Gateway P7811Fx issue

I'm not sure whats happening. I have a gateway P7811Fx with all the stock gear just an upgraded HD to 300gb. Also i upgraded to windows 7 ultimate. For some reason the power of this laptop has gotten weak. I've ran benchmarks with 3dmark and it barely reaches 5000 as to where it use to reach up to 9000. Games lag more often for me now that never did. I don't know if it was because of a bad OS install or what. The first time i installed win 7 i had no problems and it was running smooth with high benchmarks. But when reinstalled, it started doing this. Even videos lag on full screen that are streamed from hulu, youtube, etc.

Is there something i missed? When i install windows 7 i don't reinstall any drivers because it installs everything already. All i install is Video drivers which are usually the same as before. Anyone have an input on this? should i be installing drivers?

 

Well if the clocks are at full then it is a driver problem.

 

The clocks seem to be at full when i check Gpu-z not sure what else it can be. I've switched around drivers and i get about a small change in benchmarks. Yet none reach peak performance as before. As in it never goes passed 5,500

 

What's your windows powerplan set to? Is it powersaver, battery, or high performance. Are you running your benchmarks with the laptop on battery or on the ac adapter?

 

Once you make sure your power plan is set correctly, try running a ThrottleStop log file to make sure your CPU is running at full speed.

 

Its set at performance always. The benchmarks are with the Ac adapter connected.

also Cpu-z shows my Core speed running at 2393.9 mhz most the time.

How should throttlestop be set up I've never used it before.

 

What's your CPU? The P8400 can't run at 2393.9MHz for more than a second because the multiplier is locked. It is quite possible that CPU-z doesn't recognize half multipliers and so rounds up to 9x. Or it could be altogether wrong.

 

Yea i have the intel core 2 duo P8400. The core speed shows 2393.9 multiplier shows x 9.0.

 

The P8400 has a default multiplier of 8.5 and this CPU also supports Intel Dynamic Acceleration which is designed to let the CPU use a 9.0 multiplier when only a single core is active. For this to work, the second core must enter the C3/C6 sleep state. As soon as the second core wakes up to process some background task, the maximum multiplier for both cores immediately drops to 8.5. When the second core goes back to sleep, the first core can go back to using the 9.0 multiplier. This multiplier cycling is happening a hundred times a second. If you run a Hyper PI benchmark and choose 1 Processor, you usually see the average multiplier as reported by ThrottleStop somewhere around 8.9 on the hardest working core and about 8.5 on the core that is spending most of the time asleep in C3/C6. CPU-Z rounds things off so this isn't always easy to see with that program.

When you first download and run ThrottleStop it is in Monitoring mode. Just check the Log File option and the More Data option. After that run a 3DMark06 or similar benchmark and it will log exactly what your CPU was up to during this time. When the benchmark is finished, stop ThrottleStop so it can save the log file and then upload it somewhere like mediafire and post a link here so I can have a look.

Ultimate Destruction: CPU-Z does support half multipliers and it is possible to lock both cores of a mobile Core 2 Duo so they both use the IDA multiplier, even when both cores are fully loaded. Not all laptops support this feature though. Here's how to do that trick.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...c-acceleration-ida-both-cores-core-2-duo.html

 

Ok ill do that. Also the laptop started doing something that pisses me off. Where when it runs the benchmarks it starts of really nice with high FPS but then it drops to 1 - 2 fps for no reason. (This has never happened before)

http://rapidshare.com/files/401816207/ThrottleStopLog.txt.html

That should let you download it without any wait time.

Also this log starts with 3mark starting and ends with it ending. Not sure if this is what you were looking for.

What i don't get is at the start of the benchmark its running flawless getting avg 40 - 60 fps. Only at the end it drops to 1 - 2 then stays at 1 - 2 for the next tests. Is something limiting the performance? This never happened before, usually if its slow it would stick around 10fps.

 

That log file is good. I noticed a couple of times that were interesting.

19:05:30 to 19:06:26
19:09:50 to 19:10:29

and there were a couple of more times where the multiplier suddenly drops down to 6.0 so your CPU is only running at 1600 MHz when that happens. That is a sign of throttling. When these CPUs are loaded they should not be dropping below 8.5. Reported multipliers greater than 8.5 shows that Intel Dynamic Acceleration is working correctly on your laptop.

You could try clicking on the Turn On button in ThrottleStop and put a check mark in the Set Multiplier box and set that to 9.0. Run another log file and see if there are any multiplier drop offs to 6.0. ThrottleStop is mostly designed to combat the throttling schemes used in Dell laptops but it might also work with this one.

The other program you should run a log file with is GPU-Z. I've seen a lot worse CPU throttling in the Dells so maybe part of your problem is being caused by the GPU suddenly slowing down. What GPU does this laptop use? For Nvidia GPUs you can add GPU=1 to the ThrottleStop.ini configuration file and then it can monitor and log your GPU temperatures as well. Maybe they are getting too high.

 

The GPU is a Nvidia 9800M GTS 1gb. Ill try the other stuff out.

The temps are reaching about 101c so i am trying to wait until the laptop cools down. I also don't get why its overheating so much. The laptop avgs about 70c normally for no reason even when nothing is running. I've tried to clean all the dust and such but still same temps. I tried the setting to set multiplier to 9.0 it still seems to drop to 1fps at the end of each benchmark. I am trying to get this laptop to be stable and have decent benchmarks because a friend wants to buy it. While monitoring the GPU performance with GPU-Z i have noticed the clocks do not go down as i have rivatuner set power to 3d performance. They stay at max while running the benchmarks yet it still drops to 1 - 2 fps for a brief 10 seconds give or take a few, then it goes back to giving me 20 - 30 fps. Its really confusing whats happening.



Edit:

Ok so i found some problems i can't figure out. While at 59c i kept my laptop cool so it goes low c. I was getting great FPs on my benchmark but all of a sudden the temp jumped to 109C and that's when the FPS dropped to 1 - 2. I don't get how it jumps from 59 - 61C to 109C in 1 second. Also before it never use to get this hot while running benchmarks or playing games. Could something be wrong with the fans or bios? They have been updated to the 9.17.0c version for Gate P7811Fx.

Also i noticed my Memory clock dropping from 799 to 300 constantly that's when the FPS lowers from 50ish to 20ish. But when i see my Gpu clocks dropping to 275, 300, 550 with fps dropping to 10s and when it goes back to the normal 600, 799, 1500 it runs fast again.

 

A GPU temperature jump from 60C to 109C in one second could be a sign of a loose heatsink. It's possible that the temperature sensor has failed but these sensors don't fail that often. When the temps go up over 105C, the GPU will start to throttle and slow down like you are seeing. If it was my laptop, I'd be pulling it apart to see what's going on. The heatsink should be snug and not loose and flopping around.

 

Never really dissembled my a Gateway Fx before. Not sure where to look. Don't want to mess it up if I am going to sell it. Anyone here ever opened one up?

 

Have a look on the internet for a manual. Dell gets 5 stars for their manuals but I'm not sure if Gateway has the same.

All laptops come apart in a similar manner. Keep taking out screws and pulling off panels until you can see the board where the CPU and GPU are. Some laptops are easy and some are a pain in the butt. Just work slowly and don't force anything. Some panels need to be wiggled a little.

 

Top of the forum is a sticky that covers dis-assembly of fx laptops. Btw, 70c at idle is way too high. My gpu idles at 40ish C and never tops 69C under load. I would try a good blast of air into the fan inlets and see what happens. If not, use the sticky to pull it apart, clean it, and perhaps reapply TIM to the gpu and cpu.

Here is the sticky:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gat...embly-guide-covers-all-17in-fx-notebooks.html

 

Woot i got over the fear of breaking anything inside and opened it. Found a huge! clog inbetween heat sink and the intake of the GPU, I took it out and cleaned everything else. Now my laptop is running very cool around 40c - 60c. Benchmarks peaking 8600 without overclock. Thank you guys so much.

 

That's great news. Now you can jack the price up when you go to sell it.

Recently cleaned and serviced is a nice selling feature.

 

Very sweet. Nice job on the cleaning. Dust can be a dangerous thing with laptops.