Sager NP8690/W860CU idle GPU Clock Problem

Hi,

Today I checked my GPU clocks on my new NP8690 and find something that is probably wrong.

It look that in Idle my GPU is stay at 700/1000 which is very strange, even on Battery mode it didn't lower this clocks.

Also I find that in CCC I don;t have Power Play Option and ATI Overdrive....

I used stock CCC and Drivers and also now I updated to 10.8 but same story

My GPU is ATI HD5870 and I am using GPU-Z to monitor this.

I guess it should some firmware that have to be updated or something.

Also I checked my friend Alienware M15x with 5850, and when GPU have no load it lower Clocks as well when on battery and it have Power Play and Overdrive options.

Please give me some clue.........

 

Known issue. Chek out this thread: Guide: How to Underclock your ATi 5870 Automatically

 

Hi I read it very carefully, but I really think my notebook should work like notebook, this mean when idle or on battery w/o GPU load why to keep 700/1000 this is stupid.

And as mentioned in this posts Dell solved this maybe trough VBIOS,

So my question is how to make this card support Power Play and automatically lower his Clocks, this is I believe normal way that Notebook card should work.

 

Powerplay does not work with the card you have and the linked guide is currently the only way to fix it. You can complain to your reseller, Clevo or AMD if you want to. Apparently they had problems with PowerPlay so they just diasbled it.

 

Well I read some treads and find out that this is VBIOS problem as u say, Power-play is disabled.
What I see is some people used MSI VBIOS which for sure work with Clevo card, some of them complain for some minor problems some say it is ok.
Also they say MSI is not stable for OC, but if you think to go stock it should work correct.

This all is from AW M15x Forum, for 5870 mod

My next question is did anyone used to flash his Clevo 5870 to MSI Vbios and what is the result.

 

Humm,

I continue investigate and find this:
ftp://usftp.clevo.com.tw/ALLBIOS/W8xxCU/ati_018.zip

One of the 2 files there have Power Play enabled I think after I check with RBE

Any opinions are welcome......

 

You can always try it out yourself, seems you already made a lot of research and are well informed about all the options. Personally I would not flash non-Clevo vbios on a Clevo card. But you could give that Clevo bios a try.

 

The vbios contained in ati_018.zip is the current vbios and does not support PowerPlay. Neither does the earlier vbios, which in any event is impractical because the ATI reference drivers would not install properly (or maybe at all, I've forgotten) with that vbios.

I flashed the 5870 with the MSI vbios for use in my Sager 8760. It does include PowerPlay, but as I recall, the implementation was rough around the edges, not like the smooth integration seen with the Dell 5850 in the M15x, which I also have. I was mostly interested in the overclocking capabilities, but found Overdrive unstable with the MSI vbios, so I returned to the Clevo vbios. So, you can flash the MSI vbios and see whether it suits your purposes better than it did mine. There are users today who use the MSI vbios on Clevo 5870's with success.

Using the AMD Clock Tool shortcut downclock procedure is very quick and simple and will usually reduce idle temps by 7-8*C, sometimes more. Good luck.

 

Thx for your replay Revelator,

But I still have 2 questions, sorry for bothering all of you with my problems, but you know I am 35 years old sales manager that manage to travel a lot and do some presentation and reason that I decline my company NB and buy Sager was that I also love to play games........
I am try to solve this because it is very annoying when I do pp presentation and in conference room is quiet and my PC is ready to take off because GPU temp is 82C and FANs are running like hell.

So I hope you understand me, and yes shortcuts as I look is great option, but I am too stupid and have more thing to think about so I am pretty sure I will remember to do this shortcuts only 2 or 3 times, so I really prefer automatic way.

Finally I have 2 questions:
1. What exactly happen when you go on MSI Vbios (Beside it is not stable for OC), you got some flickering in the screen edges ?

2. In the Ati_018.zip there is too VBIOS Files, one TS35951.018 and one BR35951.007 or something.
When I opened with RBE I see that BR35951 support Power Play while TS35951 is not supporting it. What is the difference or just Clevo was put new and old VBIOS in this file ?

And finally I am trying not only to solve my problem I am also trying to put some attention to manufacturers of this machine to put some effort and fix this issue, since colleague of mine have M15x and after he asked Dell that he have problems with GTX260, Dell replaced to 5850 and his PC run now perfect, not hitting more than 70C and PP was working and idle temps are around 52 and FAN is silent,
I also read that Dell manage to not having this problem with PP and 5870 so it is doable then, and some one have to point at this problem, this is what I really believe.

 

I just have 3 GPU tool command line desktop icons: "200/250", "700/1000", "800/1100". It's not that hard, and gives you full control over what your card is doing at all times.

 

Well, actually I can really understand ipashov here. The GPU should do it automatically, and I wouldn't want to have to work with shortcuts just to get the card to do waht it should on its own. But stillt, there is little you can do about it except complaining to your reseller, after all you paid a lot of money for that laptop, it should work perfectly. In my opinion that would even be a defect... and since it means that you have to pay more for electricity and the card could potentially fail sooner - not to speak of the higher emission during office use - it's not an insignificant defect.

 

There is a similar problem with the GTX 280M in my Clevo D900F - but only when I have my external monitor attached. Running on just the laptop screen, the clockdown works perfectly.

 

Gfx cards never clock down when running 2 screens, they never have. Certainly not nvidia ones anyway - ati's may do.

 

It would be interesting to find out if the crossfire 5870m in the x8100 have a new vBIOS that supports powerplay, and if so, can the same vBIOS be used on our current 5870m.

 

1 - When using the MSI vbios, if I overclocked the card, I got sparkle artfacts across the top of the screen. I can't remember the specific o/c setting, but it was not very aggressive. Also, when exiting from a benchmark program (Vantage?), the screen became "jumpy" and partially corrupted. I don't remember any problems at stock settings, but that was not my interest.

2 - Unfortunately, if you load the older BR35951.007 vbios into RBE, you will see that PowerPlay is disabled and cannot be enabled, i.e.,

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On your main point, I couldn't agree more. PowerPlay is a wonderful feature where you are using high clocks for 3d tasks. I have it and use it on my M15x with the Mobility 5850 card, and it reduces idle temps significantly. It is understandable that a complex feature like PP would be disabled in the rush to market with the then brand new Mobility 5870's, but Clevo has had more than enough time to get the feature debugged and incorporated into these computers. If Dell can do it, it can't be that hard, certainly within Clevo's capabilities.

 

Hum,

BR35951.007 I check under clock settings, down there is different states for on battery - high performance etc, when you click on them it highlight corresponded clocks, so what I see is that BR35951.007 have different clocks defined for different states, battery, high performance etc...
While the other one have defined only one for all states 1000/700

It is very possible to speak wrong things here, but I am not really good at this OC, VBIOS things, I just compare things..

And also have very nice time see that you put some effort in this as well and read what you all replay during my morning coffee in the office

P.S. I will check MSI Vbios to see and compare in RBE

Have a nice day

What MSI Vbios you tested ? This one ? 1727_023.zip ?

 

This is the one I used. http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/474717-m15x-ati-5870-mod-136.html#post6344830

 

Aha. Thanks for the info, I kinda expected it to be like so.