Issues with Quadro 3700m and Sager NP9262 (D900C)

I recently purchased a Quadro FX 3700m (used), which seems to be working fine. I have a Sager NP9262 which came with a 9800m GT and the 9800m GT started dying rapidly the past few months. Anyways, I have the 3700m installed, before I installed I applied some arctic silver 5 to the middle GPU die, and left the thermal pads on the memory chips on the card. My problem is that even when idle GPU-Z is showing the card at 62 degrees celcius. I have updated to the 285.62 verde drivers and used the modified INF file, and results are idle at 62 degrees. Any ideas? Does anyone have a sager np9262 / d900c with a quadro FX 3700m that could recommend any drivers / tweaks for the temp?

I mainly use photoshop, and other adobe products but would like to be able to play counter strike and call of duty if that's even possible with this card? (some of what I've read makes it seem that it's not)

 

Use nibitor/nvflash to mod the vbios, tweaking 2D/throttle voltage to 0.75v.

BTW:What about the temp when playing games?

 

What will flashing the vbios do? The voltage is currently showing as 1.03 on GPU-Z. From the short time I have been here I ve mainly seen people talk about flashing the vbios when the card is not working, but in my case, it is working, so just curious. As for the games, I have not attempted to play any yet, actually I don't even have any installed at the moment.

Also, if I were to flash the vbios, what should I flash it to?

 

You can permanently change the voltages with a vbios flash. The 3700m I put in my m860tu has the stock vbios (HP 1.0) and runs unmodded quadro drivers. I get better frames in games now than I did with the 9800m gt. I don't play many newer games, but I tried Black Ops pretty much maxed and it runs fine. It struggles with Arma2, but that's probably a more due to the combination of the dual core CPU, 4gb ram, and lack of an SSD.

I was worried about heat, so when I installed the card I replaced the video memory thermal pads with some copper shims (.016) that I polished to a mirror shine and put some ICD on them. The card runs cooler than my old one. Don't know if it will help you, but I'd at least take it apart and repaste it.

 

Quick Question: Are you running dual monitors, i.e. laptop display and another screen? My 3700m will not throttle down when running two screens but with a single it is fine. Results are: On a single monitor my card clocks down to 0.85v and temps of around 40c on a zalman cooler. With 2 screens, the voltage stays at 1.03v and temps up to 75c under load.

I am old, old, old drivers, 275.33 but now that I am reminded I might update those to some newer ones.

Hope that might help a bit.

W

 

Interesting, to answer your question Warren, Yes, I am using an external monitor, didn't even think about that being a potential cause.

 

My 3700 runs at 3d clocks (.85v) with an external monitor connected and the laptop display disabled. I can force it down to 200/100/400 with Powermizer, but that's such a pain to always have to adjust it manually. If I enable the laptop monitor as well, it bumps itself up to 1.03v/550/800/1375, which I can understand because there are a bunch more pixels to refresh. I updated from 275.XX to 285.62 with no change. The difference between 2d and 3d clocks is only 4-5 degrees C, but that's enough to keep the fan running louder than it does on 2d clocks.

 

Do any of you play games with your 3700? Obviously my use of photoshop etc takes priority over gaming but I would like to be able to play black ops, and other COD and CS games, if you do, are there any particular settings / drivers that work best for gaming with this card?

 

Just tried playing COD MW3 with my Quadro FX 3700m, had the settings on high quality, barely was playing for a minute then it started lagging very very badly, I minimized the game and GPU-Z showed my GPU temp as 104-105 degrees celcius and everything else was just maxed out, so obviously something has gotta give because I cannot play that game and probably any of the 3d shooting games I like, with this card without some sort of adjustment. Any recommendations? I will try lowering the quality settings but the fact that it was so high when on high quality I don't know how much of a difference that is going to make. What should I do? Should I somehow figure out a way to use both my 9800m GT (that I might bake) and my quadro 3700m, or is there a way to get the 3700 to play nice with these games?

 

Another update; fiddled with the in game video settings a bit and I am able to play. Right now I have it getting up to 84 degrees, is this to high? I have image quality at normal, going to test "high" next. I can't figure out which settings seem to cause the most change in GPU load / temp, anyone know what settings in COD (or most games) that would make the card run a lot hotter? I thought at first it would be the resolution but not so, I am at 1680x1050. I have "sync every frame" turned off, and a few other things but most is enabled. I am definitely not seeing a crystal clear 3d environment like I am used to but it's working.