22 replies to this topic

[Haasth]

I previously thought this was only related to the game "Heroes of Newerth", but as I experienced the problem with "Dragon Age: Origins" as well... I am beginning to worry. (Did not encounter this with "Dawn of War II", beyond that I have no games installed currently). So I figured I could ask around here to see if anyone could help me.

Basically at a random given time, the game will start to go incredibly slow. As if my laptop can not handle it which should be silly, as the specifications are quite good and can very well handle both of these games. This will last until I completely restart the laptop, restarting the game does not solve this. Any other game I play during this time will have the same problem. (If I'd have to guess, the FPS drops to about 5 or so, whereas normally I play with at least 60 or so)

My specifications:


ASUS laptop (G71X)
6142 RAM.
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9000 @2.00 Ghz.
Windows Vista Ultimate - 64 bit.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M

I am growing tired of restarting my laptop all the time for a reason I do not understand.
Thanks in advance.

(I should add, this laptop has been bought recently completely new)

[Strategist]

Hmmm could it be a problem with heat control? I know my brother's Asus tends to get extremely slow at times and it seems to be caused due to poor ventilation (he has an exterior fan he uses to help keep it cool).

It might also be something with the anti-virus as well. I know ours tends to slow games down quite a bit so I shut it down while playing.

Sorry I can't be any more help.

[Haasth]

Strategist, on Nov 5 2009, 08:02 PM, said:

Hmmm could it be a problem with heat control? I know my brother's Asus tends to get extremely slow at times and it seems to be caused due to poor ventilation (he has an exterior fan he uses to help keep it cool).

It might also be something with the anti-virus as well. I know ours tends to slow games down quite a bit so I shut it down while playing.

Sorry I can't be any more help.

Is there anyway I could find out if it is heat control beyond the obvious (I know some graphical cards can show the heat, but I am unaware of where I could find that)? The laptop does not seem to get any warmer than normal when it occurs.

[Piglet]

My copy of Dargon Age behaves roughly the same way. I just closed down al lthe background tasks afterwards and it worked normally. So it might be that.

[Gray__Fox]

Caescen, on Nov 5 2009, 01:11 PM, said:

Is there anyway I could find out if it is heat control beyond the obvious (I know some graphical cards can show the heat, but I am unaware of where I could find that)? The laptop does not seem to get any warmer than normal when it occurs.

GPU-Z and CPU-Z to see if either are over heating and what the temps are.

Also, being on vista you might want to minimize your aero effects, it can suck resources for no reason.

As piglet said turning off all unnecessary background tasks can and usually does help.

To me, sounds like memory leak... it could be something that doesn't like dragon age that's running and together they're sucking too much ram, or just the game. I'd try Tuneup utilities, and if it gets slow run the memory optimizer... if after you run that it runs decent again could signify a memory leak. I've done that before.

Also for heat, stick it on 2 small 2x4's and let air flow between it and the table or etc. that'll let ya know if it's heating up. But usually with heat you'll see artifacts on screen then the laptop will restart or flat out just freeze up.

[Berek-PG]

Gray__Fox, on Nov 5 2009, 01:57 PM, said:

GPU-Z and CPU-Z to see if either are over heating and what the temps are.

Excellent programs to check these things out.

I've actually had this same problem on my laptop Caescen. It turned out to be the heat pipes of the video card busted. They were not transferring heat properly any longer, and because the GPU was overheating, it auto-throttled down the system and caused games to run slow... any game that was demanding at least.

If you can run those programs Gray_Fox suggested, it will tell you if you're GPU is going crazy on temps. See what they are before and during the slowdown process. For me, I was able to recognize a 92c, yes that's Celsius , threshold that kicked down the GPU clock and made the game run slow.\

Otherwise, a memory leak I suppose could be the case. I haven't run into that one myself though.

[hagren]

I'd also cast a vote for a memory leak (especially because a re-start should not cool the conflicting part so quickly that the games suddenly run at their supposed speed), though heat problems may be creating these slow-downs as well (Although that should rather result in crashes and graphical glitches- best is you check with Speedfan), as can background activity (Any scheduled events? Auto-starting programs? Auto-upgrading, anti-viral programs, viruses?).

Lastly, defragment your drives and check wheter the fastest DMA mode is active, if you have IDE drives.

You also should keep your laptop connected to an electrical outlet if you play games- I read numerous reviews that, when ran only by the laptop power cell, games can slow to a crawl even on the most recent gaming laptops.

[Kelathin]

For OH issues Speedfan is my weapon of choice
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

[Haasth]

Thanks for the feedback. Going to download that Speedfan, and see if I can detect any thermal problems. It seems the most logical reason to me.

Quote

I'd try Tuneup utilities, and if it gets slow run the memory optimizer... if after you run that it runs decent again could signify a memory leak. I've done that before.

I'll also have a look at this.

[Haasth]

I think I have found the root of the problem... But this could mean that the similar problem in Heroes of Newerth is not related to the one I had in Dragon Age: Origins.

But first I suppose these heat levels are normal?

Regular (Right after start-up, desktop):


In-game (Menu and actual game varies a tiny bit):

(Does not return to 'regular' when I exit the game)

Now I have tried out something I suspected, as the problem in Dragon Age: Origins only happened once... Apparently when I am playing the game, and I unplug my laptop from the "netpower" (So that it starts to use the power supply) the game will drop drastically in FPS. I don't think this is solely in Dragon Age: Origins. And when I replug it, it's normal again. Now the problem I had with Heroes of Neweth was different, as this also occurred when I did not unplug anything or such.

Edited by Caescen, 06 November 2009 - 06:22 AM.

[Mike.nl]

Caescen, on Nov 6 2009, 01:20 PM, said:

Now I have tried out something I suspected, as the problem in Dragon Age: Origins only happened once... Apparently when I am playing the game, and I unplug my laptop from the "netpower" (So that it starts to use the power supply) the game will drop drastically in FPS. I don't think this is solely in Dragon Age: Origins. And when I replug it, it's normal again. Now the problem I had with Heroes of Neweth was different, as this also occurred when I did not unplug anything or such.

It might be doing frequency scaling. That's why it's best to keep it plugged in for performance, as noted above

[Haasth]

Mike.nl, on Nov 6 2009, 12:30 PM, said:

It might be doing frequency scaling. That's why it's best to keep it plugged in for performance, as noted above

I'll just resort to that next time I am gaming. (Reason I somtimes unplugged is because it is generally bad to keep your power supply full at all times... At least, that seems to be one of the reasons cellphones and such die out so quickly)

Now I hope that is the only reason it is doing that, and that I will have no FPS drops for other reasons.
As for the thermal levels... those were normal, right?

Edited by Caescen, 06 November 2009 - 07:09 AM.

[Mike.nl]

Caescen, on Nov 6 2009, 02:09 PM, said:

I'll just resort to that next time I am gaming. (Reason I somtimes unplugged is because it is generally bad to keep your power supply full at all times... At least, that seems to be one of the reasons cellphones and such die out so quickly)

Ah yes I've heard that too. That's why I remove my battery when it's plugged in for a long time.

Caescen, on Nov 6 2009, 02:09 PM, said:

Now I hope that is the only reason it is doing that, and that I will have no FPS drops for other reasons.
As for the thermal levels... those were normal, right?

Well, it's definitely hot (idle temps are fine), but I think it should deal with those temps ok. At least, for a desktop I wouldn't worry. I don't know about laptops though.

[Haasth]

Mike.nl, on Nov 6 2009, 01:25 PM, said:

Ah yes I've heard that too. That's why I remove my battery when it's plugged in for a long time.

Ah! Good call! *Removes*
So does anyone here know how expensive external coolers are by any chance? If they're not too expansive I could just get one, just incase.

Aha. And apparently Asus laptops have this program called "NB Probe" (Just found it while searching for crap to uninstall) that also shows temperatures and such... Well, not the exact temperatures. But shows if it is normal or so. Right now Speedfan shows what I normally have ingames (Seems it slowly gets to that after a while) and NB Probe shows it as 'normal'. Speedfan looks much superior though, as it shows the actual values and more.

Edited by Caescen, 06 November 2009 - 09:40 AM.

[Kelathin]

Mike.nl, on Nov 6 2009, 07:25 AM, said:

Ah yes I've heard that too. That's why I remove my battery when it's plugged in for a long time.


Well, it's definitely hot (idle temps are fine), but I think it should deal with those temps ok. At least, for a desktop I wouldn't worry. I don't know about laptops though.

No, for laptops, that is within a decent thermal budget, ESPECIALLY with a quad core

Caescen, on Nov 6 2009, 09:28 AM, said:

Ah! Good call! *Removes*
So does anyone here know how expensive external coolers are by any chance? If they're not too expansive I could just get one, just incase.

Aha. And apparently Asus laptops have this program called "NB Probe" (Just found it while searching for crap to uninstall) that also shows temperatures and such... Well, not the exact temperatures. But shows if it is normal or so. Right now Speedfan shows what I normally have ingames (Seems it slowly gets to that after a while) and NB Probe shows it as 'normal'. Speedfan looks much superior though, as it shows the actual values and more.

10-60$
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834992019
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834998051

[Haasth]

Kelathin, on Nov 6 2009, 03:47 PM, said:

No, for laptops, that is within a decent thermal budget, ESPECIALLY with a quad core


10-60$
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834992019
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834998051

Thanks for the links. If that is within a decent thermal budget as you say, then I wouldn't need them. But incase, good to have the links.

[Berek-PG]

How high can GPU temps really get? Well, mine was fine at 90c... it only went downhill fast at 91-92. That's HOT in general. If it's showing 30, 40, even 70... it "should" be ok. Laptops are more sensitive, but even so.

[Haasth]

Berek-PG, on Nov 6 2009, 05:29 PM, said:

How high can GPU temps really get? Well, mine was fine at 90c... it only went downhill fast at 91-92. That's HOT in general. If it's showing 30, 40, even 70... it "should" be ok. Laptops are more sensitive, but even so.

Well... I've seen some screenshots on the Heroes of Newerth forums where certain ATI cards went up to 160C. Which was bad, obviously. And I have heard some claim certain cards could hold up to 120C or so.

[Kelathin]

Caescen, on Nov 6 2009, 10:00 AM, said:

Thanks for the links. If that is within a decent thermal budget as you say, then I wouldn't need them. But incase, good to have the links.

The extra cooling pad is worth spending 20 though. I would honestly recommend it, it definitely helps your system cooler and actually helps increase the life of your system all around.

Berek-PG, on Nov 6 2009, 11:29 AM, said:

How high can GPU temps really get? Well, mine was fine at 90c... it only went downhill fast at 91-92. That's HOT in general. If it's showing 30, 40, even 70... it "should" be ok. Laptops are more sensitive, but even so.

The less hot the better. Some laptops have thermal sensors which automatically step down the cpu and most mobile flavor of nvidia's card to reduce temperatures. It really kind of sucks because you're playing then your system pulls clocks down on you. I know Dell Inspiron's did slow down when they became too hot, it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

Caescen, on Nov 6 2009, 11:57 AM, said:

Well... I've seen some screenshots on the Heroes of Newerth forums where certain ATI cards went up to 160C. Which was bad, obviously. And I have heard some claim certain cards could hold up to 120C or so.

Desktops it's one thing to get hot, because there is a lot of room for heat to disparate (if you aren't using small form factor) Laptops are pretty closed so anything over 70C for a laptop is BAD especially if you go for long term uses like playing video games for 5-7 hours. Laptops can overheat simply from being on a clothed surface such as a blanket (have your laptop in your lap in bed anyone?

[Dei]

Last time I checked, most in-PC cables melt at 80C...so..160c? o.O