Not impressed with Windows 7's handling of GPU cooling

On Vista, the fans were on all the time, running very slowly, but insuring the GPU does not heat up to more than 57c.

On 7 it works differently, the fans are completely idle, just like they're turned off, and every 15 minutes or so they kick in after the GPU is at 72-75c and keeps spinning until its down to 50, and again goes the cycle. Overall takes 30 minutes.

I boot into Vista and it just works.

Does this happen to everybody? and how can I change it ? Thanks

 

In my case it's BIOS controlled so OS has no impact on temps whatsover. IMO it's weird that W7(OS) has something to do with controling the temps. IDK.

 

I think that's the reason why my old t61p's gpu failed in just one week of windows 7 then again in 3 weeks. I have used it play 3d game 8 hours a day for 2 years without any problem.

 

Thats entirely up to your BIOS, how it handles the fans.

However, some do get higher temps in 7 because powermizer doesnt work as well in win7 as in vista.. In my case, my GPU clocks usually goes up everytime i move a window around, etc, causing the fan to run a lot.

If this is the case for you, that your clocks doesnt stay still, then perhaps take a look here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=456313

 

It depends on brand I guess. On my thinkpad, the win7 fan setting has effect.
But on my new hp, the win7 fan setting has no effect, only bios.

 

Are you sure its not just the driver you have installed? I dont believe Win7 has anything to say in the matter of controlling fans, but whaddo i know.

 

There's a cooling setting in advanced power setting. If it is on passive, cpu fan will idle. But on my new hp laptop with 3 fans, this setting has no effect.

 

What is the laptop model and the graphics driver?

 

It's an Asus g50vt-a1 with the 185.85 dox.

I'd really appreciate help lads, it, I've worked 2 days on Vista (same driver) now just to check if it happens and it never does (when browsing or idle temps never go above 55). so its definitely something with win 7 (where when browsing the web the fans are off until the gpu is 70 then they cool it down to 50).
What I want is to make it work the same as in Vista, I think it was BIOS controlled over there, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about at all, but HWmonitor does not lie.

Thanks a lot.

 

Also it could be it is running cooler with Win7. The ACPI/Bios has a toggle off point for the fans. With Vista it may never have gotten the temps that low so the fans were always on fighting to get there. With Win7 you may now be getting to that point and the fan toggles off and then back on later to cool off again. To try and prevent getting to the low temp point use powermizer in the off setting, that may help..............

 

Where exactly is this Powermizer thing located?

 

search up powermizer switch

edit: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=273276

 

Powermizer was OFF when on AC so it cannot be it.

What do you guys think is better? having fans constantly working and temps 50-56 or idle fans and temp rising until it reaches 7x and goes down?

 

Yo. Turn powermiser back on for AC.

On my Thinkpad, I have the CPU fan to stay off until it hits 75C. Basically the fan never runs. I'm not saying it's a good thing though (idles at 66C).

 

Mine doesn't work like that... Fan starts at 55C and stops when it hits 49. At 60C is 2nd level speed and 65C is third level speed, fastest. So the gap between your start and stop is to big IMO.

 

Why do you say I should turn Powermizer ON on AC? Doesn't this slow down the performance? because when I'm on battery the FPS is usually notably worse even with power plan set to 'High Performance' I guess that is because Powermizer.

 

No. That is because your GPU requires more power than the laptop's battery can provide. When you are on AC, the AC adaptor has enough wattage to power the GPU at full load, but the battery can not do so.

Powermiser will put the GPU at full clock (except on battery) when you open a game/program that requires the use of the GPU. You can check this with GPU-z, a GPU reporting program.

 

Thx...

I've removed DOX and upgraded to the latest drivers by Nvidia, is Powermizer all fixed up now as I cannot get the Powermizer proggy to start...

 

Actually in the latest driver 195.62 powermizer is built into the control panel.
Use CCleaner to remove registry traces of the previous driver install.

 

Windows 7 does not control the fans. It doesn't even control the graphics card clocks, really. The driver is in charge of dynamically managing the GPU clocks while the BIOS kicks up the fans to X RPM in response to a certain temperature. Try different drivers if you're having such issues, and ensure that your BIOS is fully up-to-date.

 

Are you sure the vents are clear from dust or anything?

 

Acctually that driver has issues with lowering clocks down to 2D, mine was on constant 3D so changed the driver to 195.81.

 

Just a thought, this may be related to the fact that NVidia drivers have been broken for a number of months now, with one of the consequences being that 2D acceleration does not work anymore. In any case, yes, this has nothing to do with Windows 7, and everything with NVidia's shoddy drivers.

 

Yes, everybody actually recomends 18x.xx drivers. 19x.xx drivers also have "brightness bug". Anyway I'm still using it, I'm lazy to go back to 18x.xx.

 

Thanks guys, but is it safe to continue using Windows 7? the many heating - cooling cycles per day surely cannot be good for the GPU...

It was more constant on Vista with a good average now it jumps to the max then to the min etc.. all the time.

 

Did you re-enable Powermiser?

 

the gpu won't care.

 

Don't worry, stay on W7 if you like it. GPU's are OK with that.

You can try Speedfan, I8KFanGUI(it's for Dell but...), Power4Gear for controling the fan and power schemes. See if there is a BIOS update for your model.

 

Depends on the GPU and the depth of the cycles. That is EXACTLY the issue Nvidia had with the GPU failures that were happening in a fair number of machines a few moths back. The heating and cooling cycles were causing cracks in the chip substrate due to a disparity in the expansion coefficient of the materials involved. If this is one of THOSE gpu's this behavior could spell disaster.

Gary

 

i stand corrected. so i restate it to "any normal, good enough quality gpu should not care about it" nvidia is out of this list for me since long long time

 

Actually, PowerMizer only does a guessing job. It does interfere in games, PowerPoint 2010 presentation (uses the GPU for all kick animations), Aero experience, and even CAD level programs, just to name a few area where PowerMizer can be a hassle. As much as Nvidia makes impressive GPU's, their power management system (PowerMizer) still needs some work. But, you don't have to take my word for it, check out my signature (Nvidia Tweak tool) on what people say. (psst: next version will support dual Nvidia GPU's: http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=41499&d=1259818256, among other new features)

 

Basically Powemiser will put up the clock for more things than it needs to.

 

Then you set your system to Balance power profile, and now your CPU will down-clock (which has waaaaaayyy better power management system), and it will compensate.

In any case, the laptop fan should not run at FULL max speed... it's normal that it runs at medium speed though (else the laptop is miss engineered or their is too much dust in the system heatsink). In fact, when on battery it's not normal that it doesn't run, but the system absorb the heat for the sake of saving battery life (hence one factor why laptop life-span is much shorter than a desktop PC). OEM bets that your CPU and GPU will be at lowest clock most of the time, to prevent long term damage on the processors. Playing heavy games (assuming you disable powerMizer) when on battery (and the fan behavior of the laptop is set to be passive (see Power Profile Options in Windows), is very bad. In fact, I won't be surprise that your system throttles due to the overheating security system of the CPU of GPU, to prevent, well overheating.

 

Wat. I know, I wrote the other post. I think haniunited is one of the High Performance guys.

Anyways, my laptop's got hybrid graphics and I'm on the Intel side most of the time.

 

Unless I need performance all my NVIDIA clocks are set at 135mhz and I disable powermiser. Still runs aero perfectly, although it won't play 1080p video unless I bring the clocks back up.

 

This thread is becoming a nightmare for me lol.

Should I just move back to Vista and get on with my life?

 

Shouldn't you just enable it and leave your computer on balanced, or power saver if you need the battery life.

 

If you're talking about Powermize I installed the latest Nvidia driver so it should be working... I did try Balanced and High Performance, both have the same symptoms.

 

You can confirm with GPU-z's clock graphs on the 'Sensors' tab.

 

Try actually making sure that these power profiles have the settings you want.