Choppy Graphics on Games

[dabonca]

Ok guys I have a bit of a quandry.

I have just returned from a deployment in Iraq and I an stationed in Germany. In september I went back to the states for R&R leave. While there I bought an Alienware laptop. I bought a few games with pretty high requirements (Overlord 2, Left 4 Dead, and World of Warcraft) and maxed out all of the video settings I could on the games to test them out. They all worked great, all smooth and no noticable lag.

At the end of my leave I returned to Iraq and found that the very same games that had been running smoothly were incredibly choppy and unplayable at the max settings, particularly Overlord 2, with WoW coming in a close second.

I checked out the operating system diognostic tool and came up with nothing. I uninstalled the games and reloaded them... nothing. I set the computer back to factory settings, just in case I had changed something by accident and still no luck.

All this was done in a fairly clean office so dust and dirt couldn't be the issue. I finally came to the conclusion that the problem was probably the unstable power at the FOB (and all over Iraq for that matter) which was supplied by generators. So I ran it off the battery alone with no luck again.

After all this I settled with the bad power grid, so I wrapped the laptop in a plastic bag to prevent dust and dirt getting to it, boxed it up in a protected case and didnt touch it until I redeployed back to germany a few days ago.

Now I am still having the same problem with the high end games on max settings. Cinematics run fine as do movies and pretty much everything else. There are no new third party programs nor are there any viruses or other malware. The computer is just about brand new and I haven't gotten any error warnings from Windows.

The hardware follows:

1 317-0820 Intel Core2 Quad Q9000 2.0GHz (6MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
1 317-1490 6GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
1 320-8140 17.0in, WUXGA,LCD,ANW,M17X
1 320-0762 SLI Dual 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce (NB10E-GTX1)
1 341-0013 640GB (320GB x 2) 7,200RPM (xMB Cache) - RAID 0
1 420-3251 Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1

If someone can give me some ideas, I'd love them. I'm decent with this stuff but not great and this has got me stumped.

[Aus_Karlos]

Hi dabonca and welcome to TSF, Gaming laptops can get very hot and hardware tends to throttle when temps reach a certain level.
Download Everest from my sig and check the temps (Compute > Sensor).
Load up a game and play it for 5mins, minimize the game and post the temps.

[RockmasteR]

I think it's affected by Heat, especially if your laptop is in Iraq, you know how the weather could be hot there
so just follow Aus_Karlos' suggestion, I think you need a Laptop cooler

[dabonca]

Well, I am no longer in Iraq, I am in germany now and its almost winter.

I think this is what you were looking for.

Before running the game it was this:

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type CPU, ACPI, nVIDIA MCP
GPU Sensor Type Diode (NV-Diode)

Temperatures:
CPU 39 °C (102 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 37 °C (99 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 39 °C (102 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #3 42 °C (108 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #4 42 °C (108 °F)
MCP 61 °C (142 °F)
GPU Diode 55 °C (131 °F)

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.18 V

After running the game for about 10 min:

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type CPU, ACPI, nVIDIA MCP
GPU Sensor Type Diode (NV-Diode)

Temperatures:
CPU 52 °C (126 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 50 °C (122 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 51 °C (124 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #3 52 °C (126 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #4 52 °C (126 °F)
MCP 75 °C (167 °F)
GPU Diode 70 °C (158 °F)

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.18 V

Does that help?

Oddly enough, the air temperature in Iraq was about 15 to 20 degrees hotter than the cpu temperatures.

[RockmasteR]

the temps looks OK
try to disable SLI and see what happens (I think you can disable it from the Nvidia Control Panel)
also make sure to install the latest drivers for your video card (from my sig)

[Aus_Karlos]

Your MCP (Media Communications Processor) aka your South Bridge is running a little to hot. Judging from other posts ive seen the chipset will throttle at about 70c-75c and many users report BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) at about +80c.
This is the graphics control chip for your card it basically relays data from your CPU to the cards.
As you have a laptop cooling choices are limited as other users with desktop PCs would attach a fan to the heatsink to extract the heat more efficently from the chip.
I would advise you to see if its worth investing in a Laptop cooling pad.
I can not guaranty that this will fix your problem but it will make your laptop last longer due to the decrease in temps. Keeping your temps lower will give your laptop more life.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ng+pad&x=0&y=0

[Mcninjaguy]

This laptop cooler is probably the best bang for your buck.

Antec 200 laptop cooler
$58

[dabonca]

Ok, this framerate thing is getting a bit frustrating. I'm trying to avoid sending this computer back to manufacturer and im running out of ideas. Are there any settings that I might have accidently changed that wouldnt have be reset by changing back to factory specs?

Also, someone suggested to me that it might be a battery or power supply issue, but I dont how, since it is plugged into an outlet and everything else runs great. The only real issue is high performance games. The framerates are from 0 to 7.

[Lord Sirian]

Did you get a laptop cooler as was suggested?