NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Graphics Problem playing GTR2. Is my M1710 Overheating?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Graphics Problem playing GTR2. Is my M1710 Overheating?

post #1 of 10
1/19/07 at 12:32pm
Thread Starter 
My rig:
Core 2 Duo T7600(2.33 GHz)
2GB SD Ram
512MB GeForce 7900GTX
100GB 7200rpm SATA HD
Sound Blaster Advanced Audio
XP Media Center

GTR2 is a real CPU and graphics hog but my M1710 can handle it with most of the eye candy turned on. But I'm noticing this intermitent graphics problem (look at the sky textures ) occuring after I've been playing for about an hour or so. I haven't seen it happen (yet) when first starting up the game so I'm not sure about that one. Overheating maybe? How do I check?

I have no 3rd party utilities installed to monitor this. Is there anything out there that doesn't drain memory or CPU usage? My M1710 is only 4 months old.

Are there any overheating issues with the A04 BIOS? And NO, I don't do any overclocking.

Thx in advance

Reply
Reply
post #2 of 10
1/19/07 at 2:00pm
do you have another display attached to your 1710?

i had a texture issue one time after 3 weeks of amazing cranked up settings. didnt realise i had something on on my 2nd montitor that uses 3d features...think it was a tv window from my ati tv usb2.0.

i close both, then restarted gtr2 and all was fine.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 10
1/19/07 at 2:29pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by aliaskary77
do you have another display attached to your 1710?

i had a texture issue one time after 3 weeks of amazing cranked up settings. didnt realise i had something on on my 2nd montitor that uses 3d features...think it was a tv window from my ati tv usb2.0.

i close both, then restarted gtr2 and all was fine.

I don't use the the screen on my M1710 to play GTR2. I am using a VGA hookup to a 40" Sony LCD HDTV. The video settings on my TV for a pc hookup are somewhat limited but the graphics look pretty sweet anyway.

If it's something to do with my TV hookup, I could play GTR2 for a while using the laptop screen (ugh) to see if it happens again. I'm not sure the TV hookup is the problem however since, so far, it's only happening after I've been playing for while. That's why I suspect overheating.

Thx
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 10
1/19/07 at 2:34pm
Teddy get a program called fangui. Its a program made for Dell notebooks that can allow you to controll your fans. Set both onto high and run it again as my bet your just running to hot for the card to handle. It will also tell you your peak temp as well after running the game for X hours
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 10
1/19/07 at 4:41pm
Might also be your GPU drivers not being cool witht he game.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 10
1/19/07 at 5:15pm
Download i8kfangui and monitor temperatures with it. Play the game for awhile and then open the program back up and it will tell you the maximum temperatures it recorded.

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

Usually, if it's overheating, you will notice a drop in frame rates because the GPU will throttle it self by dropping the clock speeds and voltage. Are you noticing the game slowing down drastically at any time?
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 10
1/19/07 at 5:18pm
i also play on my 24" lcd as the primary screen. the tv app was running on the laptop screen.

i am using latest dell drivers. also just read a little more closely :P

if its fine for first hour, then yeah, it probably overheating. after checking temps, maybe get a cooling pad, or even simply raise it off the surface. i use a kensington stand myself.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 10
1/20/07 at 11:35am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for your replies.

I was using the 84.63 drivers from Nvidia's web site but went back to Dell's drivers. Though the control panel with these drivers kinda suck ...

There was no significant drop in fps when the artifacts appeared. I was playing the game with heaphones
so I couldn't hear anything from the GPU. When the artifacts appeared I just took a quick screenshot and exited to the desktop. When I took my headphones off I could hear the fan(s) running pretty loudly but they immediately shut down shortly after exiting the game.

I have installed i8kfangui and will monitor this to see what happens. Is it safe or wise for me to "Force" fans to high speed for long periods of time or should I just set Manual fan control set to high?

Thanks again
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 10
1/20/07 at 2:01pm
I run my fans on high when gaming. It shouldn't hurt a thing. Fans last a long time before the bearings or anything starts to wear out.

Here's a site for you to download drivers from.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I suggest trying the 92.91 driver and see how it works for you. It should be much better than the Dell drivers.

Go to the LaptopVideo2Go website and click on "Drivers". Then click on "90" for the 90 series of drivers. Download the 92.91 and the INF. After you download them, extract the driver and drag and drop the INF you downloaded to the driver folder you just extracted. It will replace the original INF. Now click on "Setup" in that folder and it will install the driver.

When switching from driver to driver, I suggest uninstalling the driver first. Then, reboot and boot into safe mode and use DriverCleaner to clean out all the old driver stuff.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Securit...-Cleaner.shtml

Then reboot back into normal operating mode and install the new driver.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 10
1/20/07 at 11:38pm
Yeah dude you are using really old drivers, get the new XG's from geforce tony on his topic or on Tweaksr'us
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Graphics Problem playing GTR2. Is my M1710 Overheating?