Amilo M4438G w/Go6800 terrible performance

Hi! I recently got myself a Fujitsu Siemens M4438G which has the nVidia GeForce Go 6800 graphics, Pentium M 2.0GHz and 2GB Ram. I haven't tried any 3D apps until today. I fired up 3DMark05 and ran the benchmark. I imediately noted that the framrate was very low (around 5), and when it ended I got a score of just 1000! 3DMark03 gave me 2800, which is also much lower than expected.

After running coolbits and go to the clock frequencies page, I see it's clocked at 325/600. Is this normal? Sounds quite low... Forceware version is 79.11, -the latest offered at the Fujitsusiemens page (no reference drivers on the nVidia page).

So what could be wrong, or isn't performance supposed to be better than this?

Additional info:
When I got this new laptop I activated Raid on the two 80GB harddrives, then re-installed it with WindowsXP Pro. I then used the supplied CD to install the drivers. Since I found many drivers were old, I updated many of them from the manufacturers hompeages (Especially the wireless network was unstable with original supplied drivers). All available updates are installed. As mentioned above, I didn't find any later graphics drivers for the Go6800 than the supplied Forceware 79.11. I haven't changed any settings in the nVidia panel.

What could be wrong? Have I missed anything? I doub't there's a hardware problem. There must be some driver I have missed to install, or something I have missed to configure.

Please please help!

Regards,
// Frank

 

Check that Anisotropic filtering/Anti-aliasing/V-Sync are all off in the NV control panel.

I don't have any experience with NV cards, but check that the performance is set to max and not battery mode (assuming that NV have options like ATI here!)

Clocks on the card sound alright to me, within normal ranges.

 

Did u pushed Silent Mode. It would underclock everything.

 

Check all the settings and put everything back to defualt or app pref. Sounds like its either underclocked or forcing tons of detial. Getting the newest drivers and doing a fresh install on thsoe wont hurt either. The 6800 is a pretty powerful card, Im curious to see what you get when you have everything working.

Good luck

 

Those drivers are very old. The newest 91.33 drivers can be found at www.laptopvideo2go.com. Download and extract them to your desktop, replace the .INF file (next to where you download the drivers), and install. Be sure to uninstall your old drivers first.

 

I would be cautious with the 91.33 drivers as they're still in Beta. They decreased my 3dmark06 score by ~100. That could be the Quadro shining through though.

 

Formatting the whole notebook is a very good idea. I would recommend that, I did that too with my Amilo M1437G.

Charlie

 

The x438 has a known 'lagging' issue. Not all notebooks are affected, some are. FSC will not publish an update for it, even though I hear flashing the video bios yields some modest results.

If your German is any good -> linky.

 

English thread here

As it would seem, flashing solves performance problems but in some cases the lagging remains.

 

About the recommendations of formatting the laptop and setting everything to "default" - this is exactly what I have done. When I got it (about a month ago) I formatted an installed everything. Have only had time to read email and surf the web, until now when I was going to try some gaming on it.

About the lagging: I haven't noticed any. Just the plain low score of 1000 points in 3DMark05. Still think I should flash the video BIOS, or should I start with updating the drivers from the page you mentioned?

Regards,
// Frank

 

I would update the drivers first Frank, that's the easiest option.

 

Ok, I have looked thru the pages you linked to, but now more questions arise.

You said I have to replace the INF file. Where do I get the correct one? I downloaded the 9131 drivers and the INF next to it, but as I understand I need a specific INF-file for my 4438G? How do I get hold of it?

About the BIOS; Seems a little scary to flash. I think I read somewhere that it wont work with the old drivers after flash? There were two bios files on that german site. Should I go with the bottom/latest one 39.60?

Thanks for your help,
Regards,
Frank

 

Btw, in the nvidia control panel it says my current video BIOS-version is: 5.41.02.39.49.

Regards,
Frank

 

Hey! You guys solved the problem!

I ran the .exe file and unpacked the driver. Then I put in the .inf file which was downloaded separatly (dunno if this was a generic .inf?) and replaced the one in the unpacked driver folder. Then I ran the install and everyting went well. Rebooted, fired up 3DMark05 and now I got 3746! That's almost 4x the score I had before . I was a bit confused about the complete makeover of the control panel, but I guess I'll get used to it

Then I couldn't resist flashing the video bios, but the score wasn't affected. Seems some people are getting a bit above 4000 points, but 3746 is close enought for me, and way better than 1000 as I had before.

So, now everything seems to be in order! Thanks a lot guys, you're the best!

Regards,
Frank

 

What bothers me is that the only driver avalable from FSC has these serious problems. Sounds that very strange that the computer would be delivered like this. The biggest difference I can see between the original install and my re-install is that used WinXP pro instead of Home.

Regards,
Frank