RTX2070 Max-Q stuck at 300 MHz

Hi guys,

I couldn't find any thread with a similar issue, so I had to create this one...

I have an early 2019 Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model with an RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU. I didn't have any issue with the laptop for the first year and a half. About 2 weeks ago, though, I noticed a significant FPS drop while gaming, that lasted for a couple of seconds. These drops started happening more and more frequently and after a while it was constantly lagging.

I began monitoring it with GPU-Z, and saw that my RTX was stuck at 300 MHz and 0.6060 voltage. From that moment on, no matter what I tried, it was always idling at this clock speed. First, I suspected that I had a faulty driver, so I applied DDU in Safe Mode to get rid of everything Nvidia and installed an earlier driver. Then, I uninstalled ThrottleStop after obviously resetting any voltage offsets for the CPU. I even tried flashing the vBIOS from TechPowerUp's GPU BIOS database. Nothing helped. Eventually, I decided to do a clean Windows 10 install.

It worked perfectly, until I'd rebooted Windows. Since then, on one out of every ten restarts the GPU works and everything is nominal, it is so weird and frustrating. I ran out of ideas, I cannot decide whether it is a hardware or a software issue... I don't have any warranty on the device any more.

Have you ever seen anything like this before? I would appreciate any inputs.

 

4w @ 59C would also be a bit of a concern to me since I was able to run 115w 1070 @ 54-56C

Try another AC adapter?

 

Oh, I haven't thought about that. Too bad, RazerStore does not ship to the country where I live.

 

Is there any reason for it to think its on battery?

 

I know my battery was 99% when I switched on the laptop an hour ago (with AC - ON from the beginning) and for some strange reason it is actually being charged now.. wow, it really could be the brick, right?

 

maybe your battery is dying, did you tried to disconnect the battery and see if it still throttle ?

 

I did try that, but the problem still persists. Yesterday, it was working just fine for many hours. This morning, when turned it on it was working properly but now I cannot get it to work again..

 

This is common if the card is overly shunt modded to raise the power limit, or if for some reason it can't read the power usage correctly. Apparently according to GPU-Z the card thinks it is drawing 315W. Did the card get dropped or knocked into something at some point? I got identical behavior when I accidentally knocked off a resistor used to measure core current.

Gpu-z is also reporting the card is getting 22V, which can't be right without a very messed up power brick, but honestly I expect gpu-z is wrong. The card should run around 1 ghz on battery. Does it do that?

 

I never took out the card. On the other hand, I've dropped the power brick before, but a while back now. On battery it looks like it's stuck at 300 MHz.
I began noticing now that if I start moving adapter's cables while plugged in, at some point it starts working normally under constant load.
RazerStore says it's out of stock, otherwise I would've already ordered a new power adapter.

 

I've acquired a brand new power adapter but unfortunately it didn't solve the problem. I have exactly the same readings everywhere.
I cannot make the card run higher than 300 MHz, not even on battery power with all the power saving settings disabled.
Sometimes - very very rarely and only for a split second - I observe a sudden jump to around 1,750 MHz but then it goes back immediately to 300 MHz..
I totally ran out of ideas now. Any other suggestions? (apart from retiring the laptop and purchasing a new one). I was kinda hoping to be able to use it for another 2-3 years, but it looks like I'll have to invest some $$ again...

 

Have you tried disabling and uninstalling Afterburner?

 

I didn't install Afterburner after I'd reinstalled Windows 10. Currently, I'm not even using any kind of undervolting with ThrottleStop since then.

 

It's a bit of a long shot, but I had a similar issue with my alienware 17R5. For me, the fix was disabling hibernation in windows. For some reason, if the computer hibernated, when it woke up, it wouldn't ever "clock up" to normal speeds. If I rebooted it, it would be fine, but as soon as it hibernated again the problem would come back. it's fairly easy to disable, and to test it you should just restart the pc. If it works fine, but doesn't work again after it's hibernated a while, you've found your culprit.

 

I gave it a try not too long ago, disabled hibernation in Windows and, voila, everything works fine. I've already restarted the laptop 10x and it worked every single time. Just incredible.
At the moment, I'm just happy I got my baby back (at least for now...) but I'll for sure test it by re-enabling hibernation and let you guys know about the outcome.

 

Before you do, go into your NVIDIA control panel and set the power management (within in 3D settings) to Adaptive as opposed to Optimal.

 

Done. I'd re-enabled hibernation but the GPU didn't get stuck this time. I have no idea what might have caused this issue. At least it's been working normally for the last 3 days, I can only hope it'll stay that way.