NP9150 - Help? Nvidia 675m issues, capped framerate and horrendous loading times

Hi all,

Been having a bit of an issue with my Graphics Card that no one has been able to figure out, so I figured I'd give this forum a crack before I go and reformat everything. I have the Nvidia 675m card in a Sager NP9150. Nothing is overclocked. About 2 months after I received the notebook, my games started loading slow, and the framerate capped at 31 fps. The lighting and models sometimes act strangely as well, and sometimes things are a bit laggy. (ex: bullets shot at someone won't register because something jerked around/whatever) This is fairly consistent through EVERY game run on the 675m. if I change my main card to the i7 processor, my framerate pushes 31 and my loading times seem normal (but, of course, it doesn't play as well as the 675m did when it was working properly.) So the major issues are loading times about 5 times longer than what they used to be, and the choppy gameplay. 31 frames isn't terrible, but it looks like it's running at less. For example, on my menus in Dead Island, the mouse cursor moves slowly and jerks around when it used to run very smoothly. I've been using the framerate as the indicator for the problem, because it seems to go hand in hand with everything else. when this first started happening, if I just rebooted whatever game I was playing, sometimes it would run normal, but it progressively worsened over time.
My benchmarks seem fairly alright, amusingly. They were a few grand lower than other Sagers with a similar setup, and I hadn't benchmarked it prior. I actually sent it in to get fixed, and just received it back today. They replaced the GPU and ran benchmarks, but I still appear to be having the same problems. I should also mention that before I sent it in, I did a clean reinstall of both the intel and Nvidia drivers about 7 times, to no avail. I even tried different driver versions and beta versions, and nothing fixed the issues I am having. one of the clean installs, I even used Driver Fusion to delete all the loose Nvidia files, and still got nothing. Anyone have any ideas? If can fix the notebook without reformatting it, that would be great. But if I run out of options, I don't really have any other choice.

Thanks!

 

Pretty strange, especially after replacing the GPU in the system. It sounds like you've already invested a fair amount of time into finding a fix, at this point I'd just nuke the system and start fresh personally as it'll probably be quicker even considering reinstalling everything.

 

Thanks for the reply Derek,

And yes, I was considering that, but I wanted to wait a couple days and see if anyone came up with anything rather handy. But if it comes down to it, I'll probably give up on it this weekend unless I get a good lead.

 

what hard drive you got. even though its new it might be worth doing a sector scan using hd tune in my sig below.

when you got the lappy was everything pre loaded or did you load the operating system and drivers. drivers can conflict if loaded in the wrong order but as you said it only started lately so its most prob not that. if all pre loaded maybe a system restore to before you noticed the problem.
but in the long run the easiest is Dereks suggestion of nuke and boot and start a fresh.

 

I really don't like recommending format + reloads. I prefer to find the cause before finding the solution, even if it takes more time.

Have you already run stress tests and checked your temperatures? I wonder if there is something wrong with the PCIe bus.

 

I have the 750 GB drive, I forget the other specs on it. It was all preloaded before I started having any issues, and there haven't seem to have been any problems with anything other than games run on the Nvidia card. if I set it to the intel, everything runs as expected.

 

I did run Furmark before I sent it off, and it ran for I think 10 minutes, at which point I just ended it. It never crashed or overheated. My temperatures were getting progressively worse as I owned the computer, but not enough that I would think it'd have melted anything, and they stopped increasing after a while. If I recall correctly, out of the box it never got much hotter than 83 C or so, and that's after a lot of playing (I never ran a furmark until after I started haing issues, so these are just what I recall from games). then 86 started showing up more a a high, and I pushed 89 a few times. When I first got it, it usually played around 78 if I recall. I haven't done any temperature tests on the new one though.

And I would rather not have to format and reload either. especially if it turns out to be a bad part.

 

as its been back from repair ive got to ask did you ever clean the fans and vents out on a regular basis with compressed air before it was rma'd.

if i was you i would download (from my signature below) 3dmark, 3dmark11, vantage and even though old 3dmark06 and run all of them and compare the scores to those in my benchmark results link below. if they are still off by a few hundred then you should be fine but if they are off by 1000+ then it needs another rma and maybe a check on the cpu/motherboard.

 

Is it normal for the 675m to be pushing over 80 degrees in gaming? That's getting into the 7970m temperature territory. If your GPU gets too hot, it will start throttling. That's probably where you get all your lag.

It happened with my previous M15X rig. I didn't clean out the dust and let the notebook sit flat on the table. BF3 starts lagging and drop FPS within 15 mins of game.

I will agree with MrDJ. Clean out your fans first. You may even want to consider resitting your GPU and adding new thermal paste. After doing that, make sure your notebook sits a little elevated off the table, like on a notebook cooler. This will ensure airflow.

If this doesn't work, reformat and reinstall everything. If this still doesn't work, I don't think it's a problem you can resolve, and you may really want to reconsider another RMA.

 

Alright, I can clean it out when I get the chance. I'd have to find somewhere within walking distance that sells the compressed air. I don't think a resit and repaste is necessary, as you'll recall, the GPU is brand new, just got replaced in the RMA. The performance drop is also absolutely immediate. There is no decline. It plays terribly whether the GPU is cool or hot, and I have not run into the problem on any game run on solely the Intel i7 processor, so I'm a little doubtful that cleaning the fans would fix the issue.

 

No, I never did clean the fans before the RMA. But if it was a fan issue, wouldn't the processoor be suffering as well? because it does not at all. I recall my vantage score before the RMA being around 12000, (After the issues showed up.)

 

Not really. Both CPU and GPU has their own fan and heatsink. Ok, there is another thread with the same problem as yours. He has the 680m and also caps at 31FPS. But he managed to resolve his problem. Check the power setting. Was it set to balanced, or power saving? Make sure it is at high performance. Also, this may sound stupid. Make sure the power is plugged in. When running on battery, i think the laptop by default will downclock your GPU. Either that or it runs on the HD4000.

 

Hah, I changed it to high performance and it works now. I didn't think to do that after I got the computer back. I tried that before I sent it off to no avail, so the card must have been bad, but I never put it back after the RMA was completed. That would explain why, after I got it back, I broke 31 on some load screens, and why the games seemed to load faster. Thanks for that suggestion! I'm glad something isn't horribly broken. But it does mean the card was the issue. I also knew about the separate fans, I can't believe I overlooked that. I only had 2 hours of sleep that day. Though, this thread does have me thinking I need to take better care of my vents. I make sure they aren't near walls but I never did clean them out. But thank you! Games work again, and I'm very happy. You win a theoretical cookie. And thanks to everyone else who contributed to the thread. I really appreciate the help.

 

Yes, that was my thread about the 31fps . It was driving me crazy! No matter what graphics settings I put, it capped at 31fps. Putting it on performance did the trick, glad it did for you too!

 

I'm glad it did too. For me, it only did the trick after I had the GPU replaced. Before it was replaced and I had it on high performance, I was actually getting slightly different symptoms with the relatively the same framerate cap. Very interesting, but very happy to be able to play games again.