M570TU Two major issues, possibly related.

I bought my laptop a bit over 2 years ago, at One.de. The best as i can tell, it's an m570tu. It has 3GBs of DDR3 RAM@1066MHz, a P8400 CPU and the 9800M GTS GPU. I installed Win7 x64 when it got out of beta, but problem number existed on Vista x64 to.

Problem 1

I can't update my GPU drivers. The latest version i can use is 174.90. Anything later than that has one of two issues, and i tried allot of versions, possibly every official one and plenty of the ones i got on laptopvideo2go.com.

On some driver versions i can't get to Windows. At the point where i should be getting the welcome screen, i just get a black screen with the HD activity stoping about 10 seconds after the black screen apears. There is no mouse and it seems like the screen itself has completely powered off, but i cant be sure if it's really that or it's just black. I tried leaving it like that for over an hour, but it wouldn't budge. If i did a hard reset here and booted into safe mode, several things might happen. Sometimes i boot ok, i can uninstall the new and reinstall the old drivers and its fine. Sometimes, the backlight on my screen is almost completely off, and i can just barely see anything, but still, i can uninstall the new and reinstall the old drivers. On rarer ocasions, i would get the safe mode welcome screen, but it would hang there and i would have to again do a hard reset where one of the first two things would happen. On only one ocassion did i managed to fully boot to windows after updating my drivers and then, I noticed a huge increase in peformance on the two games i had installed at that point (Prototype and WoW). After the next reboot, though, i got the black screen again and i had to roll back.

On other driver versions, i boot fine, but i get high DPC latency which then cause audio and video stutters. By disabling some hardware, I noticed that the latency would be reduced if i disable my WiFi adapter, but it wouldnt go away completely. Even with the WiFi adapter disabled, the system would be unusable so a rollback was the only option.

Problem 2

About two months ago, a new problem appeared. After playing a game for a while, but never outside a game, i would get a black screen. The computer still works, and i even still get audio for a few seconds, but then its either stuck in an infinite loop, or it stops completely. Again, the fans still work, but as far as i can tell, ther is no HD activity (the light isnt blinking) and the only option is to turn it off and restart. It boots fine after, but if i try to run a game right away, the same problem happens even faster.

This lead me to think it was an overheating issue. The CPU and the GPU were getting pretty high (55-60°C for the CPU, 85°C for the GPU), so i bought a can of compressed air and thoroughly cleaned it. I also reinstalled windows to start from scratch and the problem apeared once again. After that one time, though, and after buying a cooling pad from Xilence, the problem was gone. Or so i thought...

Yesterday, while playing the Civ5 demo, it hapenned again. It was a bit weird this time. Instead of the screen just going black, the sound started "crawling" first and then the screen went black. I thought it was a problem with the demo, as others say it's buggy to, so i restarted and ran it again. About a minute into the game, the screen went black again, this time the old, regular way. Since i did some driver updates and a directx update, i went and did a system restore for each of those changes. After rolling back the DirectX update (which was the oldest change i did), it appeared to have been fixed. I ran WoW for about 15 minutes (did a dungeon) and it was fine. I couldn't test it on Civ5 because that update was required to run it.

Today, the same black screen hapenned again while in a wow dungeon.

Now, as for the temperatures, after buying the pad and cleaning it, idle temperatures were around 25 degrees for the CPU and 35 for the GPU. Right now, they are 25 CPU and around 40GPU inspite of me still constantly cleaning it. The HD is constant at around 47-49 degrees and the ACPI temperature goes from 37 at idle to 61 at max. At max, the GPU went up to around 48 after cleaning the first time but climbs to 60 at worst now (again, even after cleaning). The cpu at max goes to about 50 .(10 minute ORTHOS test, but lower in games).

As of right now, I tried disabling powermizer, updating and rolling back several drivers including the chipset, robson (dont have the memory, but have the controller), my bios is the latest version avaliable on this forum, and my video drivers arent updated due to above mentioned problem 1.

I also tried playing Minecraft for a while, which is more CPU intensive thant the GPU so my GPU temperature goes to about 48°. I played for several hours with no problem. If i play WoW, the temperature climbs to 52-54° and its fine there, but after a random time interval, i get the black screen. It usually happens while something graphically intensive is on screen, and it happened in dungeons/combat on each ocasion, not once in a city, thought that might be a conincidence. I would also like to add that Civ5 raised the temp to around 60° before the problem hapenned the first time, so while it seems to be somehow related to higher temperatures, it doesnt seem to be directly related. Still, the GPU used to have no isses climbing to as much as 80 so this is definitely new.

I'm in a bit of a hurry typing all of this, so I apologize for any mistakes I made as english is not my first or second language. I pray that this problem is somehow software and not hardware related as I really can't afford a repair or replacement at this point. Any advice would be welcome with these issues.

Some additional info that i can think of at this point:

Windows 7 memory test at boot passes fine. Hard Drive S.M.A.R.T. Diagonstics results are perfect as far as i can tell. I used Hardware Monitor and Real Temp to check the temperatures.

I will add more info if I can think of any.

 

hi begedinnikola and welcome to nbr
very strange problems your having. i have no idea what the updating drivers problem is.
do you use driver cleaner pro in safe mode once youve removed the driver. just wondering if there could be an odd nvidia file or something hanging around and corupting the new drivers.

this is taken from the nbr cooling centre:

you can find the full guide HERE
sorry i cant help anymore.

 

As far as i can tell, my GPU never did downlclock on high temperatures. I had one instance of it overheating and then it simply shutdown. It was pretty hot on touch so i cleaned it right away and it was back to normal on next boot. This hapenned well over a year ago, so i do not believe any permanent damage occured.

As for the drivers, yes, i have used driver cleaners, safe mode, even OS reistalls, but i have yet to find any driver version past 174.90 that works. Even the default one that Win 7 installs over windows update (179.something) didnt work and caused the second type of issue (DPC latency).

No matter what i do, my HDD stays around 50° and never goes much above that (for instance, after a day of usage today, the max temp was 49°). As for the CPU, it went above 60 when it was in dire need of cleaning, but that was once or twice and it usually doesnt go above 50 or so. As i said, the gpu did overheat once about a year ago, but since then, i was carefull and it never went that high.

Also what i would like to mention, while watching HD videos, my gpu temperature also sometimes climbs to about 52°, but the black screen lockup issue has jet to occur outside a 3d game. Even while playing WoW, i do not believe i ever had the issue at temperatures bellow 50°, but i can't be completely sure of that.

 

Hi,

that doesn´t sound good.
Right now I have no clue- In january, I installed a 9800m GTS in a M570RU of a friend and before that I tested it in my M571TU, worked great with the latest drivers and I could overclock it just well.
I don´t know if there are different vBios versions of the 9800m GTS are out, but maybe you could post a screenshot of GPU-Z? I´ll search for the 9800m GTS vBIOS which I should have somehwere deep in my archive and take a look at the version .

 

This is the screen. I hope it helps. As i said, the problem 2 is recent (apeared 2 months ago and seemed to be resolved, reapeared yesterday), while problem 1 was there from the start.

 

Hm, it´s the same vBios - so than it has to be other reasons.

BTW, what BIOS version do you have on the M570TU?

 

The latest from here if i'm not mistaken, 11, maybe even 12, cant remember exactly at this point. I have something downloading on my slow connection atm, so will check when i can. In any case, issue 2 is more recent than that and as i said, Issue 1 is from the start, and persisting trough several bios versions.

Also some additional info...

I have found 3 errors in the last 24 hours related to
nvlddmkm

They all hapenned within a few seconds from each other. This is GPU related but not sure if its related to my problem.

 

Well, the latest BIOS (optimized for Windows 7) is 1.00.19, KBC/ EC Firmware is 1.0.12.
Other than that, I really don´t know - maybe it´s hardware related then. If your already did a clean install of the OS and this didn´t help, I have no other idea...

 

Sorry, I was writing according to memory and messed up the version numbers. Yes, that's the BIOS i have (including KBC/EC). The reason I'm still hoping it's somehow software related is because since my last OS reinstall, the problem apeared only once and then stopped for two months until yesterday. Still, if it is software related, it's something that probably happens automatically (some update maybe).

In case it's hardware related, could anyone guess which hardware would be the problem based on how it behaves? As i said, it happens in 3D games, as far as i can tell only when my GPU temp goes above 50 and it usually happens when i do something performance intensive (like Killing Spree on my rogue in WoW) and not when im standing still. The screen just goes black like it lost the signal, and the sound usually goes away a second or two after, though it sometimes gets stuck in a loop instead. The fans still work and the rest of the computer seems to stay on, but i get no reaction from anything and the only thing i can do is turn it off manually.

Other than this problem, my computer behaves normally. I can play 2d games, watch movies and everything else fine. I get no weird errors that i can see, no artifacts or anything of the sort. As i said, it seems to have started when Civ5 installed a DX update. I did a system restore after that, but im not sure if system restore rolls back DirectX updates completely. I am getting the offer to update again when i try to run the demo, but could it be possible that some file got left behind even after the restore? Can anyone tell for sure?

 

Excuse my double post, but i was thinking about something.

Since my problem seems to happen only at the graphicaly most intensive parts, maybe it would help if i downclocked my GPU? Is there a guide on how to do it with a mobile GPU? Would the PowerMizer also need to be disabled? I was thinking maybe drop the clocks by about 5% and see what happens.

 

hey sorry to butt in and not be helpful, but could I get you to upload that video card bios for me? its the button below the nvidia logo.

Oh and, on the off chance that there was something wrong with your vbios, i'd let you know after looking it over.

 

Off course, not a problem. You can get it at the following link:

drop.io - begedin

In other news, i reinstalled windows again, completely clean, only added the 174.90 drivers after the installation. Started WoW, did some auctioning in stormwind, all good, then joined the Coren Direbrew queue, 5 minute wait, still fine. Got inside the dungeon, started the fight, around half way in i got the black screen. This time, the sound stayed and it wasn't stuck in a loop. Everything was going along in the background except the video, but the sound was streched out on some places. Still, it wasn't in a loop, it was continuing.The music and background effects, that is. The fight sound effects stopped, which i guess means that my network locked up to and i disconnected from the server.

I'm starting to think it might be some sort of hardware clash that existed before but is now heightened because of the age of it all. I really have no idea anymore.

So, about that downclocking idea, can anyone give me some tips? Maybe even undervolting?

 

Hello,

download "nVidia System Tools" and install it. There you can downclock it very easy.
NVIDIA DRIVERS 6.06
But after your last experience, I think there is really something wrong with your card. Maybe it´s one of the vRams, but it doesn´t sound software related to me.
Hope you will figure out what the problem is and solve it, anyway!

 

Well, since i wanna try all my options, is there a way to somehow limit the amount of vRAM the GPU has available trough software? Even discrete amounts like 512>256 would be an option at this point.

UPDATE: I installed the tools from the above post and restarted my computer. For some reason, the System Assessment Tool decided to run again and i got the black screen, for the very first time from windows. I restarted in safe mode and disabled the new nVidia services that i got (Update and Performance) and restarted in normal mode again. I ran the Assessment tool manually fine, so I'm guessing the performance service was the issue. Can anyone tell me what it does exactly when it runs the first time? Does it do some sort of background benchmark?

 

You might want to check the ram just in case. The mem tests don't always detect problems. My computer used to freeze up on me when I went from 2GB (1x1) ram to 4GB (2x2). I found the ram defective, got a new pair, and then discovered the second pair wasn't so good either. So I've dropped down to 1GB + 2GB and I don't freeze. With me, I didn't get a black screen though.

Perhaps you can pop out one stick and give it a whirl. Try one stick at a time.

 

I checked each stick separately and it crashes on each of them. I don't know anyone with DDR3 in the area so i can't test if it's the controller or something.

The only two things that i have left to try (as far as i know) are GPU underclocking and limiting vRam.

Any way to do any of those things without the nVidia tools a few posts back which i cant use? Also, to what values should i underclock?

 

Hi,

I don´t know how to cut your vram, but you can underclock yor video card using nibitor. You have to extract the vbios using GPU-Z, rename the "bin" file to "rom", change the stock clocks in nibitor and use nvflash on a usb stick oder CD/DVD to reflash you video card in DOS mode.

 

Hm, how safe is that exactly? There used to be stuff like RivaTuner and Coolbits for for nVidia cards, does anything like that still exist? I would prefer not to risk bricking the card completely, as it does still work in windows without issues.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/519360-freezes-randomly-m570tu-sager-5796-5797-a.html#post6727302

I have a problem that is kind of similar. My current theory is that the voltage level might be the problem, as the card needs more voltage as it ages. I haven't had the time to check this out, as it requires some skill and a lot of time to hit performance level 2 and stay there until fault occurs (which I'm going to try to do to test my theory).

Don't know if this can be relevant for your case. It's kind of in the same area as your downclocking idea (card needs less voltage when downclocked if I'm not mistaking).

 

It makes sense. I have yet to downclock mine, though. As the nvidia performance tools don't work for me (i get the error) and i really want to avoid messing with my video bios.

I'll ask again, is it still possible to change the clocks with some other simple tool like the old riva tuner or coolbits? At this point, even increasing the voltage might be an option, since my temperatures hang around 55 degrees at full power.

 

The nvidia system tools crash on you? Even with the latest nvidia drivers?

55 degrees is nothing. I've even added new thermal pads and additional heatsinks and I still hit 78 degrees at times (no notebook cooler though).

I found this thread to be a great eye opener. Of course I had to read it about 10 times before it sank in, lol.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/298459-9800m-gt-overclocking-5.html

It contains all sorts of tools that were used to overclock (or underclock) before nvidia system tools came out. You have to keep in mind that the conversation takes place over a long period of time, so in the end, they use nvidia system tools since we can (now) do software overclock and underclock.

 

They don't crash on me, they cause the same issue i have in games, but this time outside of games. Basically, if i install it, i get a few seconds after each reboot before i get the black screen, so i cant use it.

Side Note: I got the black screen for the first time today through regular Windows usage (web surfing). I think it's getting worse

 

When I first got my laptop, a few months later, my screen would just go black. Then went totally black, but i could get video out to a monitor using the vga. I sent it in rma, and they replaced the card.
So it's sounding like the card is just going bad.

 

A small update. It seems to happen when i run a Nintendo Emulator, for instance, with the GPU being in 2D mode and nowhere near high performance.. I'm starting to think it's not a GPU issue but some other piece of hardware. GPU and RAM are ruled out for now. Cant really try a different hard drive as i don't know anyone who could lend me one.

How would the computer act if the CPU was at fault?

Also, the sound keeps going, but it does stop after a few seconds, I'm guessing after the buffer empties or something. Does that mean anything?

EDIT: I was thinking... I posted this in the Clevo forums because i was hoping it was a known issue for my laptop, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Would it be possible for this to move to a more general forum so i could possibly get more responses?

EDIT2: I ran some opengl and directx demos i was doing for college. Simple 3d animations with generated models and no extra textures (just shading and flat coloring). All of them put my gpu in the fourth (performance) mode and max up the Core, Memory and Shader clocks. I've been running the demos for over an hour now and ill i got was a svchost.exe crash and at the sime time a User mode driver framework service termination. I'm guessing that these two are connected in this case. Basically, i went into aero basic mode and a minute later, it recovered. Other than this event, which might have been an accident, there were no other issues.

What im trying to say is, i dont think its a voltage issue. Either the vRAM has problems (since i wasnt loading textures here), or its some other piece of hardware. I was thinking about trying to disable some hardware one at a time to try and find the faulty piece, but i dont know where to start.

I have an external sound card as well as an onboard one and it happens on either of them so i think i can eliminate that one. Any other ideas? Maybe WiFi or something else?

 

Sorry for double posting, but the previous one was pretty big and this is a new thing.

I was doing some testing by minimizing the game im running when temperatures reach a certain level. It seems i can extend i can extend the time before black screen for quite a bit if i maintain the gpu temperature bellow about 52°C. I'm not sure about the exact value, but i kept it bellow 52 for quite a long time (longer than it usually takes for the black screen to happen) and it was fine, but when i would stop minding, the temperature in Civ5 for instance would get to about 60 and within a minute or two i would get the screen. For wow, the temperature stays about 55, and again, bellow about 52 its all good, but once i stop caring and it gets to 55, soon i get a black screen. Also, the black screen almost always happens when i get something new on the screen, like meeting a new leader in Civ and getting the leader screen or getting in a new area in WoW.

If the idea that the GPU lacks voltage is true, would that also apply to a fault with vRAM? By how much should i raise the voltage for this GPU. Is there any way to do it other than ntune and the bios editor? As i said, ntune causes the black screen very soon after boot, and i'm a bit scared of editing the bios.

 

If you read that forum that I posted, they pretty much covered that you can only change the voltage by editing the bios (can't use software like nvidia system tools to do it). It seems pretty straightforward. Pumping up the number in the bios doesn't really increase the volts, it only fools the drivers into thinking that the gpu is capable of a higher voltage (therefore unlocking the ability to clock higher). That's how I understand it.

By using TechPowerup GPU-Z, I can see that my volts go as low as .8500v at idle. Then goes up to 1.0000v.
I've used ATItool to test the card... by looking for artifacts in the test. Even though we have Nvidia, the ATItool is nice way to look for problems.

But your problem is, you will get black screen as soon as you stress the card, so I doubt you'd get far on ATItool.

I guess you can try this at your own risk:
edit bios and put lower or higher voltage rating. Make sure you have a backup plan in case it fails (like have a backup of your original bios and if you get black screen you'd have to restore blindly). It's all explained in that forum. I've never done it myself... yet.

 

Ok, another idea. I just remembered that i have another Clevo laptop lying around that went dead a bit over 2 years ago. It's the M570U, but with a 7800go or gtx gpu, not sure which one.

Now, as far as I know, both this one and the old one are MXM IV when it comes to GPUs, so any chance they might be compatible, at least to test if the GPU is the problem? Or would the fact that the new one uses DDR3 be a problem?

 

The M570TU uses MXM 2.1 type III. You have to be very careful and find out exactly what slot the M570U has. Hopefully someone else will know.

 

Of course, I wasn't planning to jam it in using a hammer or anything Just wondering cause i thought i read somewhere on the specs MXM IV for both of them. I also understand that this is mostly a buzz word here, but I'm hoping theres something to it since both are from Clevo, and the model name implies some similarities.

Hopefully someone will be able to give me an answer.

 

The M570U was the last model in the line to not use MXM I'm afraid. The M570RU uses MXM, but not the 570U.

 

Damn, I guess I can't get a break.

Time to get a job and by a computer then...

 

Around here you'd have a better chance of someone throwing a brand new X7200 out the window of their truck and it hitting you in the head than finding a job these days.