zepto 6324w and 8600 performance

Im writing because i simply dont get it... the performance of this brand new machine is simply too unstable to be true.

The only driver I have managed to run normal games like cod4 and wow smoothy without extreme stuttering and strange fps swings is with 163.71 beta. every 15x.xx and 169.xx makes my life a hell.

In windows i get great score in 3dmark and such, but yet again this proves scores are worth 0 when actual games run like hell.

Im running XP at the moment and ran vista with terrible performance when i got it a month ago.

The official zepto xp driver doesnt even recognize my gpu and makes it impossible for me to run anything else than 800x600, 1024x768 and 1440x900.
(what happend to 1280x768, 1280x800 for instance?)

Anyone got anything smiliar ?!? in any way ?!
And maybe found a way to make the computer run as supposed.... what do i know, by reinstalling without zepto cd, with or something completely different. It cant be right that every damn person on the Internet gets the best, smooth an most stable performance from the new 169.04 / .09 or /.12 drivers from nvidia, and here it just makes it all hell.

Thanks in advance.. im a bit tired of testing every driver ever made....

 

Sorry I cant be of any help but
I get quite some stutters all around with 163.14 care to link your current drivers?

 

Hi there, yes i will link to the drivers in like 10 hours im at work right now so gotta get home first.

Anyway i get like 5-20fps more in WoW when im in badlands with the 163.71 betas over 169.XX :/ that by itself is nice, but 163.71 is quite old now, and all the new bugfixes and such are in the 169 series, which runs like crap.. quite annoying.

 

Did you try driver cleaner when installing newer drivers? Sometimes 'remnants' of old drivers cause problems for new drivers.

 

I did yes... it's not because im new to all this and dont know how things normally should work.

I have an older laptop with a 7600go gpu, and it runs exellent with 169.04...
It's just the 8600m that screws up i think :/

 

well I have the 8600gt and Im running 196.04 right now (or was it 196.02) and im getting 60fps in BF2 PR (bigger and better maps than original BF2)

try to uninstall the driver and reboot, and after that install new driver

 

I do that every time.. actually you should try to install the 163.71 beta drivers. I bet you will get even better performance

 

I think you mean 169.04 and 169.02

 

oh yeah shoot

thomas-> try installing without rebooting then . I dont think I want to change my drivers to 163.xx cos then Ill loose overclock...

 

have you tried the modded .inf's...?

 

always use modded inf yes, also tried to "unlock" the gpu ID with rivatuner, makes no difference.

@sprint, indeed you will lose the ability to OC, but i actually still get smoother gameplay without oc with 163.71 than with 169.04 with oc. Kinda sad...

 

I have smooth gameplay with every driver I use(d)...
And I got even smoother gameplay (read: more detail/ fps) with OC's on!

Videocarddriver- , Benchmark- and OverClockingtable of CLB



1 ==> Core Clock/ Shader Clock/ Memory Clock
2 ==> Tested on a resolution of 1280x 854
3 ==> Tested on a resolution of 1440x900 with object- / worddetail at level 3 (of the 5)
4 ==> Tested on a resolution of 1280x800 with everything on medium and AA was off
5 ==> 1st fps is walking in the jungle/ 2nd fps is during fights
6 ==> Crysis is tested at DX9 and DX10 and gives the same framerates.
That's because DX10 is only showable at 'very high' and I've tested it at medium!
7 ==> X = Isn't benched, because I used that drivers months ago.

* Test-device:
Zepto Znote 6224W: 14,1" @ 1440 x 900/ nVidia GO 8600M GT 512MB/ Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2,20GHz 800MHz 4MB
2048MB DDR2 - 800MHz DC/ 100GB @ 7200 rpm HD/ DVD+-RW/ Integrated BT & Wi-Fi/ Windows Vista Home Premium x86
** All tests done with energylevel at: 'high prestations'

163.44 can't be OC'd but has 'sleeping mode'
167.26 can be OC'd but hasn't got 'sleeping mode'
169.02 can be OC'd and has 'sleeping mode'

Further than 600Mhz/ 1200Mhz/ 475Mhz isn't possible wit my 8600M GT without artifacts

More info about my OC's can be found here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=183953

 

@CLB-NL

It sure sounds and seems very good, the 3dmark scores i get too with some of the drivers, but it doesnt give the same picture when actually gaming. :/

I see you use Vista yes?

*edit* have you btw tried cod4 in 1280x800 ?

 

Okay, so i just made a test (again), by installing 169.09 with modded inf. Testet 3dmark, gives me good scores as expected. Cod4 and Wow starts off running fine... wow had fps at around 60-70 in outlands.. but after few minutes of play the game starts to stutter and become slower... fps drops to 45-55 instead. Same story with cod4, and it starts to piss me off! this cant be right!

Its directly unplayable... next step is to try and reinstall windows and all... but how should that help?!

 

That's true! Vista Home Premium 32 bit

Noopz haven't bought it yet.. It's not my kind of game

 

sounds like heat issue if anything...

do you have a temperature monitor programme running in the background which can draw a history line graph?

or even better, something to track the cpu's frequency or the gpu's frequency, just to make sure they've been running at their highest possible speed while you were playing as I suspect your machine probably overheated and those self-protection mechanism kicked in resulting in stuttering performance.

 

@Alliao

It's not heat.. i know how heat can screw up everything and yes, ive monitored quite alot. no problems there.

Also the fps isnt really bad, the game is just FAR from smooth... but like mentioned, the 163.71 beta drivers do run everything smooth! a bit like its supposed to, but those are old and will get older by the day. All the fixes and improvements from the newer drivers HAS to work aswell.

 

Hmm, then I guess you need to run some benchmarks that includes figures like min/max fps so that we can see how severe it is..

 

This is the "heat problem". When the GPU reaches a certain temperature it will halt/lower it's frequency to avoid overheating.

I have monitored the GPU temp as I was running a 3D app and the fps drops at a certain temperature.

The cooler is a joke, thats why I am building an upgrade (see my other thread)

Goed!

 

yet again.. no it's not a usual heat problem.. and no i wont buy your homemade cooler.

The gpu temp is the same with all the drivers, which makes it very wierd that 163.71 beta runs fine and smooth and 169.XX doesnt. funny thing is, other older drivers like 15X.xx also runs very unsmooth and im running out of ideas. Are there something very uniqe in the 163.71 which isnt in the rest?! (sounds silly...)

Also in tests the 169.04 will get higher score than 163.71, but in games its another stuttering, slowly draining story with the 169.XX.

 

ok Sorry for not reading more carefully! But actually I think it is the "heat control" that is deactivated or not implemented in 163.71 beta

 

That theory also occoured to me.. it COULD be... but my gpu is running waaaay below what it can stand before getting "too hot" or anything. Thats whats so wierd... uhm... anyway to force disable such in drivers or how to fix these extremely annoying issue?

 

Try to compare the windows registry entries and maybee you can find which parameter is controlling this.

 

first of I want to get confirmed that there is a such thing as driver controlled heat management? I cant find anything myself... can anyone confirm this?

 

Well I am SURE of this. About your drivers: no idea

But I have used nTune and used ATItool 3D view with different clock settings and for ALL of them the fps drop comes at 98C

If your GPU does'nt get that hot I actully have no Idea in your case, but for mine I am 100% sure. Why would I lie to you?

 

Well it sure could be, not saying your lying, I just dont get it.. because it shouldnt happen... and still.. shoudnt it happen with the 163.71 beta too then?! I dont belive there is a difference in these particular.

Hmm... but if thats the case, then it's useless that zepto claims the gpu wont go down before 125 degrees, if the drivers stops it at 98...

 

driver stops it at 98 to prevent even having the risk for hardware damage, and the gpu shouldnt get up to 98. At least my doesnt.

 

you have a 15,4".. the 14,1" is a bit different when it comes to max temps I belive... but maybe you are right. Anyone else with a 6324w getting this problem ?

 

So... I've talked to Zepto Denmark and they told me (sadly) that its a well known problem with the 8600m gt's... They do however say that its not their fault, but Nvidias fault. HP, Acer and all those should be having the same problems with the 8600m gt gpus in their laptops.

So basicly, there is no fix.. only to try and find the driver that ****s up the least :/ im disapointed...

 

Thats bad news.....

 

Nice picture.. what are you trying to tell us?

 

hes GPU cooler

 

well, great... but what i want to see is picture of the whole laptop, where its supposed to be placed and how it will fit.

 

pfff get your keyboard off and you will see it :-s

 

next time attach the pic, it's too big

 

update:

I just tested the new 169.13 drivers for winXP, and the story is the same, yet again! 3dmark score has increased! but in games like cod4, wow and such its back to the annoying stuttering and nonsmooth gameplay.

I did monitor it all at all times, and the gpu never got higher than 97 degrees, most of the time swinging between 93-95 at maximum load.

sucks badly.. im back to 163.71 beta and everything runs smooth again, hmpf!

*edit*

I just did the exact same test with 163.71 beta while monitoring and the results are exactly the same as with 169.04 or 169.13. Same temperatures and all.
But for some unknown reason, 163.71 does not **** things up :-/

 

I've noticed that nVidia have removed the 163.71 drivers from their UK and US site.

I found them at another site. Maybee I'll use them if my comp does'nt run too hot.

 

I can advice to use the 163.71 beta from Tweakforce

http://www.tweakforce.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=63 (hope its okay to link here)

If you use rivatuner to fake the gpu ID to 8600 GTS, then you dont need a modded inf and you will gain the tweaks these guys have made to the drivers.

 

I have problems running Rivatuner in Vista x64

 

So, i reinstalled winXP and tried the new 169.17 drivers.. got excellent 3dmark06 score. over 3800 points at stock ! (at 1280x768).

It all seemed good, ran fine in my cod4 test and wow seemed fine too.. until i played for 20mins of wow... then stuf was back to the crappy normal... started cod4 right after, and that was hell too.... so now im back at 163.71 beta :-/

 

This sounds terrible... gonna try this out during christmas hollidays my self! Gonna pick up WoW again and so. Right now I ain't got no game to try it out.

 

I am very excited to try these drivers with my add-on cooler prototype.

 

@CreX

I agree, it does sound terrible and most of all its very annoying!

Most of those who thinks their laptop runs smooth is because they never have tried the 163.71 drivers and because 3dmark gives the very good scores. most just compensate by overclocking and claiming that the 8600m isnt a good performence card by stock.... no wonder...

But to convince people that there actually is a problem is quite hard.

 

It's kind of strange - I have 6224, which basically the same, and since I installed 163.16 I had no problems with games. So far I tested Bioshock, Crysys Demo, CM DiRT and a few others and everything is fine even after hours of gameplay at high details and high res. Maybe there's just some hardware problem with yours.

 

No, the thing is.. everything runs smooth and perfect with 163.71.

Thats the lame part, It can run fine but so far only with that driver... which cant be right?!

 

@thomaskc
But if this theory about auto-down-clocking when reaching a sertain temperature is true.. Is there no way to FORCE the clocking? For example with Rivaturner...

 

@thomaskc
By the way. How is the 6324w's performance using Zeptos driver?

 

@crex

Acutally i have really bad experience using zeptos drivers, in winXP it wont recognize my gpu as a 8600m, but only as a g84 something.

Also cant force overclock if the drivers doesnt support it (unless you hardware OC). So rivatuner cant change that really.

 

@ thomaskc;

g84 is the GPU-chip, 8600M is just the name

If you look at GPU-Z it detects it as G84. So nothing wrong there