My 9500M GS downclocking problem

After more than a month of searching for a good solution to get rid of my downclocking issue, I decided to make a summary of what I remember trying to do. I hope someone will put the finger on a solution I missed, since I don't really like the alternative that are offered to me.

What happen: I play unreal tournament 3 and the game freeze for a couple of sec then unfreeze in low 3d mode. Really annoying since I get killed while waiting and lose too much fps.

Heres a couple of stat I gattered. Orthos is a cpu stresser and atitool an gpu stresser:

Raised laptop:
Max temperature acheive on gpu: 67°C (unreal tournament 3(cpu 67))
Min temperature acheive on gpu: 47°C
Max temperature acheive on cpu: 76°C (orthos)
Min temperature acheive on cpu: 25°C

Raised laptop, undervolted cpu:
Max temperature acheive on gpu: 67°C(atitool and orthos(cpu 62))
Min temperature acheive on gpu: 45°C
Max temperature acheive on cpu: 65°C(atitool and orthos(gpu 67)
Min temperature acheive on cpu: 20°C

Also, when I used atitool and orthos without an UV cpu, my cpu throttle got down to 900MHz instead of 2.0GHz at these temp(gpu/cpu): 66/71 67/71 63/70. So when cpu reach 70 and gpu is high enought we could say. I don't think it is related with the UT3 case since no throttling was observed when the game froze.

Also, 67°C was reach on both gpu and cpu without any downclocking in game. It can happen a lot of time after reaching a max.

Now, what I tried:
Using new and different driver (only signed because of my blu-ray player)
Deleting old driver before installing new one
Lowering my temp(raise laptop, undervolt: Helped a bit but UC is still too frequent
Keep playing even if low 3d mode is acheive -> goes into 2d mode
Putting low quality settings and tweak
Underclocking myself a bit (25/50 I think, someone told it solved his issue)

Maybe I forgot something, I did not write everything I tried when I tried. I had to use my memory.


Using rivatuner with force constant perfomance level works, but I'm afraid of damaging the graphic card. I could try buying a laptop cooler too, but if the problem is not heating it woulb be money spent for nothing.

 

the problem is not heat, as I wish I can have temps as cool as yours. if driver updates did not work then really nothing you can do, buying a cooler wont do a thing, your max temp with a cooler will be like 60C and it will still downclock. I would contact acer about this if I were u. Cant offer much help sorry

 

First, that's Acer so I will not get help from their side. Two, from all I did, i'm pretty sure I voided my warranty two or three times.

 

yeah, the 6920g is pretty crummy... but its cheap.

http://notebookcritic.com/2008/09/07/acers-dekotora-notebook-aspire-6920/

 

Have you cleaned out the fan on the bottom of the system? It's a bloody lint-trap with that stupid mesh screen in front of it.

 

Wow, I have not gotten that far yet. I think I am going to ditch it.

 

I had it for 2 month since yesterday and blowed 2 or 3 time in it. I didn't remove the mesh inside although. But I don't think that it's going to really help me. Any other hint? I'll still try something tonigh: running in low detail without 3d perf. This should cool it a bit if it crash it will mean it's not (only) the temp.

 

Not gonna remove the mesh on mine, as tempting as it is.
Pretty sure THAT will end my warranty rather quickly.

 

What would void a warranty beside opening the case? Also, I did the test but it's not worth anything: I used constant level so I didn't see the clock drop. But gpu temp reached 61 max. I'll test something similar tomorow.

EDIT: I changed my mind, and instead i'll try to use a modded driver. I have no blu-ray disk for now beside the promo one.

 

I've had this happen, but only on Rainbow Vegas 2 on a regular basis. The only other games to have this problem were Mass Effect sometimes after at least 2 hours of playing and Half Life if overclocked (good thing stock speeds run just fine). Assassin's Creed and Bioshock never had this problem.

If you get the error message 'Display Driver nvlddkm stopped responding check this site: link

 

I get no messages, so our cases are different. And an non-signed driver makes it crash faster, so i'll go back to the last one. I should test lower clock this weekend as I have lots of homework for school.

 

Unchecking the thermal monitor 1 doesn't help too. What would do deactivating thermal sensor in the device manager do? I'll try that next sinceI have some issue with changing the clock myself.

 

I tried to disable powermizer, but it still downclocked. Does anyone have an idea?

 

At this point, I'm inclined to contact Acer Support (by phone - their email techs are useless) and see what they have to say.

 

I guess I won't have any choice. Do you think I have some chance of getting one that speaks french?

 

There's an entire number dedicated to Francophone assistance - (800) 509-2237.

 

oh thanks. I never saw that one

 

Hope your issue gets resolved, whether it's with a hardware repair or otherwise.
Who knows, maybe there's a BIOS update to fix any issues.

 

I have the same problem if I use graphics card drivers newer than 174.16 from laptopvideo2go. Even using the "Official" Zepto 175.80 ones I still get it. and these are supposed to be tested to be compatible!!. I have been trying all of the drivers released since I found the problem, but keep going back to 174.16. I have contacted Zepto support who claim that they are aware of the problem and are working on it (5 months ago!!).
I realise you have an Acer, but as you seem to be having the same sort of problems as me it might be worth a go for you to change to the 174.12 or 174.16 drivers and see if it still downclocks then.

 

Thanks for the tip, i'll try as soon as I get some time. But for the bios, nothng is said in the change list about my problem, and flashing the bios is really that last thing I would do.

 

I have a 6920G with the T5750 (2.0GHz). I originally had the same issue where gameplay would slow down to be almost unbearable ( 5-9 FPS). I ran some tests and figured it couldn't have been overheating I tried cutting some services from Vista. You won't believe how much that actually helps, along with testing with multiple drivers I managed to fix the problem and no more downclocking. I'm currently using the 177.92 from laptopvideo2go and it's doing quite well.

I would suggest actually trying a non WHQL driver as the only thing it does is allow to watch blu-ray which I find is actually quite limiting because it limits the number of drivers you can use.

Another suggestion would be to cut some processes that begin at startup and maybe disable some useless services that Vista has on by default it may improve your performance. Try the guide by Les. It's somewhere in the forums.

 

Hi Slin, and welcome to the forums.
Matmat's issue is, as far as I know, resolved; this whole topic happened almost two months ago.
Please don't bump old topics, and enjoy your stay!

 

im having the same problem, and i would apreciate hearing how you fixed yours. same pc as yours. as read in your sig i tryed instaling 169.04 drivers, but i got stuck at the part where i need to choose a video card model, since theres no 9500m gs on the list. waiting for your response

 

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showforum=123

Take your pick, just drag and drop the modded inf into the extracted folder

 

i have tryed like 10 different video drivers and downclocking is still happening after 2mins of gameplay.

 

also today i tryed to OC my graphics card and i wasnt able to, after i press apply on rivatuner or ntune it sets back to the stock numbers, tryed it with alot of diferent drivers, old ones new ones...

 

interesting, this just happened to me and my temps were really good...

must be because i'm on stock drivers

 

Anyone get this one figured out? Got an ASUS G1SN with the 9500m gs doing the same thing with and without the message (Fallout 3/Crysis Warhead so far), as well as with and without artifacts. Tried the BCDEDIT thing but haven't done enough research to know if it worked. ASUS and Best Buy look at me like I'm retarded.

 

Only thing that worked for me was downgrading to XP. Did it in December and since then no downclocking

 

Yeah, I wish that was an option. It's funny how apparently it's acceptable to release a product that doesn't work as advertised. Kudos to Nvidia and Microsoft on this one.

 

Give Windows 7 a try! Maybe that fixes the problem?

 

If I do ASUS or Best Buy will pay for it.

 

You can try the beta for free

And IMO its not ASUS's fault as it seems to be a universal 8600m GT/9500m GS problem

 

Yeah, can't realistically blame them. I just wish they had more data on the issue and ways to approach it. When you call them it's like talking to a brick wall.

 

It definitely is a frustrating problem. I beat Rainbow 6 Vegas with it downclocking on me roughly ever 2 checkpoints and Dead Space where it downclocked ~once/chapter.

 

My 9500M GS does the same, sorry for bumbing somewhat old thread, but it is mightly annoying as it tends to happen in the most heated gaming situations My GPU runs a bit hot (around 90C gaming WITH Mx-2 as thermal paste and a laptop cooler!) but that I have to deal with. However, the downclocking is not temperature related, as others have noticed, it happens randomly.

So, after looking for solutions in this link I wanted to try uninstalling KB952287.
However, Im not able to for some reason. It shows up in "update history" but when I switch to "installed updates" to uninstall it, it's not there! Tried googling for ages but no-one else seems to have this problem.

 

I've tried that fix. The only thing that worked for me was to downgrade back to XP.

After downgrading 4 months ago I haven't had a single instance of the downclocking in games, whereas before it would happen once every ~15-45 minutes.

You could also try Windows 7 and let us know the results

 

You should create a new thread and have a link to this one. Have you used powermizer?