Z13 Defective GT330m?

Hey guys!

Been ghosting these forums for a while, I actually have a problem with my Z13 so I though I'd post to see what you guys think.

So Z13, HDD, with 1600*900 screen, i5-460.
Symptoms: While High-Profile 1080p videos play flawlessly, games always lag on the GT330m. Always. I tested a few different game engines to be sure, so Unreal, Trackmania, Source Engine, and RIFT, and all of them lag, even with lower settings. I also have an SSD, 1080p, i5-540m Z12 to reference test and while the games run smooth on the Z12 @ 1080p, I can't for the life of me get them to run correctly on the Z13 @ 1600*900.

Actions taken to try to solve the problem:

1) Stress Tested GPU and CPU to check for throttling due to temperatures (so in all modes of the Vaio Control Center). Used CPU-Z and GPU-Z to check for throttling and HWMonitor to check for temps. All clocks are not throttled, and temps stay under the 95-100°C mark.

2) Reverted drivers to original, no help.

3) Reinstalled latest drivers, so 9024, and no help.

4) Checked HDD read speeds and access times, nothing abnormal to declare.

5) *** RESTORE FACTORY SETTINGS *** I actually formatted to factory defaults using the recovery partition, and with no data retrieval. No help either.

Again all of this is tested and compared to my Z12, so I have a pretty good reference point.

Anyhow it's going in for repairs on monday I just wanted to ask you gurus if I forgot anything...

Cheers.

 

Is your thermal control strategy (in VAIO control center) set to performance?

 

Sounds like some power setting - did you check the BIOS options (or tried to flash the BIOS to the latest version for that matter) and the Windows setting (e.g. High Performance)? I presume you also set that hardware switch beneath the screen to use the GT330m only (i.e. not the Stamina or Auto mode, not sure what's the name of the third option - "Performance"?)?

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

^^^^^^ 10 char

 

Yep as Brianho1337 said, all of these tests were done for every setting in the Vaio Control Center and Windows battery settings.

As for BIOS, no I did nothing. You would recommend a BIOS update ? How does that work exactly?

EDIT: And yes, of course, I did those tests on speed mode.

Moreover, I stress-tested the CPU under STAMINA mode to check for throttling of the CPU and excessive temps on the i5 but it really seems like my problem is contained to the 330m.