GTX 660M issues on Optimus IV - Windows 7 (Pro 64)

Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
Got my Optimus IV 17" yday and I honestly thing it should be performing better (graphics wise) than it is. I know GTX 660m isn't top of the range but can only play Far Cry 3 smoothly in 1024 x 768 in low settings. Surely that's not right!?

I've run 3D Mark 11 a few times in Windows 8 and 7 and getting around the same mark for both :S
My latest score this morning was: P919 - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5191801 <- click for results

My machine specs are there too but for a quick glance:
Operating system: 64-bit Windows 7 (6.1.7600)
Motherboard: CLEVO CO. W35_37ET
Memory 8192 MB
Hard drive model: 128GB SAMSUNG SSD PM800 2.5" 128GB ATA Device
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz
Processor clock: 2394 MHz
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M
Memory: 2048 MB
Core clock: 405 MHz
Memory clock:2500 MHz
Driver version: 9.18.13.1070
Driver status: Not FM Approved

My biggest concern at the moment is why the Core clock is only 405Mhz and not 835Mhz as it's supposed to be!
I don't think Intels Turboboost is working correctly either as I'd have expected during 3D Mark that it should have boosted to 3Ghz then no?

Any help would be greatly appreciated and thank you in advance!
 
Pagey

Pagey

Bright Spark
Hmm, for a quick reference I got 2500 ish last night from a very similar spec. I'm not sure why yours is giving low clock speeds, but do you have the laptops power options set to "High Performance"? Also is the VGA light green or amber? Finally you have two other indicators, one looks like a battery with a feather above it, the other looks like a maxed out speedo, which one was lit whilst 3D Mark was running?
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
Thanks Pagey for your quick reply. Yeah I'm pretty sure its not running near as fast as it should!

I have seen now on forums, and also as a suggestion from a work colleague, that I should definitely be looking at the power management for the GPU as it seems its just constantly running in its lowest and slowest state.

When I was running these tests the VGA Light was Orange which is what I believe it should be? I think green is when the Intel GPU is being used right?
I'll be honest I ran it whilst making breakfast lol so wasn't sat at the PC when it was doing the benchmarks but I shall give it a go tonight :)

Thanks again Pagey and will let you know how I get on!
 
Pagey

Pagey

Bright Spark
zimbo_ouen said:
Thanks Pagey for your quick reply. Yeah I'm pretty sure its not running near as fast as it should!

I have seen now on forums, and also as a suggestion from a work colleague, that I should definitely be looking at the power management for the GPU as it seems its just constantly running in its lowest and slowest state.

When I was running these tests the VGA Light was Orange which is what I believe it should be? I think green is when the Intel GPU is being used right?
I'll be honest I ran it whilst making breakfast lol so wasn't sat at the PC when it was doing the benchmarks but I shall give it a go tonight :)

Thanks again Pagey and will let you know how I get on!
Click to expand...

Haha, no worries. Another thing that helps is if you have the "Hotkey Drivers" installed, it's actually very good for switching between the "UMA" mode, (low power,) and "High Power" for when you're gaming. It took me a little while to get used to Nvidia's Optimus, but I have any and all problems ironed out.

Another! thing to try out is to check what 3D Mark is running as default. If you right click the .exe for 3D Mark it will ask what you want to run as default, I've got a feeling it defaults to iGPU.
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
Hey again. I did set the global option for nvidia to run everything using the GTX 660m but also did try running 3D Mark with the GTX 660m option too but no joy. It's definitely the clock speeds here rather than the wrong GPU being used :/

But I think having a look at the power options now is going to sort this out for me. I have to say Far Cry 3 look bloody incredible even in the low res I tried it out in! So once this is fixed I look forward to some even better graphics in that game!
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
As a sidenote, I nearly went for this machine before I found out about PCS but the specs are very very similiar and this guys playing Far Cry 3 in Ultra on a smaller screen but at a higher res than I can manage at the moment:
 
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Pagey

Pagey

Bright Spark
My global settings are set to iGPU, but I set programs I want to run with the 660 into the whitelist. Also you can check on the power options for the High Power setting, the VGA light should be orange if the High Setting is on.
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
Ok so here are some logs using MSI Afterburner. When running 3D Mark 11 the clock drops as low as 162mhz!? And almost averages out at 200mhz at some points. When you see the clock jump back to over 800mhz this is when it is back in windows and either getting ready to run the next test or, for example when it finished the clock speed just jumped right back again to 835mhz :/

WTF is going on? *pulls hair out*

00, 11-12-2012 20:46:14, Hardware monitoring log v1.4
01, 11-12-2012 20:46:14, GeForce GTX 660M
02, 11-12-2012 20:46:14, GPU temperature ,GPU usage ,Core clock ,Memory clock ,Memory usage
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:34, 91.000 ,13.000 ,789.750 ,2499.426 ,34.680
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:35, 91.000 ,2.000 ,789.750 ,2499.426 ,39.313
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:36, 90.000 ,0.000 ,789.750 ,2499.426 ,45.488
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:37, 90.000 ,4.000 ,789.750 ,2499.426 ,70.086
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:38, 91.000 ,1.000 ,810.000 ,2499.426 ,70.086
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:39, 91.000 ,1.000 ,810.000 ,2499.426 ,70.086
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:40, 92.000 ,1.000 ,810.000 ,2499.426 ,70.086
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:41, 92.000 ,0.000 ,810.000 ,2499.426 ,153.762
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:42, 87.000 ,99.000 ,135.000 ,2499.426 ,160.203
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:43, 91.000 ,99.000 ,270.000 ,2499.426 ,160.594
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:44, 93.000 ,99.000 ,270.000 ,2499.426 ,168.957
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:45, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,169.520
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:46, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,169.738
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:47, 92.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.363
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:48, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.363
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:49, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.598
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:50, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.598
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:51, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:52, 94.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:53, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:54, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:55, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:56, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:57, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:58, 93.000 ,99.000 ,162.000 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:47:59, 92.000 ,99.000 ,162.000 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:00, 92.000 ,99.000 ,162.000 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:01, 92.000 ,99.000 ,162.000 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:02, 92.000 ,99.000 ,162.000 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:03, 92.000 ,99.000 ,162.000 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:04, 92.000 ,99.000 ,162.000 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:05, 92.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:06, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.551
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:07, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:08, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:09, 93.000 ,99.000 ,270.000 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:10, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:11, 94.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:12, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:13, 94.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:14, 94.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:15, 94.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:16, 94.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,168.301
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:18, 92.000 ,98.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,164.473
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:18, 90.000 ,9.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,20.121
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:20, 88.000 ,0.000 ,699.545 ,2499.426 ,19.402
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:21, 91.000 ,1.000 ,745.200 ,2499.426 ,34.680
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:22, 90.000 ,3.000 ,745.200 ,2499.426 ,39.582
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:23, 89.000 ,3.000 ,745.200 ,2499.426 ,42.156
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:24, 90.000 ,0.000 ,769.500 ,2499.426 ,53.227
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:25, 90.000 ,0.000 ,769.500 ,2499.426 ,89.691
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:26, 90.000 ,0.000 ,769.500 ,2499.426 ,89.691
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:27, 90.000 ,1.000 ,789.750 ,2499.426 ,89.691
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:28, 91.000 ,0.000 ,789.750 ,2499.426 ,89.691
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:29, 91.000 ,1.000 ,789.750 ,2499.426 ,89.691
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:30, 85.000 ,99.000 ,135.000 ,800.000 ,179.648
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:31, 90.000 ,99.000 ,270.000 ,2499.426 ,187.648
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:32, 92.000 ,99.000 ,270.000 ,2499.426 ,187.781
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:33, 93.000 ,99.000 ,270.000 ,2499.426 ,187.953
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:34, 93.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,187.953
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:35, 92.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,188.547
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:36, 92.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,188.422
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:37, 92.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,187.891
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:38, 92.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,187.719
80, 11-12-2012 20:48:39, 92.000 ,99.000 ,202.500 ,2499.426 ,187.719
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
I think I'm going o uninstall all nvidia drivers, remove both gpus as devices and try re-install again. This is so frustrating.
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
Capture.PNG

So did a clean uninstall of all drivers and used different drivers now.

This time used GeForce 310.64 Drivers and previously I had tried GeForce 310.70 Drivers.

Same thing is happening. The screenshot above shows the GPU clock dropping as soon as it starts running a benchmark in 3D Mark 11 :S
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
On further searching the web some people are suggesting the gpu is overheating and therefore forcing itself to drop the core as low as it can.

Does this sound correct and if so why is it overheating? Suppose I'd need to contact PCS if that's the case...
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
As a last resort I've tried the drivers that came with the laptop (on the cd) and same issue.

Will have to contact PCS about this I think :(
 
Pagey

Pagey

Bright Spark
Are you sure the laptop is running on high power?

It looks like you've exhausted all avenues of testing, might be a good idea to call PCS then.
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
Yes the power was set to "High Performance" and I even ensured there was no power saving at all on pci express etc A concerning thought (after reading things on some forums) is that maybe the GPU doesn't even have thermal paste, not enough or a bad install (think these are done in the factory rather than PCS from what I've read but could be wrong). I can only imagine it's either something like that or a dodgy gpu chip. I honestly couldn't think of anything else I could have tried :(

I have now raised this to PCS and they are picking the laptop up tomorrow. They have been very good and super swift on email responses which is fantastic. Thanks PCS!

I do hope it gets back to me pretty soon but realise they are busy at the moment but fingers crossed it will be sorted as it is a fantastic laptop that Optimus IV.

Thanks for all your help so far peeps and will let you know how it all goes.
 
Z

zimbo_ouen

Active member
Laptop is now back and I'm happy to say it looks like the GPU is now sorted! Was definitely either an unfortunate case of forgotten thermal paste on the GPU or possibly just a bad job?

None the less it has been resolved now and PCS were very quick to request it back, resolve and post it back. Before Christmas too which is great.

So thanks to PCS for the good service and help, and thanks to all of you who helped out and gave some good suggestions too.

Hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year!

:D
 
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