P775DM3-G graphic artifacts, stuttering and no GPU compute

Hello,

I've bought the machine (with a i7-6700k and a GTX1080) about one and a half year ago, from the german XMG branch. After ten month or so, I ended up with an issue on boot and video playback that forced me to RMA the damn thing and led, i believe, to a new mobo and GPU.

We are 4 months later and a similar yet new issue has come : startup is now slow and glitchy (the screen flickers to black), i'm getting small artifacts flashing the screen when doing various tasks (seems somewhat linked to windows with transparency and stuff like that), video playback show green and magenta lines all over (chrome sometimes notifies me that WebGL has crashed or something), the screen often stutter, showing a black screen for a few seconds as if the display driver was updating. And the most problematic issue is that the card doesn't seem to be able to compute anymore. Rendering an image in Blender returns a CUDA error, Photoscan (photogrammetric software) log shows that the GPU processing fails, and OpenCL doesn't seem to work.

On the other end, I'm getting what seems to be a nominal performance for the card on Unigine Heaven, and I have not yet tested an actual sizable game, but the small title "Besiège" ran without issue. The card seems to be recognized and GPU-Z shows normal stats. Graphic memory reading, however, isn't the same in GPU-Z and the clevo GPU OC thingy (With unigine matching readings from clevo).

I'm fairly dissappointed as the computer wasn't really stressed during those four months (was mostly used for a small size Revit project, a couple reasonnable renders and barely enought gaming hours to complete AC:Origins storyline. Nothing was ever overclocked or tinkered with) That sound like mundane tasks to me...).

I'm not sure where the issue is from, and don't understand why the card can run games without trouble but can't even render the default cube in Blender. This makes the machine basically a brick to me...

Is there anything more I can do to diagnose the problem ? What could be the cause of that kind of issue ?
Hopefully you'll be able to help, but thank you anyway !

 

Could you make a photo of the artifact you have on the screen? That way we can determine what is causing this issue.

 

Of course, I just forgot...


This one correspond to web video playback, and does not seem to affect all videos. Maybe it depends on the format.


That one shows the smalls artifacts that affect the whole system. These happen when loading a webpage, opening a window, and basically anything. There is many more than the 3 visible here, but they flash really fast, I could not capture anything better. You can also notice the different memory clock readings.

I don't have a picture of the third kind (I can't reproduce it right now) but W10 start menu and notification panel sometime appear with a white checker pattern on top of it, and most clickable things won't respond when it happens.

I also tried to watch a 4K video (.mov) from my SSD, and it does play back with minor stuttering, but it does trigger the small flickering black artifacts.

Is there any other useful information I can provide ?

 

Boot to memtest and check memory stability. If it's stable, then I fear the GPU needs replacement. Looks to me like VRAM issues, maybe the thermal pads for the VRAM aren't doing their job? I would pop off the heatsink and check, and maybe even replace the thermal pads.

 

The issues u're seeing are most likely vram related.

Go to afterburner and downclock your vram to something very low and see if the problem still persists. If it doesn't a simple replacement of the thermal pads will do just fine, otherwise I'm afraid your graphicscards vram are dying on your, if you know a proper repairshop you can get your vram replaced for cheap.

And the memory are not different readings. One is real clock , the other one which is around 5ghz is the effective clock, your memory is quadpumped hence both are correct. Meaning you can either say your memory is running at real 1.2ghz or effective 5ghz.

 

Hey, thanks for the info on vram readings, even if I'm not sure what "quadpumped" means. Is that like some sort of engine with four things running at the same speed but with an offset for each ? Anyway, that was not the point.

Fairly obviously, simply clocking down to minimum on afterburner (-500 offset) didn't help, and merely introduced a new kind of artifacts in 3D apps (flashing green squares more or less in 3D space, It seems to be expected i gather). I'll try the memtest thing (the issue arose while computing photogrammetry, and that's known to be ram intensive, hopefully it's just that, despite your quite definitive answer), and will have a look at the heatsink, but i'd rather avoir tearing it down myself, that thing look sensitive...

Now that you mention vram, Cuda-Z reported only 4098mb of it, rather than the 8gig expected. I've ignored that as the software seems shady, but could it mean that one vram chip got fried and the other is fine ? I guess that could explain the inapropriate behavior in some softwares, and proper behavior in other, depending on the way it uses it ?

And, as a mean of learning from this, what could cause that kind of issue ? Overheat ? The laptop had proper temps in most graphic intensive apps I used, but I actually never checked or benchmarked a full load on both the CPU and the GPU (Photoscan does load both, and reported CPU performance quite lower than expected, indicating thermal throttling I guess - about 10 times less computation than the GPU, when a typical raytracing CUDA application should yield about a three fold perfomance on the GPU at best, from my limited experience of it). If this is the cause, it actually means that servicing the machine won't fix it for long. Is that shared heatsink an actual design flaw than can't cool both components a the same time ?

Anyway, it doesn't sound like good news for me, but thanks a lot for the insights !

 

The thing is you assume the temps were fine but in reality all you knew was that the GPU temps were fine, the vRAM could still be overheating. How it happened, we don't know, at this point it's speculation. Also your card has not 1 vram chips, it has 16 of them, each containing 512MB vRAM. Your theory about the heatsink design could be correct, since the CPU is the biggest problem in those notebooks, it's entirely possible that your CPU has killed the vrams, but could also have died on their own for other reasons.

Just RMA it, get it fixed and then enjoy or sell it and get another one, since apparently you already had the same issue 2 times in a row and understadibly might be scared and frustrated with your notebook.

 

Yep, that sounds like the only reasonnable advice. I'll try to have XMG explain to me what happened, and will consider a CPU downgrade as well.

Thanks for the help.

 

You can undervolt your 6700K and keep it stock to keep the temps low. It's a waste since the CPU is capable of much more, but at least it would run cool. Better than playing wannabe desktop and burn your entire system down tho. Maybe you can switch up the 6700K to a 6700 non K, as far as I know they run much cooler.

 

DDR = Double data rate
Quad pumped = Quadruple data rate.

In DDR 2 bits are transfered every clock cycle, in quad pumped or QDR it's 4 bits.

The clock is basically a square wave:



(From wikipedia)

Usually in DDR a bit is sent on both the top edge and bottom edge of the clock. In QDR it's sent twice each top and bottom edge.

Thus the data clock is given as 4x the quoted speed.

 

And you can’t clock down 6700K to 6700 clock Speed? What you suggested is same as throw your hard earned money down the drain.

 

If you configure the TDP and multipliers down it should behave exactly the same yes.

 

Well, I can live with a waste of the CPU capabilities, if it results in not trashing the entire system. I believe that I overrated my CPU needs when purchasing it anyway. I did originally undervolt it, as it was advised on these forums, but didn't bother after the RMA. My mistake I guess. However, I don't believe it is acceptable not to be able to use the components to their proper capacity on a totally stock settings on a machine that expensive (especially when we are talking about a CPU that's expected to be overclocked, on a system that seems to be made for that very purpose...That was the recommanded config by XMG at that time I believe) That's my first Clevo laptop, and this has been a confusing experience overall, with this beast basically eating through any task with ease, until it dies on me for like, no reason. The worst part is that I still feel I'm having it better than some colleagues did with their similarily specced and much more expensive MSI's.

God the laptop market is confusing.

 

Well actually the dominator series from MSI have the best cooling thus far and the best desktop CPU based notebook ( in terms of cooling) that can handle stock clocks somewhat decent is actually the Tornado F5, which is an MSI barebone as well.

This practice has been running for a long time now, Clevo is downright terrible when it comes to designing cooling solutions, it has always been like this and hasn't reallly changed that much. They use annoyingly loud fans to compensate for their really crappy design causing heatsinks to not fit properly resulting in loud and inefficient notebooks. Most people here have been taping, lapping, adding some stuff to the screws to make it fit properly etc. in order to get somewhat decent temps out of it. Meanwhile the MSI GT 70 series are running an I7 4910MQ processors and GTX 980M on a single fan cooling them down better than Clevos huge fan solutions on their P15x and P17x series with 2 huge fans.

Many people here have the same notebook as you do or a similair one, sadly they are so biased towards their chosen notebook, which causes them to convince themselves that the notebooks they bought isn't a complete mess. Most people here who post how great their desktop notebook is have invested quite some time trying to fix designs flaws and running a cooling pad with mediocre overclock and high temps, while bragging how amazingly more powerful it is compared to other notebooks, while actually not being noticably more in most scenarios at all.

The issue here is not that they modded so much to get it somewhat working, not even that the performance gain in most applications are barely noticeable if not at all, nor that people want to brag about their performance, but that people like you, who don't want to lose their warranty fiddling around with the system and just want a nice and pleasant experience with their notebook they bought for a lot of money get completely mislead by people claiming how great their system is.

 

Would you like to see some screenshots from my overheated MSI's?
My old -2PC with 4810MQ and GTX870M had power throttling on CPU and thermal throttling on GPU. So I sold it and bought Clevo P375SM. 4940MX+2x980M (premified) showed me, that if I want unleash real power of my hardware, there's only Clevo.

 

How about you show me the temps of your powerhouse? Oh..it's dead.

Sorry but I can't take anyone serious who wants to show me a screenshot of a single overheating GT 70 notebook, while having "selled" one of his GTX 980M and literally burned his other to a crisp while claiming the notebook that had burned one of his GPU, is superior to the one he apparently has sold fully functioning in terms of thermals.

My point is, that MSI has a way better idea of creating cooling solutions. In my example the GT 70 only had 1 fan, yes 1 fan for both GPU and CPU, and still could keep the system cooled without burning everything to the ground. A friend of mine has a GT 60 with a 3940xm @ 4ghz and an OC 970M working in 80s, still, 1 fan.

 

I have new and more powerful toy. Old toys have new owners and as far as I know they are satisfied.

I suppose you have no idea about electronics? So it's pointless to explain you this case. I also thinks, that any discussion with you will be pointless, because in your self-admiration you assumed, that I am so stupid, to use thermally-burned GPU as example (and that self-admiration is also the reason, why your threads have so little answers).

GT70 have one of the most non-efficient cooling solutions in DTR notebooks. It works only because both GPU and CPU have limits. For example - 4810MQ I mentioned before migrated with me to P375SM. In MSI - 3,4GHz on full load, power limit throttling, 85°C. In Clevo - 4GHz, no throttling, 85°C. This is to be an example of MSI GT70 good cooling solution?
Also, show me Cinebench R15 score on this GT60, after a few repeats. GTX970M is cold card - in P751ZM from my signature it tops 70°C.

Both MSI and Clevo have problems with cooling for example, ridicously loud GT75 or 15°C difference on temperature beween cores.
But you have your own crusade against unlocked, frequently overclocked Clevos, when at the same time most of other notebooks don't handle mobile 45W CPUs.

P.S. This burned 980M after change some MOSFETs and capacitors returns to life.

 

I doubt you'd be able to explain anyone anything to be fair. I merely pointed out a logcial flaw in your statement, doesn't mean I assume you're stupid, so those are your words.

So you're saying because of some power limit issue your cooling is at fault. idk about you, but this seems golden.
The GTX 970M is OCed, it's about as hot as a 980M gets on stock.

Never seen the 15c differences on a GT 75 Notebook from a user, only seen it on 1 notebookcheck review, which I assume was bad heatsink screwing in or something along the lines of that, however you're right about the noise. The GT75VR is extremly loud, same as the LGA Clevo notebooks, it's a real pain.

P.S: that's how repairs work. duh.

 

As long as interlocutor does not want to understand arguments of the other party, there's no way to explain anything to him. Also, from this point of view, any arguments recognised by most people as valid, can be classified as logical flaws.

I'm saying, that without this limits, this poor GT70 will melt. Power, that P375SM can easily dissipate, for GT70 is beyond range.
Who talks about stock on 980M? Both cards was OCed and peaked at 150W under GTA V. Burned one has lost its life when power draw climbed to about 185W (GTX1080 level). Have you ever seen how looks VRM on 980M in comparision with 1080? Clevo DTRs have capabilities to work at levels far beyond any other notebook can reach, but MXM cards ends earlier.

I see 79 hits for "uneven heatsink" search on MSI section. A little more, than one review.
Have you ever hear any Clevo LGA-book? My P870DM on stock is far more quieter than any other notebook I ever seen (even more quiet than my girlfriend's Acer with 2430M and GT540). @4GHZ, -95mV and custom fan profile sets to 60-70°C fan reaction range, I can play largest maps on Civ V in complete silence.

P.S. OK, now I'm sure, that you are not able to understand difference between core damage and VRM damage.

 

Lord praise google translate.
Oh yeah you mean the power that literally melted your 980M for instance. I can't imagine why anybody would not want to melt their components. You're the prime example for my first long text, and therefore I thank you for demonstrating what I just wrote.

79 hits out of millions of notebooks from the largest gaming notebook company. Better strap ourselves for a ride because that seems like a very very high percentage...oh wait it doesn't.
Yes i've heard LGA books and it's nothing new that they are loud. Also comparing a big gaming notebook with a very old flat probably dried out thermal pasted notebook it downright flawless.

P.S: Nobody talked about any core damage.

You wanna keep going because so far you look pretty silly. It's clear you're biased towards your notebook.

 

^^^ Yes, this is definitely the correct suggestion.


@Mnddbbl - have you contacted our support about this problem again?

The suggestions about CPU problems and downclocking/undervolting aren't worth worrying about at the moment until there is proof that overheating could be a direct cause of the problem you're experiencing. We're basically looking at a problem with the cable, mainboard or GPU as people have suggested in this thread - either or all of these potential issues can be rectified under your warranty - so we just need you to have a chat directly with our support team and get the laptop back up and running to you ASAP.

If the problem looked like it was fixed in the first RMA and then it took 4 months to resurface (or a similar issue resurfaced) then I would suggest that the testing in the first RMA was comprehensive enough to have fixed the original fault (as reported and discovered by our engineers) and to have not shown up in testing before it was shipped out to you again. These cases do happen, I've seen reports on here in which a laptop returns from RMA (not from us) and it still has the exact same problem as before, even though a repair has been made. The simple fact of different usage environments can show up a problem, or an intermittent fault can sometimes seem to have been repaired without the actual core problem having been addressed.

If you contact us directly, we can help resolve the problem for you