The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
No one is suggesting to send the actual card, but BIOS dumps and that guy will see if he can do anything about.
It's not a scam and I checked that thread with a Google translate, and posted there myself. It seems that he has manipulated the p170em BIOS but I'm not sure if it was for the 680M or 7970M. A user with the 7970M reports that he's seen no results after flashing.
Like I said, I made a post there and perhaps someone speaking English will peak their interest. Nothing to lose, I won't flash my BIOS just yet, and yes it's unlikely that a Russian kid is going to solve what Clevo/AMD couldn't for months but a drowning man will clutch at a straw.
LOL! Send to him YOUR BIOS. lmao who was say send to him your card??? LAPTOP BIOS... he will unlock yor bios and send it to you, you will flash your laptop BIOS as usual under DOS and Enduro problem will be fixed, you will get many new options in your BIOS menu.
CPU usage in a 64-player map will be higher, and I am wondering if you guys could record usage in those specific situations. The "Going Hunting" mission was tested in that article, not even multiplayer. The 3610qm is indeed nearly as powerful as an i7-2600, which is pretty impressive.
Nope, 64 Caspian and the CPU usage doesn't reach 90%. There is no way the CPU could cause a bottleneck in BF3. And the GPU usage stays in 60% almost all the time.
CPU bottleneck (which isn't occurring) wouldn't explain why dropping settings only lowers GPU utilization. I just went in-game and stuck it on low and GPU usage was around 40%. On my high/ultra combination, I get about 70-80% on city maps and 60-70% on open maps.
I have read for days about this issue, and can conclude this:
"Enduro is so smart that ends being stupid. Maybe making it dummer and allowing setups to tell it to use 100% dedicated GPU when so configured, and not mess with that order and try to optimize energy using less..."
I think nvidia was smart to make a dummer Optimus, wich does just that. Probably having some months after 7970M was released they made some tests, figured out the issues and decided the "perfect solution" wasnt possible.
I take the words of some knowledgable people, that have more cool minds about all this, and its that AMD wont let this go unresolved, they wont talk to us but they sure will get this fixed sooner or later, and all ths nightmare will be gone and some of us will be happy, and others (that went to 680M) wont.
It's to save power, it's how Enduro works. Unfortunately, it isn't working properly. On games that it works properly, such as Darksiders II, Deadspace II, and The Darkness II (yeah, I picked three sequel games that start with the letter D, whatchu gonna do 'bout it!?), GPU utilization will be low, but the game will be capped at 30 or 60FPS. This prevents the temperatures from climbing too high as well as the usage of power. The real problem occurs when the GPU, drivers, or whatever, is not giving its full potential on games that actually require it to work more than what it wants to for steady framerates. Few exceptions to that rule of course, such as The Witcher 2 (hey, at least it's not a D game, okay?) where it's always above 90% but still doesn't hold a steady framerate at 60 just due to how demanding it is. I actually haven't tried to reduce settings to see if I could cap it at a steady 60, so that's something I could test later on. But right now, I want to finish playing Darksiders II before I do some other silly tests on games I don't plan on going back to play for a long while, lol.
Basically, Enduro working properly would be great for your electric bill and your computer's health as well as your health for not banging your head through the desk because your games aren't running efficiently. Right now, an Enduro "off switch" would be great until they work out the kinks though.
Edit: my post was towards Hurricane as to why the GPU utilization decreases when you decrease your options.
The cpu is deffinitally not botlenecking the gpu, as I was playing a lot of bf 3 multi only on 64 p maps like karkand on my old i7-740qm with 5870m , and it wasn't a botleneck. I could achieve perfect fps 45< in heavy gunfights when lowering to 1600x900 and everything low. And the 3610m should be minimum three times faster if not more.. If I turn the same settings even at 1280x720 on the 7970m I still get the same dips and much worse fps then on my older system. The 3610qm should be a much more powerfull CPU than you'll ever need in current games.
I think anandtechs article DOES give hope in all thi ordeal, lets stop being so negative, AMDs silence does not necessarily indicate they are doing nothing... just that they dont want to discuss it with some very angry customers.
Heres the article and i quote what i find most useful:
ANANDTECH
"The biggest news with the latest iteration of Enduro is that AMD is planning to make universal reference drivers available for all the Enduro laptops. Its not clear precisely what that means, but potentially any laptop with Dynamic Switchable Graphics or later (e.g. PX4.0 and later) would be supported by AMDs reference drivers. Thats huge, and if AMD can deliver it will assuage most of our concerns with their hardware/software. Hopefully none of the OEMs get bent out of shape or refuse to allow support, which is a problem we've seen in the past. We should see the first public release in the next month or two, and then another release somewhere in the November/December timeframe."
But it doesn't make any sense businesswise whatsoever to stay silent at this point (except if they wish to try to hide the issue). It is very bad business not to react to customer feedback, especially when the feedback is negative. And since AMD IS a business...
I partly agree, but they chose a "public response" and are sticking with it. You have to agree that one many a time speaking can be harmfull, specially when you are not sure what to say or in this case the proper answer to a complaint.
As i see it AMD DOES NOT WANT to admit the issue is theirs, thats why most public responses point to OEMs and not the card and enduro itself.
This does NOT mean they dont know IT IS their fault, but they dont want to carry that bag.
The bright side of this is that when they DO come out with a solution they will portrait themselves as saviors rather than answering criminals.
Why is this the bright side? Mainly because they probably WILL come out with a solution.
The thing is that legal action against AMD aint so far as it seems, so they do not want that "anything they say could be used against them in a court of law".... does that sound familiar to anyone?
So as acused criminals they
"Have the right to remain silent"
//////////////////
Lets just hope, and work for, that this TRIAL does NOT go to court and that AMD "settles" to give us all working drivers. The alternative of sending AMD to jail or bankrupt is not very appealing.....
The AnandTech's article is starting to sink in and I finally have my hopes up again. The original stock drivers were officially a mess, and there hasn't been a driver release for switchable graphics since. Now AMD has no choice but to start creating unified drivers for switchable graphics, as it seems to becoming more or less a standard. I'm now fairly positive that we will see a fix or two by the end of the year that at least alleviate the problem, if not make it go away alltogether.
Feel sorry for you guys. My m17x r4's coming really soon with a 7970m, i7 3610qm, 8gb ram, full hd 17.3", 750gb 7200rpm with 3 years warranty + 3 years accidental damage. But I can turn enduro off - m17x r4 lets you!
Hope you get the option too also! Can't wait for my new laptop!!!
As an update, I would like to report that Saint's Row the Third is running terribly. GPU utilization is jumping between a highest of 54% and a low of 15%. I get between 9 and 27 FPS running the game on high settings with AA turned of and between 15 FPS and 35 FPS on the medium preset. This is absolutely terrible and has made the game nearly unplayable.
Post your findings and figures
HERE Is the closest thing to AMD direct support we got so far, Jarred is very active in testing different issues and is passing the info directly to AMD (or so we hope). Its really easy to register and post in ANANDTECH.
We are getting things moving people, Anandtech edited its article to include some of the GPU underutilization issues:
ANANDTECH
I REPEAT: Post your findings and test results, we have someone actually working and "officially" reporting this!
I quote the added content (you can obviously see the table could be much bigger if we give Jarred some more games to test...):
Uh, what? I just finished SR3 a few weeks ago with minimal issues. Only time it went below 50FPS was when I would dive straight toward the street in a VTOL.
Are you perhaps on different drivers than stock, joem?
Also, I had everything maxed, including AA.
Edit: Okay, I just went back and double checked it. You're right. I somehow managed to finish the game at 24FPS without issue, lol. I suppose it was the fact that the FPS were steady and didn't constantly go everywhere. Utilization was around 70%.
Honestly after reading this thread and the comments on Anandtech I am pleasantly surprised that he updated his article. Makes me appreciate Anandtech all the more that they are willing to say something when everyone else is just letting AMD get away with it. But now that I say that I assume AMD has told him something that he is under NDA on.
Well to be fair, he publishes an article and less then 24 hours later there are over 120 comments. That's a lot of attention and publicity and he's not AMD so it's not bad publicity for him. More discussion on his article means more links and more hits, which is exactly what happened. All he had to do then is to throw a bone to the dogs (that would be us) by adding half a page detailing an issue he already knew about but clarifying that no official drivers have been released since April or something, therefore we should wait and refer to his original article that says Enduro will be AWESOME ..... at an undisclosed date.
I was not using stock drivers because they destroyed my Skyrim performance. I was using the stock CCC with the 12.7 beta display driver installed over it. I think that I might try the 12.8 display driver here soon.
I tried running the game on low and highest settings including AA, and there was little difference in performance. Oh, well. I hope that a new driver show up here soon, else my little brothers incoming AMD desktop build is going to switch to an Nvidia/Intel one.
"Without committing AMD to anything because I've got NO OFFICIAL news for you, I would expect to see a big improvement in performance for 7900M Enduro users in a future beta performance driver. Timeframe is not confirmed but I would think in about a month but I'll try to pin it down more."
Great news!, even if its not "official"
AMD aint so stupid as to not correct these issues as soon as possible.
lets hope they do.
I leave here some thougts i poured in another thread, therefore as spoil only to make long repeats:
Since we are speculating i might as well do..
Only one thing is clear for now, and that is that ENDURO technology is responsible for underutilizing the dGPU and consequently rendering low FPS for some games and/or game maps and/or game configurations.
Now as a scientist i first analyze the empiric data and then try to formulate an hypothesis, and then test it to prove or discard it. Having avidly read many users info and comments, my current understanding of the problem is this:
I DO NOT think this is hardware issue. Why? well, the proof is everywhere, not only the 7970M performs flawlessly and very well in Alienware with enduro shut off, but also in clevo machines it performs perfect in some games and even in most games affected it performs normal in certain maps, multi or non multiplayer settings, etc, etc. The most common complaint is that FPS go up and down along with GPU utilization.
My understanding is that a hardware piece is inherently DUMB as a rock, and that its performance is only dummer as its operator (in this case Enduro) and the instructions it receives to operate.
Another evidence on this subject is that different catalyst driver versions do affect the performance, maybe not in the way we want, but it doesn just "stay the same", either worst, better or weird would be proper terms.
That said and taking the comments of the most knowledgeable people around, the issue IS driver related. The fact that Nvidia had very similar issues some years ago when they launched Optimus, just adds to this notion.
Another fact that can be interpreted in many ways is AMDs and most resellers silence about all this:
We can go all paranoid and think there is a huge conspiracy to shut us down and make this problem go away.
I can even picture some black clothed NVIDIA agent pouring a misterious liquid on the hardware or hacking AMDs drivers with a hidden flaw to cause all this.... the options are infinite...
Now, taking into account Anandtech's article, Sager's few deleted comments, mythlogic's comments, even short and very scarce AMD posts (Mark AMD), wich can be regarded as the most "official" position on the matter, the conclusion for me is this:
1) AMD has been slow to detect, understand, adress and moreso recognize this issue or its mere existence. This is not necessarily bad, only unfortunate (for them and us customers).
2) AMD took the usual attitude towards these kind of issues and remain silent, doing nothing at first hoping it was a mere configuration or driver installation issue and that other users would help the affected ones.
3) After seeing the issue was real, not fixable by users and configuration combos, not even reseller drivers, and that even some resellers were complaining to them and in open forums, AMD decided to put some people at work and asked their associates (i.e. sager and others) to back up their silence policy for the time being, releasing a few short phrases to gain time. "We are working on it"
you can argue this decision but i aint something so weird as it seems. I would say this happened only 1 month ago or so.
4) Viewing some light at the end of the tunnel AMD starts to release some info to their resellers and reviewers like Anandtech, in order to have them quiet and informed that they are "on to it". They still remain silent either because by now they might as well and because the fix is NOT ready or complete and they do not want to enter any debate without answers. This is happening now.
So as you see there is no need to be paranoid, there is much more simpler explanation to events.
Some would say AMD should have detected the issue before launching the 7000 cards, but seriously speaking this aint so true.
Why?
Well you need just read some of the first reviews that came out for 7970M, i dont think any of them were biased, they even mentioned enduro and its need to be improved. But if you test 20 or more games, you run only 1 or 2 minute benchmarks for them, you dont have someone playing hours and switching to multiplayer modes and what not. Also many games perform correctly so there really wasnt and still isnt an instant crash of sorts to detect a major issue. Also, the card works, even if it underperforms some times, so detecting this anomaly wasnt so easy to begin with. Not saying AMD is to be absolved of all charges, but i really dont see them as the villains many are picturing, they have been just too slow, too dumb and too arrogant, but then again who isnt sometimes?
Whats your fckng point you ask?????
Simple, the issue will be fixed to a good degree, not 100% probably, not for all games, but no card works flawlessly in all games, thats a whole different topic.
so have hope and dont crush the only option we have to avoid total monoploy in the graphics world.
What can we do then? sit back and wait?
NO, absolutely not, the ball is rolling and growing and we need to stop it soon or it will become an avalanche.
You can cry.
You can shout and spit.
You can test and inform your results.
You can post or just read.
Whatever you do will be more or less usefull and might help getting this boat to port.
Well, i still hold high respect for ATI/AMD for releasing HD5870M that powered my G73 for the last 2 years, has been wonderful.
But i think i have to email Xotic PC and change my order from HD 7970M back to GTX 675M...
Don't want a huge/expensive brick that can't play anything smoothly
Everyone also must keep in mind that developers are just as guilty to these issues as AMD or Nvidia are. HOw? Good question, but its a simple answer. Do some modern games work? Yes, are all games affected? No.
Reality is each dev will use different code, different APIs and directx calls and there in lies the issue. Incase anyone wanted to know, DX9 has over 1500 APIs, and AMD or Nvidia only need support a core 500 or so in the hardware. The rest? well supportem anyway you like.
This is why games will run better or worse on one chip vs another. Nvidia and AMD took different routes to the same desination. It is also made worse by their very developer programs, you can be sure as rain is wet, AMD and Nvidia make sure theior branded games use APIs the other only supports in drivers, not hardware.
AMD will solve this, just as Nvidia did. You can call down AMD for its handling, bolster Nvidia, but you know, do your research both handle these issues almost the same. Nvidia just as often tries to hide issues under the rug until it is hammered onto their face with railroad spikes, just as AMD does. I think whats weird is, what issues they both accept and openly admit too, vs hide.
Enduro is a big step for AMD to catch Nvidia, like NVsurround to catch Eyefinity. AMD is most likely taken a under cover fix until its solved due to marketing. I say this, as thats how Nvidia dealt with Optimus, 99% of the world never knew of its issues. Just like Enduro issues, 99% of the world will never know it happened either.
Love em or hate em, they are so much alike at the core its enough to make you laugh.
Exmortis, how are developers supposed to tailor their games to a product that hasnt been released yet? Every card seems to work 100%, even 7970m does when Enduro is disabled. Should they completely rewrite their rendering engines because AMD released a "feature" which screws up performance in games that have ran perfectly for years with all other cards?
also, none of optimus problems ever had anything to do with utilization, - there were issues with game detection, but they could be worked around pretty easily.
Question: If OCing exacerbates the issue, has anybody tried underclocking the core to see if better fps/performance is achieved?
Also, every time I alt-tab from a game to desktop or browser ..etc the dGPU shuts down and repowers up when I alt-tab back, sometimes dozens of times in every gaming session. Isn't that bad for the circuitry? I was under the impression that constant current is always better for longevity of components, rather than an On-Off pattern of operation unless we're talking relatively quick-to-perish components like screens.
You do make a point, but as many have said shutting off enduro makes all games run fine (in AW you can at least). So even as the game/card compatibility is a factor, in this case we have to agree that the issue is 99% enduro.
I fully agree with your marketing and AMDs stance statements. Next year only a few would even know this all happened,,,
The ones reporting and complaining now, will be the unsung heroes of the enduro technology.... at least we will have that to tell our grandsons... hahahaha
those two are actually good questions. I thougt the same about underclocking to avoid the issue, but one probable answer is that underclocking would yield worst performance in itself, so its not really a good solution. Still it would be interesting to know the results, maybe someone can test this an report at Anandtech's.
The on/off is always bad for electronics, but i dont think this is the case, it probably renders to a "stand by" state, not a full shut down, but thats only guessing.
OC'ing doesnt really make it worse, you get the same fps just lower utilization (because the card is running faster, but still hitting the enduro bottleneck). You can increase the utilization by downclocking far enough where your clocks become the limiting factor and not the enduro problem, - that way you will get 99% utilization but much lower fps.
To your first point, easy, devs have access to cards yrs ahead of release (not to mention they all claim to share a common API MSDX). However these days devs are in bed with one or the other, and that's actually a bad thing for us. It also has nothing to do with rewriting their engines, egads if I choose the vid card in game settings, it should just use it and it alone, why do some games work over others? Because this is hard coded. AMD will fix the issues with drivers, and hopefully we will be done with it, but I find it hard to believe its JUST an Enduro/driver issue, when many games work just fine. I am in no way precluding or eluding to AMD not having the bulk of the blame here, but do not think for one minute that many of the issues AMD or Nvidia deal with, are not really in essence software code and/or development issues.
To your second, yes Optimus had different issues, but it boils down to same thing. Both companies have their fair share of issues, it just seems the green team has short memories. Hell I could list off dozens of AMD issues, and just as many Nvidia for that matter.
But the real blame lands on us, we all buy cards on release, with half baked drivers, and half baked support. I have no idea when it started, but the first company to release a product not properly supported but sold well because us customers paid for it, began a spiral down to where we are now. Worst of it all now is, we are stuck with it.
And if you have been around PC gaming and tech as long as I have, I am sure we could keep each other drunk for many weeks telling stories over beers!!!
As far as who is totally to blame, Enduro vs Devs? You know what? we will never know really. AMD will have to fix it in drivers, but that does not mean for one minute its entirely their issue. What is rather surprising, is a game as wide spread as BF3 is affected.
I think that is whats disappointing the most, AMD should be testing the say 10 top games on gaming hardware, which means they did not. Or, what driver we see now in release, is not what was tested. Either way, THIS is what is most annoying. Luckily for me it seems to be modern FPS engines affected, of which I do not play.
The beer idea aint bad at all, maybe when we sober off enduro would have been fixed! CLICK! jajajaja
Shamefully i think i have played the first PC games at their release... oh man i am old... lol
Have anyone tested Prince or persia I, Heretic or dungeon master for GPU utilization and FPS??? (those arent actually the oldest games i recall, but no need to enter spectrum or DOS games now...) ROFL.... probably they ran at 1% iGPU.
And they weigh about 1 MB each! lol old games were so much more optimized than now.
As i stated other wise i believe (this is speculating only) both AMD and early reviewers (such as notebookcheck) did test several games before release, BUT they just didnt run into problems or if they did they didnt thougt they were relevant. I dont think AMD testers took more than a few minutes in single player mode to test any game, so hardly they would have detected issues.
This aint the first or the last time something like this happens, as you say we are also to blame for buying unfinished beta products at retail price (wich for AMD at least aint so high...)
even so AMD is stil 99% to blame, and they should and will fix the issues, or so i can say taking all facts into account.
different engines use different rendering tricks, some of which clearly dont play nice with enduro. claiming that there is developer bias is ridiculous when games that run perfectly on enduro-less AMD hardware and were released 3-4 years ago suffer from this issue, way before enduro was ever mentioned to anyone.
yes, i am sure this line of defence would stand up in court for AMD..
Many caught that article a week or so ago, its old news, even tho its good news. Also the article is a good place to post findings and tests, because Jarred (the writer) was reproducing and testing things posted in the beta drivers he had and he is in direct contact with AMD's new drivers team, so if thats not the place to ask for improvements i dont know where...
Originally Posted by Marc@AMD
I want to thank all those users that have been patient in this matter, and peristent in providing helpful information and feedback to the community.
We have received some positive news from the Driver Development Team. A driver is planned to be released in the near future that will provide significant improvements to notebooks enabled withAMD Enduro™ Technology.
Please stay tuned to our support.amd.com site for the driver posting.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
