Curse

Strife17 · May 19, 2010, 08:05 AM // 08:05

Hi all,

I have a Sony Vaio which is about 1-2years old. it has Vista

now for the past year I could play GW at 50-60~FPS.
2 weeks ago my motherboard shut down and I sent my laptop for repair.

Yesterday I got it back and I was excited to play GW. However I found out that my FPS drops from 60 to 5 FPS after 10min.

I found this topic
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=44767

which says i should "overclock" my CPU. I have no idea what that means, so I looked it up and it said that my computer could crash faster?

Any help is appreciated.

thank you for reading

Strife

Martin Alvito · May 19, 2010, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Overclocking isn't the answer here.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the fan on the new video card isn't working properly, and that heat is causing your video card to malfunction.

If that's correct, you should stop playing and get that corrected before the card dies. Irrespective, you should contact Sony or whoever repaired your laptop. There is obviously a problem with the new motherboard.

Elder III · May 19, 2010, 03:05 PM // 15:05

what are the specs on your laptop?

Strife17 · May 20, 2010, 06:21 AM // 06:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Overclocking isn't the answer here.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the fan on the new video card isn't working properly, and that heat is causing your video card to malfunction.

If that's correct, you should stop playing and get that corrected before the card dies. Irrespective, you should contact Sony or whoever repaired your laptop. There is obviously a problem with the new motherboard.

Hmm ok, and is there any other problem i can have with that? besides gaming?

And what should I tell those who repaired this laptop? i can't just tell them that my FPS drop while playing Guildwars

Is there a way for me to fix it myself?

http://www.laptopshop.be/product/502...-s-azerty.html (this is my laptop, but in dutch)

Elder III · May 20, 2010, 02:34 PM // 14:34

How did you ever manage 60 fps in GW with a 8400M video card? What settings did you use for 60 fps, and did you change them?

Quaker · May 20, 2010, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strife17

Is there a way for me to fix it myself?

It sounds like a classic overheating issue. One thing you can do is to make sure the cooling ducts in the machine are not clogged with dust or debris. Also, you should check to make sure the cooling fan (if there is one) is running smoothly.
Beyond that, if it is overheating, it could mean that they didn't put it back together properly when it was repaired, and they would need to fix it.

Xenomortis · May 20, 2010, 04:33 PM // 16:33

It sounds like an overheating GPU. Download a temperature monitor and look at the readings.
Video Cards are fairly tough and can reach 90-100 degrees Celsius before any actual damage occurs (although that's pretty high and your GPU won't live as long as it might otherwise do so). NVidia cards typically underclock themselves (somewhat severely) when they reach 110-130 degrees. CPUs on the other hand are far more fragile and whilst I don't know much about laptops, I would have thought the same would apply as does for other computers where an overheating CPU causes the system to shutdown (as a built-in safeguard against damage) so that would rule out CPU problems.

The suggestion of overclocking will not help you. Your laptop runs Guild Wars (at 60FPS) so you don't need to overclock it. However if it is an overheating issue overclocking it would simply exasperate the problem.

You should be able to download NVidia's System Monitor. It should give you temperature readings for the various components of your system (although I don't actually know if it works for laptops like it does for desktop PCs).

Strife17 · May 20, 2010, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elder III

How did you ever manage 60 fps in GW with a 8400M video card? What settings did you use for 60 fps, and did you change them?

I don't know, but i can ss you later if you want? mediocre settings I believe.

But I'm scared my motherboard will fry when playing guild wars lol

@ Xenomortis: thx for the info, downloading NVIDIA System Tools 6.03 right now to see the temp. I will screenshot later!

Strife,

pinkeyflower · May 23, 2010, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Actually the discussion in the nVidia forums said that the guy turned off his CPU overclock not the other way round. So if you don't know what that is you probably don't need to worry about it.

shadowlurk16 · Jun 12, 2010, 10:17 AM // 10:17

First thing that came to mind for me was excessive heat. It also could possibly be a memory leak.