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

note: I followed the instructions to the letter.

 

What's the difference between 3(power saver) and 1(Full Power Ahead)?

Thanks

 

Going from 3 to 1 disables powermizer and makes your video card perform at 100% capacity regardless of battery status.

 

Anyone have solutions to smooth out Powermizer downlocking transition from performance 3D to low power 3D to standard 2D? Any good driver?
174.74 and 175.97 also has this problem. It’s very annoying if watch videos. The sound will go choppy.