NP9170 GPU Issue GTX 680M

Greetings,

Noob here. I am a long time lurker that just took the plunge and purchased the Sager NP9170 with i7 and a GTX 680M. All of the benchmarks show that I ought to be able to get 100FPS + from Diablo 3 on Ultra settings: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

For whatever reason I get 31FPS at all times on all settings. I downloaded the latest nVidia drivers and intel HD4000 drivers to no avail. It almost seems like the onboard GPU is taking over for all apps even when I specify the 680m in the nVidia control panel.

Sager/Clevo owners, will you please take a moment to remember if you had any issues setting up your machine? I am happy to post screenshots of anything that might be useful and/or provide more detailed information.

I sent an email to Sager support asking for assistance as well. If I cannot resolve this issue in a timely manner then I will have to ship my laptop back for a refund. Please help me so that I don't have to send this amazing machine back!

Any help or direction is greatly appreciated!

(I posted here because I was not sure if this was an issue with Sager/Intel/nVidia/drivers/settings/etc.)

Edit: I have an EVGA GTX 670 on my desktop with a phenom ii and 8 gigs of ram. My desktop is buttery smooth on D3 and most other games on the market. The laptop ought to out perform my desktop, but something seems to be throttling the card way back or not utilizing it at all. If I had Precision X I could tell what exactly was happening, but precision x crashes when I download it. Where do I start?

While I wait for a response from Sager will someone please give me some guidance as to troubleshooting steps I can take? Has anyone experienced issues with this system out of the box or did yours work flawlessly the first time?

 

while you wait for a reply from sager download (from sig below) 3dmark11/vantage/3dmark06 and run the benchmarks and see what sort of score you are getting and then compare it to the ones in the benchmark link in my sig below.

 

Thank you MrDJ. I am at work right now and my notebook is at home. I was getting a bit ansy as I just dropped $2,300.00 on this laptop and I want it to work right, you know? I will post again when I get home with my scores.

 

Your machine should definitely not have any problem running D3. Most likely just some random setting that just happened to not set itself right during install. Looking forward to seeing those 3Dmark scores.

 

Are your power settings set for high performance?

 

Also are you plugged in when you play, the computer will switch to the iGPU if on battery.

 

@Jsdf1559 Yes, my power preferences in Intel/nVidia/windows are set for high performance.

@Hutsady I am plugged in when I play.

Guys, please don't get too upset with me, but... I just realized that I had not installed the drivers that Sager provided on the CD they sent me with my computer. I assume that this could be the issue regarding my graphics issues. I am going to install the drivers in order when I get home and see if that fixes my framerate lock/throttling issue. I have installed nVidia drivers and Intel drivers from their websites so I am considering doing a system restore to start fresh. (what a dumba$$ mistake)

I will update this afternoon when I get home with more information.

Additionally, if I can get this issue fixed I will post with my solution so that others may benefit from what I have learned.

Thanks again for your quick response.

 

Definitely could be the issue. We still love you though.

 

To All:

Since I have already installed drivers and software from third parties would it be in my best interest to do a system restore or should I go ahead and install the OEM Sager drivers from the CD and see if that works? As I look around the forums I see several posts about installing the factory drivers in strict order so that is why I am concerned. (just trying to get this done as quickly and painlessly as possible).

Best Regards,

BMJ

 

:laugh: Well, I would imagine/hope that the driver from the vendor's site would work, but do be sure to do a clean install of the driver provided on the disc and let us know if that fixes the FPS ceiling you're hitting. You might want to follow MrDJ's thread on how to manually install your NVidia drivers as well.

 

@Prostar I would also assume that nVidia and Intel video drivers ought to work and that is why I am troubled. Perhaps there is a chipset update or some other driver not strictly related to the GPU that optimizes communication and switching between intel and nvidia processors.

I will check MrDJ's thread when I get home.

The hardest part about all of this is that I can't get any real work done because I am so damn ansy/excited about the Np9170!

 

I would get Driver Sweeper, uninstall the current drivers, reboot, run driver sweeper, then reinstall the drivers. That will be quicker and easier then a full reformat.

 

Failing that, what I had to do (in my personal experience with low FPS) was do a clean install of windows 7, i.e. reformat/reinstall, then I installed the drivers from the CD provided by reseller as those are the drivers used when the system is tested, unless of course you purchased without a harddrive, what you can then do is you can install newer drivers over the old ones and test them 1 by 1, you can always perform a system restore from the last driver you installed.

 

Also, your laptop will not outperform your desktop. The gtx670 is much stronger than the gtx680m. The 680m is basically an underclocked gtx670

 

Solved

First and foremost, thank you. The support in this forum was overwhelming. Thank you to everyone that chimed in. Your responses and support are greatly appreciated. You all make me wish I had bought through Xotic or Prostar.

Solution: Fresh installed Windows 8. I did this because I had changed a bunch of UAC settings in windows while messing about and could not remember what all I did that may have affected my system. Installed, in order, all oem Clevo drivers. I had previously installed only a few of the "important" drivers. Changed the windows power setting to maximum performance. That's right, I pulled the biggest boner of all time. I had all the other software settings set to performance except the one that seemed to really matter.

That's it.

Let this be a lesson to anyone setting up a new NP9170. Follow the Clevo setup steps and adjust your power settings.

I will post my benchmark scores here and in DJ's thread or and tomorrow.

 

Glad to hear you got it working, yes power settings = maximum performance makes all the difference in notebooks. Looking forward to seeing some benches.