Another throttle issue

When overclocked, during demanding games (such as Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, Crysis 3 etc etc etc which all utilise 99% of the GPU) the GPU (GT 650M) continually throttles down and then back up again and repeat and repeat etc (you know, standard throttling behaviour). Thing is, temps aren't crazy high, just 90°C which I admit is quite high BUT earlier this year I was getting same temps even while not overclocked and had to get the thing repasted to lower temps (which was successful) - however my point is, it did not throttle once during that time of high heat before or for the few months after the repasting. The GPU has only seemingly started to throttle in the past few weeks or so. Set to 'maximum performance' in NVIDIA control panel, not 'adaptive'. Throttles at 90°C now. This was not apparent a few weeks ago. It went to 93°C once without throttling. All I can think of is that it must be driver issue and maybe if I revert back to a older driver it will go away?

Advice appreciated. Except a repasting as it has already been repasted just literally about 8 weeks ago. Yeah I've cleaned it out for dust too. The machine can't get cooler than this, trust me. Cheers.

 

Repaste it and this time with some quality stuff! Get ICD7 or Antec Formula 7! A Notebook cooler can't hurt either if the repasting doesn't bring it down enough. Arctic MX-4 and other similar pastes ware out fast while nano diamond have better consuctivity and last several months.

 

Try to use default gpu speed first ?

 

What was said above are good ideas, what I did to get rid of throttling was flash another vbios. Helps overclocking a ton too, check out techinferno forums if they have one for your gpu. SLV7 has throttling fixes in many of the gpus now

 

Arctic Silver 5 was used. I think that that is generally thought to be a good quality thermal paste?

Throttles at 90°C now. This was not apparent a few weeks ago. It went to 93°C once without throttling.

 

You overclocked the GPU and are wondering why you are throttling?
Really?
Have you tried reducing the clocks to stock rates?
Or even undervolting the GPU?

 

Well the only reason I'm confused is due to the fact that just a few weeks ago I could overclock without throttle issues and I never reached the thermal limit that activates throttling. Now I hit a thermal limit, where before there was none.

Stock clocks are fine. No throttling. I really want to be able to continue applying overclocks though as it increases performance greatly and I am not yet in a suitable financial position to be able to upgrade to a superior laptop yet. As soon as I can afford it I will but that won't be until I am employed full-time (currently a full-time student in my last year).

 

Well I generally think about it as an out dated paste + it's conductive so you shouldn't use it on the gpu anyway.

 

+90C is just way too much (all my previous gpus shut down at 100C), you must repaste regardless of what if you are worried about your laptops future..

 

I agree. Honestly, at those temps I think you are risking your internal components especially over long periods of gaming.

I would drop to stock clocks and game. Record your temperature at stock clocks. If those are abnormal, something is wrong with your fans or cooling, or you need to use a different paste. Are you sure you did a correct repaste? There might be air pockets or areas it didn't get applied correctly.

If your stock temps come back normal, you need to cut back on the clocks or invest in a cooler or take off a bottom panel.

 

He went to a shop to get it repasted if I remember correctly. The main issue is the laptop's cooling sucks by design. It's a small, thin notebook, which doesn't lend itself well to cooling the 650m. If I had this notebook, I wouldn't consider overclocking at all. The 650m will oc like crazy, but if you're regularly seeing temps well into the 90s then it's time to drop to stock clocks or save some cash and buy a new laptop. The M14x is a much better overclocker. With an unlocked BIOS (which includes the vbios) you can jack the clocks up to way over 1k core and 2500 memory and still have temps in the 60s while gaming.

 

Yeah, I didn't personally do the repaste as my laptop is not designed to be dismantled easily, much to my annoyance. But the repasting wasn't the cause as it was a couple of months ago when this throttle issue has only been apparent for a couple of weeks at most.

Stock temps ~84 degrees under heavy load (99%). Only reaching 90 when overclocked. Weird thing is, before repaste it was 90-91 at stock clocks (with no throttling) and 91-93 overclocked. Why so much more temp when overclocking now all of a sudden? Weird. But again, repaste was not the cause of this sudden change in thermal limits. I can only think drivers are. Will revert to a previous driver and see if anything changes.

 

I don't think drivers would affect throttling like that. Thermal limits and throttling are normally controlled by the vbios, which is odd since you're obviously still on the stock vbios.

 

93C for a GPU? Dude thats not a healthy temperature for it. I understand you don`t have money for a new better GPU, but push it too much you might be stuck with no GPU at all.

 

Even your stock temperatures are too high and you should get them down. Its not issue if gpu chip will brake down - but you are stressing and hurtin all other components. Heat builds up inside the case - motherboard, ram - they all absorb heat gpu and cpu produce and they do not have their dedicated cooling. Due to rather poor cooling inside your notebook i would advise you to return to stock values.

I dont know if you'r using cooling pad - if not you should start. I wouldnt say its a driver issue.

 

Argh maybe my days of overclocking are behind me then damn. New laptop can't come soon enough. Can't believe I'm saying that when this one is not even a year old yet. Sometimes I hate the fact that I love PC gaming so much. Stupid technology!

 

My question is, what amount of framerate increase are you seeing with the overclock? Does it matter? Such as, keeping you above 30fps, or reaching 45-550fps or 60fps in a certain game?

 

Why dont you just tone down detail a bit? from ultra/high to i dont know medium? And as far as i know you should be able to run everything smoothly.

 

I've got one word for you bud: desktop. Unless you're in a majorly confined space, you get so much more bang for your buck with a desktop, especially in the sub $2k range. You could go with a mini ITX build for around a grand and have more power than all but the most powerful gaming notebooks on the market. Keep your current notebook for portability, and build a rig for gaming. Best of both worlds

 

^^ This, you can fit a GTX 680 in a 1K desktop budget (no kidding, if you have some other components like a monitor)

 

Yup. Follow the specs in my sig for an affordable build (built by NBR member Kevinmcg.) Nearly as much power as my M18x at a third of the price.

 

Yeah I have considered that before but currently confined for space, just my luck! The bed takes up the vast majority of the room that's how tiny it is at least I'll be free of it in a couple of months once I finish uni. Next time I'll look for a slightly bigger room. Shame that my room back home is equally as tiny, hope I won't be forced to move back for any length of time!

What annoys me is that I had a laptop with a 5650 for 2 whole years and made do just fine before I felt it was slipping too far behind the curve and I became desperate to replace it. Even though the 650M is twice as powerful I have come to feel that way already after less than a year! Are games requirements accelerating faster than they were before or are my standards just getting higher?

Yeah a desktop would be a much better choice price-wise I agree. That's what I'll do once I move into a room with space.

Or win the lottery. That would also be acceptable.

 

lol I understand the power bug. Trust me, you'll never be fully satisfied. I started out with a 650m last year, and I've upgraded about 50 times to where I am now... and now I want a kick*ss desktop build

Idk exactly how much space you have, but you might be able to fit a Mini ITX build in there somewhere. It actually has a smaller "footprint" than a laptop, but I guess you'll have to factor in a monitor and keyboard too, so it definitely takes some space to use. If you've got a small desk, you could probably fit a Mini ITX+keyboard+small monitor on top of it

 

i do think that laptops equipped with gt 650m.. mostly are classified as multimedia notebook. So it should stay like that. Light gaming (medium setting), less heavy, and fun :thumbsup: .

The important thing is that to remember it is just a midrange notebook gpu and fantastic dual core cpu combined in relatively slim chassis. Treat them as they are, i have similiar config in N56VZ (2.4 mm slimmer than the i7 version) in only 90 watt power brick. Impressive compared to 200-300 watt mid-range desktop requirement in full load.

Regarding the throttle.. please do let us know how drivers affect it and how about lower the game's graphic setting may also help. cheers