174.82 - Was Normal, Now Downclocked?

A little bit of history for you:

Shiny new computer, came from XoticPC with 174.33 with the SLI cards functioning at normal clock speeds. I get everything installed (yeah, dumb move probably) and then decided to follow the recommendations on this site for proper updating of video drivers to 174.82 (from Laptopvideo2go).

1. Uninstall
2. Safe Mode
3. Driver Sweeper (guru3d)
4. Install with Have Disk
5. Life as Normal

Original 174.33 (Rivatuner default install):

$0100000100 Core clock domain 0 : 540.000MHz
$0100000101 Core clock domain 1 : 1350.000MHz
$0100000006 Memory clock : 799.200MHz (1598.400MHz effective)

This immediately resulted in a horrid downclock:

$0100000100 Core clock domain 0 : 216.000MHz
$0100000101 Core clock domain 1 : 432.000MHz
$0100000006 Memory clock : 601.712MHz (1203.424MHz effective)

I went back and forth between Sager 174.33, Sager 174.82, L2go 174.33, L2go 174.82, and I could never get back to the original speeds. Frustrated, I gave up and reformatted / reinstalled.

With a fresh install and only the Sager 174.82, I was back to the same full clock speeds listed above. Great, time to do a full system backup.

--- Today ---

Just for grins, I ran RivaTuner again to see what temperatures the card was running at, and I was surprised with this:

$0100000100 Core clock domain 0 : 297.000MHz
$0100000101 Core clock domain 1 : 594.000MHz
$0100000006 Memory clock : 300.856MHz (601.712MHz effective)

So what gives? I tried stressing the card for a bit using 3dMark06 figuring that maybe the card would downclock itself when not under major stress, but it hasn't returned to normal. All it did was raise the card's temperature to 47C.

I downloaded GPU-Z 0.2.1 and it reports:

GPU 500 / Memory 799 / Shaders 1250
Sensors: GPU Core Clock @ 275.0, GPU Memory Clock @ 301.0
Temps 44.0C

GPU-Z reports BIOS 62.94.34.00.08.

As far as I'm concerned, this is unacceptable. I hope there is someone out there who can adequately explain this to me, because I'm feeling rather confused right about now. I'd rather not turn confusion to anger. So please, if you've got the magic answer, let me know.

Vista power management is at max performance. The only game I have installed right now is World of Warcraft. COMODO Firewall 3, Symantec Endpoint Protection AV. Vista Ultimate x64 SP1, Latest updates. No other major improvements that I can recall.

 

were you on battery or plugged in?? the new bios version you have 1.00.08 will downclock when on battery power no matter what you have installed. did you check the 174.33 more than one time to see if it was also downclocking?

also where did you get the sager version of the 174.82??

 

I'm not sure if this is relevant to the 9262, but with both the 5793 and m15x the 8800's had a tendency to downclock with any drivers newer than 167.55. nVidia have now fixed this issue in their 175.63 and any newer 175 series drivers should be fine. 174 series should get the fix soon too, but I don't know which version will have it.

Hope this helps

EDIT: You can get the 175.63 drivers from lv2g

 

^^^ that would be sweet.....hopefully someone will confirm this works for them

 

I obtained the 174.82 directly from Sager's support page for the NP9262. Also, I never run this laptop on battery except to transport from, say, the living room to another room.

I went back and forth multiple times to try drivers, using driver sweeper each time. No positive results yet.

 

I will download the 175.63 drivers ASAP and try them out. In the mean time, any other insight is welcome

 

Here some very good drivers for D901C 8800M GTX SLI config with modded INF from NBF MobileForce Driver
for Vista 32bit

Vista 32 174.93
http://rapidshare.com/files/1124106...orce_Driver_v174.93_M6__32bit_Vista_.exe.html
Vista 32 175.12
http://rapidshare.com/files/1124104...orce_Driver_v175.12_M6__32bit_Vista_.exe.html
Vista 32 175.63
http://rapidshare.com/files/1130107...orce_Driver_v175.63_M6__32bit_Vista_.exe.html

 

XP 32bit 174.74
http://rapidshare.com/files/1130139...leForce_Driver_v174.74_M4__32bit_XP_.exe.html
XP 32bit 174.93
http://rapidshare.com/files/1130184...leForce_Driver_v174.93_M4__32bit_XP_.exe.html

 

chaz's review unit was experiencing downclocking issues as well and he got a new firmware update from tech support so look into that.

 

Lasted NVIDIA driver 175.16 release date: 06.05.2008 32bit Vista

http://rapidshare.com/files/1130290...orce_Driver_v175.16_M6__32bit_Vista_.exe.html

 

^^^^ is that a laptop2go driver or a sager / clevo version??

 

laptop2go very good test it

 

Yes I had similar downclocking issue (when comparing 3DMark scores - ~9150 down to ~8750) when I migrated from the stock 167.44 driver to the 174.xx drivers. I'll now try out the latest LV2G 175.63 driver !! Thanks guys!

 

My PC's VGA Driver is 174.33, too.
This revision is steadiest?

Before I try new driver, I must install SP1...

 

a slight reduction in 3dmark score is not a downclock.

 

Well, the 175.63 driver stops the downclocking of my 8800M (which caused a halving of 3dmark...) and although it causes me to lose ~200 3dmarks from the 167.51 (the last driver to not downclock for me) it fixes issues I have been having and seems more stable, so for now I'm keeping it

 

I went home last night and applied the 175.63 drivers from Laptopvideo2go. Initially, the drivers failed to return the card to proper clock speeds. However, I was able to get the clock speeds to return to normal after disabling and re-enabling SLI in the nVidia control panel. After that, any system state changes such as hibernation, standby, or even reboot would cause it to underclock the card.

At least I can do the SLI fix when I want to play a game, since it is stable while the system doesn't undergo a state change.

I've sent a ticket into Sager, so hopefully they'll respond with something useful.

[Edit] What I find quite odd is the card WILL perform at stock speeds after disabling and re-enabling SLI. I've tested this multiple times and, according to benchmarking, the card performs about as usual (~12000 marks at 1900x1200). It's just very odd that the card will underclock and not return to stock speeds without performing the steps above.