P775DM1G (Octane II Pro) low performance in GFX/CPU

[Álvaro]

Hi everyone,

I posted this to an RMA to PCSpecialist, but I am curious as per if somebody else has had this problem. The laptop arrived home yesterday and I noticed that after setting it up, I was having quite lowish fps for a beast this size (15-20 in Fallout 4, where benchmarks on this system get well above 70). I decided to run a few benchmarks and it seems that the graphics card and CPU are not performing anywhere near where they should. Temps seem somewhat high (78 idle CPU, and graphics card was as well on the low 70s) so I filed in and RMA, and just in case decided to do a wipe install of all drivers and the OS from DreamSpark. A benchmark right after installing the drivers gave me the same results (NovaBench around 1300ish where an equivalent desktop system gets 3000, PassMark around 2900 for the 980GTX (9751 avg) and 3000 for the i7 6700 (9970)), so I rule out a software issue, although the 980GTX is now way cooler on idle, around 43. Anybody else having these problems around? And is there a way to send this info to PCS? I did the format after filing the RMA in a fit of despair, but I guess it doesn't hurt to have some extra info sent to the RMA team.

(Also, how reliable are PCS with sensitive information? I keep a lot of laboratory NDA-bound stuff in my data, and already copied everything to the secondary disk)

EDIT: On a closer look, there is another item in HWMonitor which is listed at a constant 95-100 degrees, labeled as TZO_. Could that be the motherboard? If so, what could be generating such heat there (higher than the CPU/GPU)?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Latest graphics drivers are buggy and actually a beta nvidia pushed out to try to fix a previous Bork which was pulled. Roll back to an earlier driver.

It sounds like it may be coupled with the thermal paste having been applied incorrectly also, but try rolling back the driver first and see how that affects temps.

 

[Álvaro]

I am actually not in the latest drivers (currently 353.4, latest are 364 something), and albeit the GPU still performs at a much lower speed the temps seem to be fine (with the OS reformat and the installation of an older driver). Which driver number would you reccomend?

 

[SpyderTracks]

I am actually not in the latest drivers (currently 353.4, latest are 364 something), and albeit the GPU still performs at a much lower speed the temps seem to be fine (with the OS reformat and the installation of an older driver). Which driver number would you reccomend?

Ok, you're ok on that front then, there are two 364 drivers both of which are buggy.

It does kind of point to thermal paste not being applied correctly and the system running hot so the cpu is being throttled which in turn will throttle the graphics.

 

[Álvaro]

Would make sense, although I recall that in the Novatech benchmark the measured frequency did match the processor (3406 MHz vs 3.4 GHz of stock clock) and while gaming they seem to run around 3-3.7 Ghz as well, although those measurements could be wrong. The oddest part is that the air coming off the vents it's actually cold, so it would support your theory of improper thermal pasting.
Also, would the throttled CPU affect that badly the graphics card? We are talking about 1/3rd or less of performance in almost every game/benchmark I've tried.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Would make sense, although I recall that in the Novatech benchmark the measured frequency did match the processor (3406 MHz vs 3.4 GHz of stock clock) and while gaming they seem to run around 3-3.7 Ghz as well, although those measurements could be wrong. The oddest part is that the air coming off the vents it's actually cold, so it would support your theory of improper thermal pasting.
Also, would the throttled CPU affect that badly the graphics card? We are talking about 1/3rd or less of performance in almost every game/benchmark I've tried.

Yes, if the cpu is being throttled, graphics performance as well as memory management is severely affected to the point you get stuttering, tearing etc etc as if you're running on integrated graphics.

 

[Álvaro]

A small update which probably nails your theory: I managed to run FireStrike (thought it was paid, but the demo works as fine) and, whereas other laptops with my same exact setup get around 11k, mine gets 2800. They do a breakdown of the results, and while my 980 seems to be clocking as it should (1202 core, 3506x2 mem), as well as the RAM (2x8 GB at 2133, running at 2128), the processor's BOOST clock is actually lower than the stock clocks (3.2 Ghz vs 3.4 Ghz), so the problem is, as you said, the CPU. Hot damn, 3 days and I already managed to jinx the laptop. Hope it's a fixable issue and doesn't need a part replacement.

 

[Álvaro]

Also, is there a specific channel to tell these findings to the PCS RMA team, or should just be fine to phone/email them and tell them this? As I did a full format with just the drivers and the issue persists, I'd like to save them the effort of doing that (which in turn will, I guess, get my RMA sorted out faster)

 

[ubuysa]

Also, is there a specific channel to tell these findings to the PCS RMA team, or should just be fine to phone/email them and tell them this? As I did a full format with just the drivers and the issue persists, I'd like to save them the effort of doing that (which in turn will, I guess, get my RMA sorted out faster)

I would suggest you call PCS, these fora are not an official support channel and PCS staff do not always visit here.

 

[Álvaro]

Thanks! I found that I can edit the RMA itself, so I just wrote everything there.

 

[Álvaro]

Another question (bear with me if it's too basic ). I am checking the core multipliers in CPUZ, and it seems that the value ranges widly from x34 to x8. Now, I know that CPUs don't run at the stock speed unless needed, but it's that through the core multiplier and those fluctuations are normal, or is it being lowered because of temperatures? GPUZ shows my graphics card running at 540 mhZ but the sensors do report the maximum clock speed supposed (1200), so I guess only the CPU is being throttled (if at all). Is this correct?

 

[micgup]

Have you tried installing intel xtu? This will show any cpu throttling, and can be plotted on a graph. Along with cpu loads temps and multipliers. And a lot more.

Mick

 

[A'vee]

I also had some problems with the same laptop model.
In my case, I run Skydiver test on 3DMark and got ~15k points, way below expected, and also AIDA64 keep showing up to 38% throttling during a stress test. So I sent it off for RMA and PCS came back to me saying they can't reproduce the throttling (quite weird because it always happened during testing), but they re-applied the paste. They also changed the GPU drivers to 362.00 and the laptop was sent back able to pump out 29k points on the same skydiver test.
A couple days ago I had to reinstall the GPU drivers (362.00, not the bad 364 ones) as Unity kept freezing. So after doing that Unity was fine, but the skydiver test dropped to 15k again. Took me a while to figure out it's all GSync's fault
Turns out that GSync, while on, reduces framerate to whatever the screen can handle (75 fps in this case) and additional frames are not even rendered. And because 3DMark counts all rendered frames to calculate the score, it was also lower than it should. GSync can be switched on or off on NVidia Control Panel. So that solved the poor benchmark score for me, though the throttling is still there, even if I place the laptop on a chill mat.

 

[Álvaro]

I also had some problems with the same laptop model.
In my case, I run Skydiver test on 3DMark and got ~15k points, way below expected, and also AIDA64 keep showing up to 38% throttling during a stress test. So I sent it off for RMA and PCS came back to me saying they can't reproduce the throttling (quite weird because it always happened during testing), but they re-applied the paste. They also changed the GPU drivers to 362.00 and the laptop was sent back able to pump out 29k points on the same skydiver test.
A couple days ago I had to reinstall the GPU drivers (362.00, not the bad 364 ones) as Unity kept freezing. So after doing that Unity was fine, but the skydiver test dropped to 15k again. Took me a while to figure out it's all GSync's fault
Turns out that GSync, while on, reduces framerate to whatever the screen can handle (75 fps in this case) and additional frames are not even rendered. And because 3DMark counts all rendered frames to calculate the score, it was also lower than it should. GSync can be switched on or off on NVidia Control Panel. So that solved the poor benchmark score for me, though the throttling is still there, even if I place the laptop on a chill mat.

I disable GSYNC as a routine for those tests (was the first thing I tried), but in my case I think that the problem may be different to yours as my CPU reaches 90C when idling, throttling aside, with no load whatsoever (i even left it overnight, switched on but only downloading a Steam game, and I woke up to find it at 83C, and my house is a freezer). Also, do you remember which drivers did you have installed originally, where your GPU was running at half speed? And which temps do you get on idle/loading?
(Also, your original thread did scare the hell outta me, I thought that maybe the model itself had a fault )

 

[Álvaro]

Have you tried installing intel xtu? This will show any cpu throttling, and can be plotted on a graph. Along with cpu loads temps and multipliers. And a lot more.

Mick

Nope, but I will take a look. PC is going tomorrow for the RMA but now I am curious to see if I can get something clear outta this.

 

[micgup]

Probably stating the obvious, but make sure you have Clevo hotkey software installed, and I would say have the fan control set to 'overclocked'.

 

[A'vee]

Also, do you remember which drivers did you have installed originally, where your GPU was running at half speed? And which temps do you get on idle/loading?

The guy handling my RMA wrote he changed drivers from 361.43 to 362.00, but until I discovered the GSync setting, all drivers regardless of version were doing 15k score.
Temps - if I remember correctly, idle was around 70C, during a test it went to 95-100C and that point the CPU started throttling. My room has ambient temp of around 25C if that matters.

It definitely looks like in your case it's something different, 90C when idle is high even by AMD standards, I'd expect Intels to be a bit cooler
Would be good to learn how your RMA goes too, hope it gets sorted out quickly.

 

[Álvaro]

Probably stating the obvious, but make sure you have Clevo hotkey software installed, and I would say have the fan control set to 'overclocked'.

I do, but the overclocked option does not appear. I have it set to "entertainment", power set to performance, fan custom (fires up at 50, stops at 40, maximum 80% as it does not let me put it higher). As a curious data, if I set it to quiet, idle temps drop to 60-70 (but as soon as I do anything beyond looking at the screen, they ramp up again, and evrn then, 60-70 seems pretty high to me)

Also, A'vee, even with the throttling, does your CPU deviate much from the usual benchmarks for it? Component-wise, I always get between half and a third of the performance of the CPU and graphics card when compared to the average of those components in every test where I get separate scores for them.

 

[A'vee]

The separate scores I'm getting from 3D Mark on skydiver are:
Graphics Score 42 869
Physics Score 11 916
Combined Score 24 863
Link: http://www.3dmark.com/sd/3919302

Looking at other users' scores, it doesn't really seem to make a lot of difference (that's why I actually didn't bother to send it back again). Here are a couple tests on the same hardware done by other users, just to compare the numbers:
Test 1: http://www.3dmark.com/sd/3880870
Graphics Score 49 458 (looks overclocked to me)
Physics Score 12 592
Combined Score 25 440

Test 2: http://www.3dmark.com/sd/3557636
Graphics Score 44 965
Physics Score 11 904
Combined Score 24 599

Test 3: http://www.3dmark.com/sd/3590074
Graphics Score 43 747
Physics Score 11 723
Combined Score 24 196

 

[Álvaro]

Okay, so yours works normal. I just followed micgup's advice and well, it downclocks all the way down to 800 Mhz right off the bat (100% thermal throttling), and that is starting clocked at 2.8 Ghz instead of the 3.4 it's supposed to be at. This is from a fresh boot, so something looks VERY wrong here...