Sager NP8278-S Cant play games unplugged

Now i know that laptops, even gaming laptops are not supposed to be used to game much while unplugged but some times I find the need to fit in a quick 15 min game between my classes at school and Im completely unable to play anything game related unplugged. Ive checked the performance setting in the power settings and all is set to high performance (checked while plugged in and unplugged. Cant seem to find if there is a seperate setting that actually says this is for unplugged and this is for plugged). But as soon as I start a game and the 880m kicks on and I actually get to the game ( past menu options) it gets a couple of frames and crashes the game to where i have to ctrl+alt+del to task manager and kill it. Also if im playing a game and im plugged in and accidentally unplug it ( happens a lot) the game freezes and crashes.

Now when i bought this laptop I knew it wouldn't hold up long on battery gaming. I get that but I read people getting about 45 mins to an hour of gaming on one charge and I am unable to get 1 min before crash.. Battery is perfectly fine. It will go almost 4 hours on battery life none stop typing and internet surfing.. ( that is with the video card automatically being deactivated and its using the haswell i7 4810 built in video)

Please I need some help since this is getting to be very irritating.. exspecially since i game on the couch and i am constantly unplugging it on accident by picking it up and putting it down.

 

if you want to knacker the hardware and especially the battery a lot quicker you just carry on.

laptop batterys can not produce anywhere near as much power compared to plugged into the mains so they will downclock to protect itself.
battery is for everyday use and mains ONLY is for gaming.

 

I understand what you are saying to a point, but non the less people game with gaming laptops off of wall power all the time.. yes it doesn't last long and that I understand but it IS supposed to game.. I am unable to do anything other than internet surfing unplugged. That doesn't seem right to me.. Especially since the Nvidia settings will allow me to limit frame rates on the card when unplugged to preserve battery life.

 

thats the problem, it is NOT meant to game on battery especially with the most powerful gpu at the moment which will drain even more than say a 3-4 year old gpu..

 

Here is a link to Nvidia that says it is supposed to game on battery and infact perform better than older GPU's
GeForce GTX 880M | Features | GeForce

 

interesting, thanks for posting.

but no matter what any company says, a battery just cannot push enough juice out to power games with anything like a decent frame rate.

think they mean go play candy crush

 

Sorry, gotta beg to differ.

I played Borderland 2 on my 8258-S (with the 880M) for about 2 1/2 hours on battery. Had the FPS set to 30 (in the nvidia battery savings setting), which was more than fine for the game play.

So it was pushing plenty of juice for a high end game (which I had ultra everything) and doing so with enough frames to be enjoyable. Current gaming laptops do have the juice to do it.

As for why the OP was crashing, no idea. But the only thing I can think of is if you have hardwired the fps setting above what the nvidia battery saving can provide. I think the max it will push on battery is 50 fps. I'd keep it at 30 fps personally as it's more than sufficient for eye viewing and smooth enjoyment while keeping the GPU underpowered enough to save battery time.

That's the first thing I'd look at. Next, verify the video driver. Older drivers were flaky.

Other than that, not sure. I'd have to know more about the issue and what is running, the drivers what you have the settings at, etc etc.

 

things sure have changed then over the years.

ill put my hands up and say i was wrong then. DJ crawls back under a rock

what games has the OP tried to play on battery.

 

Don't worry DJ you've helped me with other things The games are all of the ones I've owned lol WoW world of tanks, Elderscrolls online, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 etc.. nothing runs on the card.

UPDATE! i called sager and went though some stuff with their tech support and after a bunch of setting and re-installs the tech has determined that my laptop is borked.. SO i now have an RMA and have to send it back in

 

*grin* No worries. Honestly I think only recently with their power savings options is this even possible. Otherwise not much fun playing games on a laptop battery that only lasts 35 minutes :b

My old Asus G51 couldn't last 40 minutes power-gaming on battery. Was horrible. So keep your hands down, until recently you were right on the money.

 

Ok.. I actually just figured it out... I forgot that I changed the video card bios over to svl7's awesome modded bios and that was the problem.. I switched it back to the stock one for testing purposes and it runs just fine off of wall power now.. but with the stock bios im running ESO at 45-50FPS while before it was 90 lol So I know I cant use more than 60fps but that is still a considerable performance drop

 

My G51J ran at about 2/3rds of stock clocks on battery though... My P150HM ran at I-can't-believe-it's-not-integrated speeds, ~120c/200m on the 580M which is 620/1500 stock. THAT was hopeless trying to game on on battery...

And did it do anything to preserve the battery? Hardly, it was 70% wear at the 2 year old mark even though I hardly ever gamed off mains (did use it for a lot of surfing/office work on battery though)

 

I know I'm not the only one thinking this but, ever thought of reviewing your notes or previewing the topic to be covered next? #justsayin

 

Some times I do and most times I don't. I've got a perfect 4.0 Currently so I must be doing something right