MSI Laptop randomly dropping CPU core speeds.

[GhostRyder]

So I have an MSI GT70 0ND-202US laptop that has been with me for years. Recently it got a little sluggish so I did some upgrades to keep it relevant since for the most part its a very good laptop. I swapped out the SSD and HDD for a pair of SSD's in Raid 0, swapped the video card from the GTX 675m to a GTX 880m, and did a fresh cleanup/repaste of the internals. Now it works fine in League of Legends and some of the other titles I play (I use this mostly on the go) but I had some issues in BF1 that I have not resolved. Basically the game runs butter smooth most of the time, then I get a random frame drop that drops the FPS for a good 5-10 seconds into the 30's-40's. I did some diagnosing and watched all my sensors/core clocks from different programs and noticed that the issue seems to be the CPU cores randomly dropping down from boost of 3.1ghz~ down to 1ghz~ as this occurs and the FPS drops and then when it returns to normal everything is ok.

Things I have tried:

Throttlestop (Latest release) and played with most settings.
Running fans at 100% with a laptop cooler as well (Monitored temps, that does not seem to be an issue as even stressed out the laptop does not 80c)
Turning off Speedstep in the bios (This does resolve the issue sortta)
Updating the bios for the laptop to just about every version released (I am currently at the highest unreleased 71X bios for the laptop)
Turned setting to prefer highest performance in every setting I can find and turned off/uninstalled any "Eco Engine" add on's from MSI.
Played with my BIOS settings.

I am kinda at a loss at this point. The only thing that seemed to keep BF1 completely smooth was turning off the Speedstep in the bios (effectively disabling turbo) which resulted in the FPS staying consistent 60 at the settings I have the game at. Not sure what else to do though as that is a bit annoying to not have the extra speed or have to reboot the computer every time I need it (I do a bit of editing and rendering on it on the fly). I was about to post a thread later on about doing some more upgrading to this laptop (changing out the CPU from the 3610qm to the 3840qm and the GPU upgrade) but until I resolve this issue I don't want to mess with it anymore. I have been searching the web for this issue and have found a few mentions of it but not many solutions. If anyone has an idea of what to try I am all ears.

Thanks,
GSR

 

[eidairaman1]

So I have an MSI GT70 0ND-202US laptop that has been with me for years. Recently it got a little sluggish so I did some upgrades to keep it relevant since for the most part its a very good laptop. I swapped out the SSD and HDD for a pair of SSD's in Raid 0, swapped the video card from the GTX 675m to a GTX 880m, and did a fresh cleanup/repaste of the internals. Now it works fine in League of Legends and some of the other titles I play (I use this mostly on the go) but I had some issues in BF1 that I have not resolved. Basically the game runs butter smooth most of the time, then I get a random frame drop that drops the FPS for a good 5-10 seconds into the 30's-40's. I did some diagnosing and watched all my sensors/core clocks from different programs and noticed that the issue seems to be the CPU cores randomly dropping down from boost of 3.1ghz~ down to 1ghz~ as this occurs and the FPS drops and then when it returns to normal everything is ok.

Things I have tried:

Throttlestop (Latest release) and played with most settings.
Running fans at 100% with a laptop cooler as well (Monitored temps, that does not seem to be an issue as even stressed out the laptop does not 80c)
Turning off Speedstep in the bios (This does resolve the issue sortta)
Updating the bios for the laptop to just about every version released (I am currently at the highest unreleased 71X bios for the laptop)
Turned setting to prefer highest performance in every setting I can find and turned off/uninstalled any "Eco Engine" add on's from MSI.
Played with my BIOS settings.

I am kinda at a loss at this point. The only thing that seemed to keep BF1 completely smooth was turning off the Speedstep in the bios (effectively disabling turbo) which resulted in the FPS staying consistent 60 at the settings I have the game at. Not sure what else to do though as that is a bit annoying to not have the extra speed or have to reboot the computer every time I need it (I do a bit of editing and rendering on it on the fly). I was about to post a thread later on about doing some more upgrading to this laptop (changing out the CPU from the 3610qm to the 3840qm and the GPU upgrade) but until I resolve this issue I don't want to mess with it anymore. I have been searching the web for this issue and have found a few mentions of it but not many solutions. If anyone has an idea of what to try I am all ears.

Thanks,
GSR

Your power settings in windows, set for max performance? Howabout pcie Linkstate?

You said you repasted, did you do the gpu too?

Is the unit plugged in or on battery? The drawback with todays equipment and software is power management which makes a machine start saving on clock speeds because that software doesn't need it at that moment.

 

[GhostRyder]

Your power settings in windows, set for max performance? Howabout pcie Linkstate?

You said you repasted, did you do the gpu too?

Is the unit plugged in or on battery? The drawback with todays equipment and software is power management which makes a machine start saving on clock speeds because that software doesn't need it at that moment.

Checked all that, its at max performance on everything.

Yes, fresh paste all around.

Plugged in.

Yea I have tried a multitude of things but the only thing that seems to solve it is turning off Speedstep and making its base clock the max. I am starting to wonder if its a power issue with the motherboard and how much the new GPU draws (Cant really confirm what the GPU power draw is but the TDP of the new card at max says its 135watt versus 100watt on the GTX 675m though the temps are better than on the GTX 675m).

 

[eidairaman1]

Checked all that, its at max performance on everything.

Yes, fresh paste all around.

Plugged in.

Yea I have tried a multitude of things but the only thing that seems to solve it is turning off Speedstep and making its base clock the max. I am starting to wonder if its a power issue with the motherboard and how much the new GPU draws (Cant really confirm what the GPU power draw is but the TDP of the new card at max says its 135watt versus 100watt on the GTX 675m though the temps are better than on the GTX 675m).

Is there anyway of getting a bigger brick? How about using a different driver?

You might need a secondary laptop cooler even, possibly the temps are way too high for it.

if laptop makers were smart for Gaming/desktop replacements they would adopt the Dell Inspiron 9100/XPS Gen1 chassis design.

Those are the cpus supported by the hm77 chipset.

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Intel_(chipsets)/HM77_Express.html

 

[GhostRyder]

Is there anyway of getting a bigger brick? How about using a different driver?

You might need a secondary laptop cooler even, possibly the temps are way too high for it.

if laptop makers were smart for Gaming/desktop replacements they would adopt the Dell Inspiron 9100/XPS Gen1 chassis design.

Those are the cpus supported by the hm77 chipset.

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Intel_(chipsets)/HM77_Express.html

Well I have been reading that the Dell Brick can be used that is a 220watt adapter but unfortunately I cannot find a name brand MSI brick for that laptop above the 180watt I have.

Temps stay around the 80's under gaming load, I did put my laptop cooler under it and reduced the temps another couple of degrees but no change in the performance.

Yea, I think the only thing I have not liked about this laptop is the fact its a singular huge fan over dual fans.

Yea, I was thinking about popping in a i7 3840qm if I figured out what this issue is.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well I have been reading that the Dell Brick can be used that is a 220watt adapter but unfortunately I cannot find a name brand MSI brick for that laptop above the 180watt I have.

Temps stay around the 80's under gaming load, I did put my laptop cooler under it and reduced the temps another couple of degrees but no change in the performance.

Yea, I think the only thing I have not liked about this laptop is the fact its a singular huge fan over dual fans.

Yea, I was thinking about popping in a i7 3840qm if I figured out what this issue is.

Id say at this point overall power draw and temps are an issue, You might need to get on with MSI about upgrades on that particular unit. The biggest drawback i feel is when they built it, they had no intent of people upgrading gpus or cpus in them.

 

[Nabarun]

turning off the Speedstep in the bios (effectively disabling turbo) which resulted in the FPS staying consistent 60 at the settings I have the game at. Not sure what else to do though as that is a bit annoying to not have the extra speed or have to reboot..........

IIRC disabling speedstep doesn't disable turbo boost. It is only used to throttle the frequency when not needed. Try using manual voltage and frequency, disabling both speedstep and any voltage-fluctuating stuff. And also on the windows "power options".

 

[P4-630]

I use this on my Asus gaming laptop to reduce the maximum turbo speed I want: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU-

 

[Dethroy]

Pretty sure the laptop was simply not designed to cope with the amount of power your machine now draws after you swapped its GPU. Setting a frame rate limit might solve your problem.

 

[alucasa]

After googling the laptop and taking a look at its spec, that 180w powerbrick of yours is dangerously close to total output of what you have - on stock -.

GPU is 103w, give or take 10%.
CPU is 45w, give or take 10%
Chipset, RAM, monitor, HDD, SSD....

It's 180w if not slightly more. Add in a fact that PSU degrade over time...

I think it's power issue.

 

[GhostRyder]

Id say at this point overall power draw and temps are an issue, You might need to get on with MSI about upgrades on that particular unit. The biggest drawback i feel is when they built it, they had no intent of people upgrading gpus or cpus in them.

They basically say "You can do it, its not blocked but we don't support it" at least on this model. I am starting to think it is a power issue as well.

IIRC disabling speedstep doesn't disable turbo boost. It is only used to throttle the frequency when not needed. Try using manual voltage and frequency, disabling both speedstep and any voltage-fluctuating stuff. And also on the windows "power options".

I don't have that many options in the bios on this laptop. Speedstep seems to disable the Turbo on this laptop as when I watch the cores on a seperate window (Or monitor) it never hits above is base frequency. It still drops down to idle, just wont boost to 3.1ghz anymore.

I use this on my Asus gaming laptop to reduce the maximum turbo speed I want: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU-

I had forgotten about that application. I will give that a try and see what happens.

Pretty sure the laptop was simply not designed to cope with the amount of power your machine now draws after you swapped its GPU. Setting a frame rate limit might solve your problem.

The same machine could be specced up to a GTX 680m with a i7 3630qm I believe. The GTX 675m originally in it is a Fermi GTX 580m with slight bumps and improvements in efficiency. I had seen on the MSI forums and talking with others of upgrading these machines to higher and newer GPU's (All the way to GTX 9XXM series) without much issue other than different bios's. But it maybe that the newer X80 GPU's are drawing more than originally the older ones were.

I do have Vsync on when playing on this laptop. Screen tears horrendously without it.

After googling the laptop and taking a look at its spec, that 180w powerbrick of yours is dangerously close to total output of what you have - on stock -.

GPU is 103w, give or take 10%.
CPU is 45w, give or take 10%
Chipset, RAM, monitor, HDD, SSD....

It's 180w if not slightly more. Add in a fact that PSU degrade over time...

I think it's power issue.

Yea, I am starting to think so as well. The Brick is pretty new (purchased within the last year) as my old ones cable got damaged. I was curious if I was just hitting the power wall on this laptop. I have been considering what some people on the forums were saying about purchasing a Dell 220 that outputs the same voltage and adapter because it has been tested to work fine on MSI but I will have to see.

I think I will try the Intel XTU and see what the laptop says or if I at least get a reason from the software why its throttling. Depending on what happens, I have a GTX 870m 3gb sitting here and I may swap it out and see if it helps at all. Worst case, it goes back to the GTX 675m and I decide to replace it.

 

[eidairaman1]

Id grab the 220 brick.

 

[alucasa]

High-wattage quality powerbrick ain't cheap. Ain't easy to find, either.

Contact Clevo/Sager resellers. They ought to have some to spare at a price.

 

[Nabarun]

Dude I don't know that laptop BIOS, but it seems like it does have something to do with it, because "speedstep" is Intel tech, - not vendor. There's throttling somewhere you don't want. I'm a bit drunk now, but I didn't see what overclock-able chip u got. May be it differs gen to gen. idk. May be you should give us a screenshot of the BIOS/UEFI...

 

[eidairaman1]

Dude I don't know that laptop BIOS, but it seems like it does have something to do with it, because "speedstep" is Intel tech, - not vendor. There's throttling somewhere you don't want. I'm a bit drunk now, but I didn't see what overclock-able chip u got. May be it differs gen to gen. idk. May be you should give us a screenshot of the BIOS/UEFI...

Stop drinking and posting, it's as bad as drinking and driving.

Go drink a bloody marry or few, eat tons of bread, drink plenty of water or get some sleep then post when you are sober lol

 

[Nabarun]

yep.

 

[GhostRyder]

Dude I don't know that laptop BIOS, but it seems like it does have something to do with it, because "speedstep" is Intel tech, - not vendor. There's throttling somewhere you don't want. I'm a bit drunk now, but I didn't see what overclock-able chip u got. May be it differs gen to gen. idk. May be you should give us a screenshot of the BIOS/UEFI...

Sorry mine is not overclockable, its an Ivy-Bridge 3610QM, I am just able to disable a few things in the bios. The recent bios update I got added UEFI support but unfortunately I can't enable it without redoing my RAID 0 array in it currently.

Played with it a abit more last night, put Intel XTU on the machine and started watching it. Tried its burn in test along with a GPU burn in test to stress the machine to its limit with fans at max. Funny enough, no CPU throttling occurred (Though I forgot to watch the GTX 880m's clocks to see what happened) but thats not BF1. Ran short on time and didn't test BF1 on it, will have to today.

 

[eidairaman1]

Too bad we cant code a bios from another laptop into this one with a OC feature set, it seems it really wasn't meant to be upgraded...

 

[GhostRyder]

Too bad we cant code a bios from another laptop into this one with a OC feature set, it seems it really wasn't meant to be upgraded...

Supposedly it is a common thing though as on the forums its done quite often (Up to the GTX 980m). Though from reading I have heard you need to adjust the laptops EC with some modded ones to let some of the newer mobile cards pull more wattage. I decided there was a good deal on a newer MSI GT 70 Dominator 2PC for sale nearby (Used of course) which could come in the GTX 880m configuration but this one was equipped with the i7 4610QM and GTX 870m so I went ahead and bought it. Swapped in my GTX 880m and there are no issues so far (tested BF1 and clocks remain the same on everything). Tried the GTX 870m in the other laptop and funny enough it does not have the same issue the GTX 880m combo had with the CPU randomly dropping core clocks. Guess that nails it as a power issue (Though they both have the same power brick).

Thanks everyone for the help!

 

[eidairaman1]

Supposedly it is a common thing though as on the forums its done quite often (Up to the GTX 980m). Though from reading I have heard you need to adjust the laptops EC with some modded ones to let some of the newer mobile cards pull more wattage. I decided there was a good deal on a newer MSI GT 70 Dominator 2PC for sale nearby (Used of course) which could come in the GTX 880m configuration but this one was equipped with the i7 4610QM and GTX 870m so I went ahead and bought it. Swapped in my GTX 880m and there are no issues so far (tested BF1 and clocks remain the same on everything). Tried the GTX 870m in the other laptop and funny enough it does not have the same issue the GTX 880m combo had with the CPU randomly dropping core clocks. Guess that nails it as a power issue (Though they both have the same power brick).

Thanks everyone for the help!

That other board and cooling configuration couldnt handle it dude