Dv7 gaming lag issue (overheat?)

I apologize beforehand if this is kind of a noobie question but I can't seem to find a consensus on this issue.

While gaming I seem to have infrequent periods where lag spikes. The game in question is League of Legends which I don't particularly find to be a very graphic intensive game compared to other games like crysis, cod, etc. I'm hooked up to a 23" monitor via HDMI at 1920x1080. The problem I'm having is that it will consistently run at 60 FPS but then it will drop to ~30 fps (and at worst ~5 fps) for a very brief period of about 10 seconds then stabilize again at 60 FPS and be fine for next 5-10 min.

What I am wondering is if this is a GPU overheating issue and what I can do to solve it. I'm wondering if I should (if this is the right thing to do) underclock the GPU in order for it to not reach that point where the fan has to speed up to compensate. I also apologize if this description of the problem is not very standard or unclear, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Note: I am using cooler master U2 cooling pad w/ fans pointing into bottom vents

Model: Dv7-4294nr
Memory: 4 GB @ 1333 Mhz
CPU: core i7-2630QM @ 2.0 Ghz
GPU: Mobility Radeon 6570

 

What's happening on screen at the time? I also play LoL and I know that if you are doing a 5v5 with many characters with AOE effects or ground effects (like fights near or in a base) can cause the framerates to drop a lot (if you have settings maxed out). Try lowering some of the effect settings and see if that helps at all. Also, is there anything blocking the heat exhaust area of your laptop? If you're playing where it's not fully cleared out that could be causing overheating.

Normally though with overheating you'll start getting graphics glitches or bluescreens (happened to my dv5t, I opened it up and found a 2 inch dustbunny housed under the heatpipe between my CPU and GPU) not just random drops in framerate for me at least.

 

Run HWMonitor to record the temps when running games?

 

The FPS drop occurs most during the 5v5 fights but it also happens less frequently outside of them. My settings right now are 1920x1080, character/environmental quality: Mid, effects quality: Low, No shadows which i think is already pretty low for this game. The exhaust vent isn't blocked or anything.

After running gpu-z while playing I've recorded the following: (though I'm not sure what it all means or if its typical)

Average Temp: 56ºC (MAX: 58ºC)
GPU Load: ~45%
*GPU CLK: 600 mhz
*GPU mem CLK: 800 mhz

 

If your max is only 58C then your computer is obviously not overheating. Are you on high performance mode? It doesn't seem like it has reached a temp that would throttle the cpu...

 

Hey Depravity, I've noticed a slight bit of lag when the background on my wallpaper changes since it periodically changes background with the theme. Try setting your background to a static one and see if that fixes it. Hope it helps....or I could be completley wrong lol

 

Depravity, I think Winkyeye may have it right. Make sure you're running a version of the catalyst driver that allows you to switch modes and make sure that LoL is set to high performance. Once doing that I was able to max out most of my settings and have it run above 40 FPS. It sounds like you're using the intel power saving card and it's choking when 10 people are all in the same area doing their aoe's (yay particle effects for choking the poor intel card)

 

Uofirob & Winkyeye, I'm using the updated catalyst 11.6, should I roll back to a different one? ATM I don't see (nor have ever) seen an option for switchable graphics. The only one I've seen is the PowerPlay option which is just set to 'High Performance', is this the same? Product manual says this is enabled with switchable graphics but I've just never been able to find out how to configure that aspect maybe cause its an 'entertainment notebook' ? over a 'quad edition'?

Mjl2116, just running a static wallpaper =p

 

Do you have the catalyst control center? If not, then roll back to the 11.5b drivers if you can (that installed the ccc it for me)then go back to the 11.6 drivers again.

 

Yeah I do have CC but it doesn't have a 'switchable graphics' menu. I think it has something to do with the 6570 gfx card, maybe all 6xxx cards?

For now I just used the AMD gpu clock utility and set:
GPU CLK: 800 Mhz
GPU Mem: 1000 Mhz
(as i saw from another post)

Game seems to be running better with less unplayable spikes, temperature is roughly the same maxing at 58ºC (and 1 spot where it hit 59ºC throughout an hour long game). Does anyone know what sort of damage this could cause by leaving the max cpu/mem clock that high for prolonged periods of time?

 

your cpu will fine up to ~100C, but it's best to keep it below 85C. I don't know much about LoL but I don't think it's that intense of a game that would demand a lot out of your system. If anything you're computer isn't being fully utilized as can be seen from the low temps.