Gaming Laptop only lags at my house.

I have tried playing games at my friends house and my apartment at university but it only lags while gaming in the house. (Graphical not internet lag)

I am thinking it may be a power issue? Not enough power in my house outlets?

Is there any way to fix this?

My laptop is a sager 9150.

 

most likely a circuit issue, depending on how old your home is, the circuitry style could be different, you could have one circuit for multiple rooms, one sign would be the circuit being overloaded causing a room to go out completely or other rooms, usually a home is rewired to solve this, you need higher amps on the circuit which requires you to run a new wire from my experience, i am not a residential electrician but i am an industrial electrician, that isn't easy either and should be left to someone with a background in the electrical field

edit: also forgot to suggest trying to run the laptop from kitchen outlet or garage, using those have somewhere around 30 amps instead of 15 like a bedroom.

 

interesting..

be checking in to see what others say, as I would assume.. its not the power draw, at 180 watts that's 3 light bulbs worth of electric.

if you think it's the electric, turn off everything besides the comp and test, or try some different locations in the house

 

yes but it is 10 amps, if he is in a bedroom of sort, outlets usually are 10 amps, sometimes 15, and if that circuit is shared with multiple rooms then it could be a problem, but if the circuit is not tripping it could just be the outlet, first step is to try out new outlets.

 

I applied a power surge and it makes it slightly lag less, however it is consistently under-performing in comparison to other locations.

 

use a multimeter to test your voltages at the outlet. if they are low the power adaptor may not be feeding enough to the computer causing it to power throttle ( and a UPS works better than a power bar )

 

Well how would I solve the problem if it exists? I highly think it is a power issue. I tried plugging in from a room downstairs and I still have the same lag.

 

A multimeter would only help if the voltages are too low. If you check the adaptor it should show the voltage input range, which maybe 100-240 volts if it is meant to be universal.

An o-scope would show if the voltage is a nice sine wave or not, but they are hard to find even to borrow.

My guess is if the surge suppresser helped, then the voltage is not a nice sine wave. In other words it may have spikes or noise in the line. A better surge supressor may help. Try one with a high rating, and from a place you can return if it doesn't work, like Home Depot.

A UPS would probably do it, since they clean the line as a side effect. The main purpose is backup power if the electricity goes out. They can be expensive depending on the how much power they can output for how long.

So I would start with a good returnable surge supressor, for about forty bucks.

 

Quick update, I followed ajinindlo's advice and got a UPS surge supressor and it only decreased the lag VERY slightly. There are instances in games where I drop to 3-4 FPS still. And this is during a WoW boss, I used to be able to play the witcher 2 and battlefield 3 near max. Any other suggestions? I don't know how to exactly explain to an electrician or even if they have the ability to solve this problem.

 

How many different outlets in your home have you tested it on?

 

all the outlets in my room, and one random outlet downstairs. I mean I can play GTA 5 on my xbox 360 with no lag, I dunno if that will change anything if I try the outlet my 360 is using.

 

You have an actual UPS? I.e. the computer plugs into it, the ups plugs into the wall, you can unplug the ups from the wall and the computer still shows ac power coming into it? A true ups will supply power when the electricty goes out. They tend to cost in the hundreds...

I assume you tried a surge suppressor, without ups. Which would clean the ac of noise, like spikes.

If you turn off lights and big electronics, or electric, does it help?

You could try a cheap multimeter to see if it is low voltage. I have seen five or ten dollar multimeters.

Does the 9150 have a light for the dGPU? Does it stay lit, or flicker?

Does your battery light stay green? Have you over clocked this unit?

 

Try the outlet that your 360 is using. You've used the exact same configuration in other buildings, same power adapter and everything, without any issue?

 

Yes, in my apartment in University (different city) and in my friends house (same city) there is no lag at all.

This is the UPS I got from Fry's. Amazon.com: CyberPower CP425SLG Standby UPS 425VA 255W Compact: Electronics

 

Well, that is a UPS. Did you leave it plugged in for eight or more hours before plugging in the laptop? The UPS has an internal bettery that has to charge. Then try gaming on the UPS, and pull the power plug of the UPS from the wall. The UPS should power the laptop for a while. See if the issue shows up still while being powered by the UPS, but without wall power. The UPS you got may only provide power for a couple minutes, so it will have to be a fast test.

There are different quality levels with UPS. This one doesn't appear to condition the AC at all, nor would I expect the AC when running on batteries to be a nice sine wave. But still it is another test to try.

I also hope you took my advice and made sure you can return it.

Beyond this, I think the multimeter test is an idea. You can borrow one, buy a cheap one, or a returnable one. A good multimeter will have true RMS, which means it actually calculates the wave form, rather than assuming it is a sine wave form. An O-scope will show the wave form, but those cost too much for even me.

Beyond that would be to call an electrician, which will probably be $75-100 an hour. They may give a free estimate, if so this might be your best next step. See if they can look at the AC with an O-scope and see if you have low voltage, high voltage, bad sine wave or noise, under amperage when under load, or?

My post above about turning off all other lights and such may help determine if it is low amperage/voltage issue.

 

UPDATE: So I'm back in my apartment at University and now it lags here too! I thought it might be a laptop problem then so I brought it to a laptop repair store, however when we plugged it in over there, there was no lag issue!

I highly suspect that it has something to do with the adapter.

Has anyone had experience with power adapter's going bad or losing performance over time??

 

An adapter going bad is not uncommon. It's clearly something related to the power supply or motherboard. If you're lucky, it's the power supply. I would see if you can get your hands on a new power supply/adapter and hopefully that solves the problem.

 

The adaptor could have gone bad. More likely is the heat sinks are clogged with dust. Try opening the bottom and blowing them out. If they are dusty, then the computer will over heat easier, which causes throttling or as you see it, lagging.

I would try that first. It is also possible that replacing the heat sink paste will help as well. This is fairly easy to do, and new paste is only around ten bucks.

 

Op, can you describe this lag in detail?