games are unplayable

Hey guys I need some help.

I purchased a MALIBAL Lutus around mid November, the specs should be in my signature. Every game I've tried to play on it has run so poorly that they are unplayable.

So my first question is, shouldn't this build be able to run a game like Starcraft 2 just fine. It runs terribly slow on medium settings. I've also tried Star Wars The Old Republic, and it's unplayable. But it's a MMO and a new game, so not really a good test.

I have tried updated the graphics and sound drivers, it didn't help. I've done a clean install of windows 7 and all the drivers that came with the laptop, no change. Tried updating drivers again and no change.

I don't know enough to diagnose the problem. I just installed 3D Mark 11 and ran a scan. I received a score of P1155 and if I understand this correctly my target score should be around P2000.

I have a ticket in with MALIBAL and I'm confident they will take care of it. I just want a solution and maybe some one here can point me in the right direction to diagnose this.

Thank you for any help

 

Check to and see what your power plan is set to at. It sounds like it may be in power save mode and that will definitely decrease performance. Have it either set to balanced or performance mode.

And what settings are you playing the games at? 560m is a good card, but may not play everything at ultra depending on the game.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I currently have the power plan set to balanced, I've also tried high performance with out any success.

I have Starcraft set to Medium settings, and I have SW TOR set at low, with shadows off. Before I did a clean install of windows I had Crysis 1 not 2 installed and was able to play it with some stuttering and sound issues on low settings.

 

Have you installed all your drivers/latest drivers?

 

I've installed the latest Nvidia drivers version 285.62.

All the other drivers I'm using are off of the driver disk I received with the laptop.

Before I did the clean windows install I tried updating the sound driver and it didn't help. I haven't updated it since I did the clean install though.

 

What are you cpu/gpu temps at when gaming?

 

Well, that's definitely weird.

I'm on a 9600M GT and T6600 Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz with 4GB RAM and I can play Starcraft 2 on medium settings just fine.

Maybe you have to adjust your power settings or something to high performance.. It's definitely just on your end because the GTX 560M is one of the top tier mobile GPUs according to my knowledge

Link: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

You're supposed to get at least 60 FPS in Starcraft 2 on just High settings. So yea....

 

Did you check both power setting locations? Windows manages settings via the quick launch bar battery icon. Also make sure you check the hotkey power settings via the laptop icon on the quick launch. The hotkey settings override Windows as they're tied to the Bios directly.

 

Also make sure the power supply is plugged in. Even if you got power scheme set to performance, the laptop will not run full power if the power supply is not plugged in.

 

I just did some checking on temps using CPUID HWmonitor.

At idle my cpu temps varied between 57 to about 77.

While playing starcraft (and I use that term loosely) my cpu temps varied between 80 to 96.

My graphics card at idle was around 40, and during the game it went up to around 48.


I checked and both locations had my power settings at balanced.

 

96*C? Wow... that's waaay too hot for a mobile processor... My CPU hit 90*C ONCE and that was due to me running F@H for a day before I realized that running @ 90*C all day wouldn't be beneficial to my laptop's longevity.

Is this on your lap or on a desk? Because there's something wrong there...

 

Those temps are extremely high. Are you playing games on your desk or on a notebook cooler? Have you noticed whether or not the fan is running?

 

I was also having lots of problems with Starcraft 2 and I would recommend that you also look at whether something is chomping on your CPU while you are playing. Starcraft is much much more about the CPU than the GPU.

 

When you say slow what FPS rates are you getting? Slow for you may not necessarily mean slow for other people

 

Id say your CPU is throttling due to thermal issues. Your TIM is probably not applied properly.

 

It could be, however the CPU should not throttle until 100 deg C, which it isn't reaching.

But I agree the temperatures are too high.

The graphics card only gets to 46? I would say this is too LOW, and there is some issue with it.

Check the clock speed in Nvidia Control panel / system information / display
You should have
Processor 1550 MHZ
Memory 1250 MHz

 

I always keep the laptop on a notebook cooler with the cooler plugged in and fan running. I have the Cooler Master Notebook Cooler Model NotePal X2.

When the cpu starts to really work I hear what I believe to be the fans in the laptop spin up.

While playing starcraft I get fps from 7 to 20. In SW TOR the fps is around 5 to 7 all the time.

I checked the Nvidia control panel and everything looks like you said it should.
Processor clock: 1550 Mhz
Memory clock: 1250 Mhz (2500 Mhz data rate)

I'll continue to watch the temps and cpu usage.

 

Okay, try installing GPU monitor and see if the processor goes to 100% when you are running a game

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/GPU-Monitor-Download-152904.html

Also, but probably not the cause of the poor game problems, your CPU temps are way too high. If you are not confident of repasting with TIM you will have to RMA or get someone savvy to do it for you.

 

I installed GPU monitor. When you said to see if the processor goes to 100% I'm not sure what to look for. The GPU load was anywhere from 9 to 35%.

I am fine with repasting the CPU, but I don't want to do anything like that unless MALIBAL tells me too. I have arctic silver 5 if needed.

 

That stuff is ancient. AS5 is also conductive, so you can potentially kill your computer if you aren't careful.

You should get some more recent paste, such as Arctic Cooling MX-4 (non-conductive!).

 

Anyone want an un-opened tube of arctic silver 5?

 

I'd expect to see 100% load when running a 3 d application. And I would expect to see a much higher graphics card temperature than 48 if it was working to it's capacity. As you have re-installed drivers with no change I think you may well have a defective graphics card.

 

Solved

The heat sink wasn't screwed on. I cleaned up the old thermal compound, applied new, and screwed on the heat sink.

Now I have my screaming fast laptop.

 

why was the heatsink not screwed on?

 

I am just as curious as this guy, Have you opened your laptop before or was it bought used? I hope there's not been any long term damage to your CPU good sir - I'd hate to see an i7 fail - though temps not going above 90c shouldn't do all that much harm besides run inefficiently.

 

It was purchased new in November. The heat sink wasn't screwed on at the manufacturer.

I had some weird sound crackling that I was able to solve by making some adjustments in media player. Then I noticed some gaming performance issues, but didn't have time to mess with it untill this month. When I started monitoring the temps they got into the mid to upper 90s. The laptop auto shut down maybe 4 times since I've owned it. But since I didn't know there was a problem it was always like "did I just hit the power button or something"?

I didn't want to go pokeing around inside it, and risk ruining my warranty. After talking to MALIBAL I went ahead and opened it up.

 

It shutdown 4 times already? That was due to the CPU overheating then. Lets hope the thermal failsafe did its job properly and theres no permanent damage.

 

That's a really really low score for 3DMark11. I get around P1800 at stock settings and around P2100 after overclocking. And this is with an inferior CPU, GPU, and slower RAM.

 

The design of the I7 has a TjMax of 100C. When this temperature is reached power is reduced to the CPU until the temperature falls below 100C. If the temperature does not fall below 100c the computer will shut down gracefully. If there is a total failure of cooling the computer will shut down instantaneously.

http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/322812.pdf

Anyway, problem solved. I doubt if any damage has been caused.