8600M GT downclocking...again....

[CDRK]

I have the same problem, but bigger.. I cant even install the newer drivers. after installation it gives me a black screen.

See here for my problem: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....showtopic=21344

Ahtec Sense XFL90 15,4 NVIDIA 8600MGT 512MB CAM/BT

CPU INTEL CORE2DUO T7500 (2,2Ghz/800Mhz/4MB)

My laptop is also one year old and I was really thinking of calling my manifacturer to fix it.

I have 2 year guarentee, with the first year being pick up guarentee. Would it hurt if I open the laptop

myself en clean the dust, this sounds to be the most logical in my case.

If that doesnt work I could try rivatuner and all the other options posted in here..

[Morris]

use driver sweeper and clean out all the old nvidia drivers, then install the new one

[Guest Hatz]

Interesting.....something is messed up in my laptop. Same problem as first described, game freezes, random shutdown, overheating. Have 177.92 right now, was doing this on 169.28 so i upgraded my driver. This is at idle....

[Guest JDangerfield]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is the exact problem i am having.. but i've been looking for a while and it seems similar.

i have a m1530 with the 8600m GT and I get sporadic performance when playing games regardless of how taxing the scene is, couple of minutes of normal, then the framerate drops to like half of that. Which is pretty damn annoying.

I've got the most recent BIOS (A09), and tried several drivers (currently 176.44 ), having reinstalled after using driver sweeper. all to no avail. I also recently checked my GPU temp on GPU-Z and it was like 95'C paying homeworld, is this abnormal?!

any help/ideas would be much appreciated!

Thanks, JD

[Morris]

JDangerfield, that looks like normal, but try switching to A07 I heard it fixed the problem, technically the new bios should fix the problem, but couple users reported that older BIOS fixed it.

I this is the reason I switched to 3650

[coolcop06]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is the exact problem i am having.. but i've been looking for a while and it seems similar.

i have a m1530 with the 8600m GT and I get sporadic performance when playing games regardless of how taxing the scene is, couple of minutes of normal, then the framerate drops to like half of that. Which is pretty damn annoying.

I've got the most recent BIOS (A09), and tried several drivers (currently 176.44 ), having reinstalled after using driver sweeper. all to no avail. I also recently checked my GPU temp on GPU-Z and it was like 95'C paying homeworld, is this abnormal?!

any help/ideas would be much appreciated!

Thanks, JD

and technically the newest bios is A11, released about a week ago... just fyi :)

[Guest JDangerfield]

woo! I solved my issue (wasn't BIOS) by cleaning out my fan, which made a big difference considering the small amount of build up, and then forcing 3D performance. Along with some new drivers its now :)

I recommend cleaning out your fan if anyones experiencing similar problems and hasn't done so, my laptops not even 6 months old and there was enough to heat my card an extra 15'C or something stupid. Plus its probably a good idea anyways and doesn't take long or much effort ...

Ahh and will get A11 .. thanks.

JD

[Guest Huey]

woo! I solved my issue (wasn't BIOS) by cleaning out my fan, which made a big difference considering the small amount of build up, and then forcing 3D performance. Along with some new drivers its now :)

I recommend cleaning out your fan if anyones experiencing similar problems and hasn't done so, my laptops not even 6 months old and there was enough to heat my card an extra 15'C or something stupid. Plus its probably a good idea anyways and doesn't take long or much effort ...

Ahh and will get A11 .. thanks.

JD

There are reports that BIOS A11 was taken down from the Dell site because it caused some higher temps whilst gaming.

[Guest JDangerfield]

Yeah the fan kicks in too late.

A09 is fine for the moment then ..

[Korso]

Hi to all forum members... Definitively, I've got the same problem. 8600M GT downclocking every 30 minutes, or so. Stock drivers (I am using a Compal FL90) run like crap, rendering games like Dead Space almost unplayable, while with newer driver like the 176 series, make the game run smoothly.

Temp are mostly ok, kicking to 86ºC while gaming. My OS is Vista Ultimate x64. Did not try disabling powermizer, but I tried rmclock, and got the same results (downclocking). Reinstalled drivers, but to no avail.

My rig is still in warranty, so... should I try to replace mobo and graphics card, or keep trying drivers until I find the solution. Someone has experience dealing with compal-like laptops?

Thanks a million!

[Morris]

I gave up, switched to 3650, if you have MXM, I suggest you do so, or get it replaced with something else if under warranty.

[coolcop06]

A12 is out, and supposedly fixes the temp problems with A11

[Korso]

Hi to all forum members... Definitively, I've got the same problem. 8600M GT downclocking every 30 minutes, or so. Stock drivers (I am using a Compal FL90) run like crap, rendering games like Dead Space almost unplayable, while with newer driver like the 176 series, make the game run smoothly.

Temp are mostly ok, kicking to 86ºC while gaming. My OS is Vista Ultimate x64. Did not try disabling powermizer, but I tried rmclock, and got the same results (downclocking). Reinstalled drivers, but to no avail.

My rig is still in warranty, so... should I try to replace mobo and graphics card, or keep trying drivers until I find the solution. Someone has experience dealing with compal-like laptops?

Thanks a million!

Wish I could do so...

[Guest Guest]

I'm getting tired of disabling/enabling the vcard every freaking 20minutes, we need a solution!!

[Morris]

I got one for you, replace it with a 3650 from ati!, IF you have MXM...

[Korso]

I got one for you, replace it with a 3650 from ati!, IF you have MXM...

I don't want to spend 150$... Could i do it on a Compal FL90. It has mxm, but has someone actually tried it?

[Guest Guest]

This worked for me: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....amp;#entry86110

[RazorBlade]

Hey guys i've read a bit here in this thread

let's see if I understand this

so if you are gaming and your gpu reaches a certain temp let's say 75°C it automaticlly goes to low 3D-performance (at that point you're game will start to lag and run more slowly)

So you're gpu get's more cooler?

Is this right?

Now my next question is, I own a Acer Aspire 5920 with a geforce 8600M GT card, now the assumption here above would definetly clear my problem that I have with GTA IV because it starts to lag after a period of gaming....

Did Acer also built in that "getting hotter" protection...?

because I monitor the temps when gaming and my cpu's get to like 78° and my gpu also something like that 75-78° or so....

[Morris]

it is NOT based on temperature, it is based on the "stability" I find, since it can downclock at ANY temperature, only related to temperature by a little factor(higher the heat, can reduce the stability of the chip, but it should be able to handle anything within 110c if it was a NORMAL chip) since they are defective, once VERY VERY small inaccurate calculation has appeared, the BIOS would switch to the lower 3D clock.

I know alot of people are getting downclocked at a certain temperature every time, but remember, heat is PART of the indication, some users can go up to 98c, untill they downclock, some hits 70~ish it downclocks, I have very different results when i did modifications to the ventilation. if you are getting downclocks at the same temperature every time, remember, you are USING the same cooling system+same case, I was able to get different results from same machine with different position, case differences, and etc.

RazorBlade, I would RECOMMENDED you downgrade(to the oldest one) your motherboard bios from Acer, it REDUCES the problem, but that is about the furthest I have gotten to(ONLY if you don't have Penryn based CPU). it is NOT acer does the downclocking, it is the driver.

Couple of things I have ALREADY tried and failed(* meaning reduces the problem):

Changing to the newest driver(doesn't help, since all new drivers do the protection)

Disable Powermizer (totally useless work, waste of time too, don't bother)

*Removing the thermal pads for the RAM(so heatsink is only taking load on the GPU core)DO NOT DO TO DDR3 CARDS!

*Downclock(just stupid, since the card is already a downclocked desktop 8600)

*Change the thermal pads to paste

*lower voltage in the BIOS to the lowest from Nibitor allows me to

*remove the plastic wires that is taped to inside of the vent holes

Workarounds that should work for ALL cases(** More permanent solution):

Use older driver 16x.xx versions(this is just stupid too, that is why we come to this site, no?)

**Change the lower 3D speed to the same speed that full 3D has in BIOS(while keeping the 2D as-is then it can still use a power saving profile when not in use)

**Use rivatuner to force constant performance mode(waste battery, if you don't want to risk a bad BIOS flash)

CHANGE TO ATI!(like i did :) to a Radeon mobility HD3650)

IF you found anything here useful or it fixed your 8600 permanently, PLEASE PLEASE for the others, SHARE your knowledge like I did on this forum, and for the better, share to ALL other forums you know of that are discussing this matter

I wish luck to all of the 8600m GT users on finding this is useful, and finds a solution eventually!

Best Regards,

Morris Lee

Edited December 12, 2008 by Morris

[zipper]

it is NOT based on temperature, it is based on the "stability" I find, since it can downclock at ANY temperature, only related to temperature by a little factor(higher the heat, can reduce the stability of the chip, but it should be able to handle anything within 110c if it was a NORMAL chip) since they are defective, once VERY VERY small inaccurate calculation has appeared, the BIOS would switch to the lower 3D clock.

That's true, my ex go5700 had hardware downclocking set to 125 C but it tended to downclock between 83 - 88 depending of the driver used; some could even tolerate 93. The problem was it always stuck on low power 3D making hardware reset obligatory. My recent FX 1600M recovers from abuse usually maintaining the power 3D mode.

[Guest Dangerfield]

**Change the lower 3D speed to the same speed that full 3D has(while keeping the 2D as-is then it can still use a power saving profile when not in use)

How would you do this? the sliders on rivatuner do not extend far enough and i doubt thats the best way regardless

[Morris]

in the bios I mean, sorry

[bilal]

I used to have these problems with my 8600m gt in my Dell vostro 1500.

What i do is i check off "enable driver-level overclocking" for each performance mode(3d, low 3d, and 2d). I dont even have to use the force constant performance level. This way my computer saves batter by switching but never downclocks in games unless I provide too severe of an overclock (630/475).

So try that. It runs the computer the way its meant to be run(powermizer).

[univrslsoljr]

what about the 9500M GS nvidia based graphics card? I have that one and am experiencing the same problems.

[Guest elninoE2]

I know the Thread is pretty old, but i want to post what happened to me / actual facts:

- also have an XPS M1530 i bought in Summer 2008 (so it has a 8600M GT)

- it downcloked one time shortly after buying it, as far as i had problems with a broken contact i got my mb changed (thechie came the first time)

--> i got the Revision A09: it didnt downclock anymore but after a few months it climbed to 100° GPU Temp...( CPU also around that)

--> Techie came (second time), changed MoBo and Heat/Fansystem --> Revision A12 (that was 2 months ago!!!!) and temps all fine

- playing WoW or Anno1707 make the temp climb at max 89°, BF2 or 2142 make it almost reach the 100° again

--> i'll call the techie again and let them replace the whole thing...

An advise i can give all those who have a dell XPS: upgrade your waranty for 3 Years (costed me 200?; 1 year: 140, 2 years: 170). Knowing about the issue of the g86 cards i thought it was the best thing to do...