11 replies to this topic

[VaeVictus3025]

Hello these are my laptop specs

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU - Intel Core i7 720QM @1.60 GHz Clarksfield 45 nm tech
RAM - GSkill 4 gb DDR3 1066MHz
Mobo - Toshiba Qosmio X505
GPU - Geforce GTS 360M 1gig vid ram
HDD - 500 gb Hitachi prolly 5400 rpm not sure
BIOs- upgraded from v2.3 out of box to v2.9

When i first started playing up til 2 weeks ago i could run the game on med settings on 1360-768 res, with about 15-25 FPS (i aint picky) during heavy combat sequences. I had minimal CTD mem allocation and very very rare mem leak issues (hard freeze, reset). The only real issue is how hot it gets so i got a laptop cooler and it worked like a charm. However nowadays my poor laptop is acting all crazy. It heats up faster even with the cpu fan, has less FPS even when i put the settings to minimum, and locks up damn near all the time every other game. I'm talking about hard freezes in middle of games.

I've optimized as much as i could, getting rid of as much bloatware as i found after the factory reset. I've used 3rd party optimization programs like Gamebooster to boost all my games. I've airdusted all the sinks and made sure the air flow is good.

I'm currently at a complete at what to do. It's so weird to see my laptop's performance cratering while my older gaming desktop went from runs crappily (min settings 15-20 fps crashed every 3rd game) to runs pretty damn well (min settings 25-30 fps, tried medium, chugged abit too much for my liking, suddenly very stable with rare crashes).

[Gremlich Johns]

It's a Laptop........running at 1.6GHz

Would you dare OC the CPU?

Have you set the run mode from appearance to performance?

Get a better laptop cooler (check out the Zalman line).

My guess though, it cannot take the heat.

Go for a Sager

[Catamount]

The problem is that the i7-720qm itself is a little heat monster. I have one, and it gets into the 80s in many cases, 90s if it's in hot enough room(Asus N61JQ). The CPU itself will already turbo all cores up to 1.8 or 1.9, and that's as good as mobile CPUs of that era could do. OP, PGI is really screwing around with performance right now, but it's a two steps forward one step back kind of a deal. Some patches will help, some will hurt. Until this game gets DX11, CPUs will especially hurt. To make matters worse, the game is more than a little screwy in this regard. I've been seeing reports of copies running slower on faster machines than other copies do on slower machines (like my laptop vs Sen's faster laptop).

Given the crazy inconsistency on the software side, you could try wiping the game out and reinstalling, but to some extent you might just have to be a bit patient.

If I were you, I'd worry more about the heat, and it's potential to damage your machine. After all this time it might be getting time to take a look at your cooling. Can I assume you've already done the a obvious and cleaned all the dust out of your heatsink(s)? I would take a look to see just how hot your CPU and GPU are really getting. Get Unigine Heaven (it's a good heat generator that isn't as dangerous as Furmark) and GPUz (set the temp monitor to show max temp and record in the background). and see how hot it gets; if it goes to 90C or above you're too hot. Then get Prime95 and a program like Realtemp, and run them. If you hit 90c, shut off Prime95; again, you're getting too hot (my machine keeps P95 in the low 80s and even that's kind of hot, but not dangerously for that chip).

Let's make sure your machine is cooling first, then we'll worry about MWO being smooth when we know it isn't keep killing your machine. Don't feel bad, when Star Trek Online was in beta, it started killing loads of Geforce cards because of their ability to grossly violate their own TDP. It got so bad, I created a joke post about the game burning my house down, and got a serious dev reply out of it on how to reduce heat. Be warned, your GPU is prior to the tighter protections Nvidia eventually put to keep their cards' energy characteristics under conyroll, AFAIK. Even the 400 series was easily able to blow past the stated TDP of the cards (that stopped with either the 500 series, or maybe not even until Kepler).

Edited by Catamount, 09 February 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Part of the heat excess and the other issues is due to Turbo Boost. Especially on laptops, when Turbo Boost kicks in, it does not kick in for all cores but to half the cores then finally to one core, which is all fine and dandy on single core applications but all the power is being applied to and the heat being generated is coming from that one core as it is pegging out. Once that happens then the laptop throttles the the CPU back down to half the original CPU speed (or thereabouts).

Turbo frequency
2800 MHz (1 core)
2400 MHz (2 cores)
1733 MHz (3 or 4 cores)

To disable Turbo Boost, follow the instructions in the following link, but set it to 98% or 97%, as 99% is not enough.

Disabling Intel Turbo Boost - Tautvidas Sipavičius

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 09 February 2013 - 11:31 AM.

[Catamount]

Disabling TB would help a little if CPU temp really is the problem, which running Prime95 and a temp program will reveal.

That said, the really great thing to be able to do would be disabling hyperthreading, which has long been known to be a massive source of power consumption/heat for the performance gain. OP, I'm going to have Windows disable 4 logical processors in MSconfig, and see what differences I get in performance and CPU heat. I used to do this all the time to reduce heat in other games, and it reduced temps by 10-20 degrees, but I'm afraid MWO just may not tolerate it well, because it's more threaded than other games, and I"m afraid I'll just end up with two hyperthreaded cores, instead of the CPU running all 4 cores without bothering with hyperthreading. I'll let you know what I find in a bit here.

Edited by Catamount, 09 February 2013 - 12:21 PM.

[Catamount]

OP, I tried disabling 2 cores on my i7-720QM (telling Windows to only see 4 logical cores in total), as compared with running all cores. I get the exact same framerates (13min, 27max, 21 average) on medium settings, on Forest Colony Snow, and my temps dropped about 5C.
It's not perfect, but it's a start. At least your machine might not freeze up having a few degrees more headroom, and there's no performance loss. I plan on replacing the thermal pad on my CPU altogether with a copper shim and some good thermal compound since it's not under warranty anymore anyways. I'm hoping that helps my case as well. If you're not willing to do that, shutting off some cores and saving a degree or two with a cooling pad are about what you're limited to. At least you won't lose framerate, as with disabling turbo boost

Edited by Catamount, 09 February 2013 - 06:21 PM.

[VaeVictus3025]

Catamount thanks alot for helping me troubleshoot with what ails me. Do you have a Qosmio as well, and which model is it?

I've asked around on other boards and other suggestions were to add more thermal paste to my heatsink and CPU since it may have wore out. Also to pop it open and doublecheck the fans to see if theyre clogged or loose. And still others say just buy a new laptop already and stop trying to resustitate a dying horse (and of course i'm cheap). I've also tried replacing my 4 gigs of GSkill DDR3 1066 with 8 gigs of Patriot DDR3 1600, unfortunately the 1600 RAM was at the wrong voltage at 1.35v whereas my mobo apparently can only support 1.5v. When i ran CPUZ it said only 1.28v were being supplied, the hardwired laptop BIOs wont let me alter the voltage to send through the RAM so i guess i'm just gonna have to return it and get slightly downgraded 1333 RAM which does run at the same 1.5v.

I've heard about reducing the cpu load and will def give that a try as well since overheating is a huge issue. At rest the darn thing is already at 55ish degrees celsius so running cool is not this laptops MO. When i run this game it typically is running 70-75c so definitely spiking hardcore on heat. Although i'm reading the temps from using CoreTemp usually, so maybe i'm looking at the wrong values It only shows 4 cores temperatrues.

However just about the only game i'm having issues with right now is MWO. Everything else is running just about normal, so most likely its the optimization of MWO thats messing my computer up.

[Catamount]

I have an Asus, not a Toshiba, but we share a CPU.

75 is not remotely hot for a Core i7-720QM. That chip's max temperature is 100C, and it will comfortably run right up to that point. My laptop has been getting up into the 80s for gaming since I got it 3 years ago, and constant use at that temperature hasn't damaged it.


Still, we need to know how hot your CPU and GPU are really getting, so if you could post some numbers from Prime95 and a 3d benchmark like Heaven, hopefully more specific advice can be given.

[Staplebeater]

Qosmios run hot. I had a 875 for a couple years and had to buy an aftermarket cooling pad to keep it running and still had issue and eventually built my desktop cause i wasn't on the road for work as much anymore

Edited by Staplebeater, 10 February 2013 - 03:44 PM.

[VaeVictus3025]

Just tried two things, downloaded GPUZ and recorded temps, and reduced processor power to 95%

Played a coupla games (and didnt lock up), FPS drop to about 15-20 in heavy combat which is tolerable to me. GPU temp was around 59c during heavy combat and 50ish during mech lab rest phase 35c during idle. CPU temp is as stated 70-75ish as noted before during combat.

60c doesnt seem to be that hot for a GPU so i wonder if something else is afoot. Why am i locking up and freezing so much...

[VaeVictus3025]

Another report. After extended play testing (4 hours with relogs every 10 games or so) with my cpu set at 95% i've encountered no hard freezes so far. A coupla graphic glitches like no hud or messed up hud, but thats not big deal. Furthermore FPS seems to have crept up abit as well by about an avg of 5 frames or so at rest and heavy combat. These developments are either the result of the last patch unborking things for me or the 95% cpu processor management working like a charm.

Heat has stayed relatively constant at around 65c during heavy play, so apparently there IS an effect on cpu heat and stress load.

I'm probably going to test it out a few more days, then i'm gonna increase the processor power to 97% and see how that goes. If i get another boost in frames maybe i can finally increase the resolution to 1360-728 and if it can handle it then maybe medium settings!

[Tarl Cabot]

Arigato for the updates VaeVictus.