MrValle

What's your CPU? I already said this many pages ago - I highly doubt it's the vbios.

Oh, i must have missed that. My cpu is the i7 2820qm

I have the A05 bios for my M18x R1 which is latest. So i doubt the unlocked A05 bios will help any?

Cpu temps are around 72c and when throttling occurs GPU usage dips to 20-30% usage and CPU usage goes up from 40% to 80%. and after 5 seconds all goes back again.

EDIT:

Yeah my cpu drops from 3.2ghz down to exactly 798,4mhz on all cores when throttling occurs. How can i remedy this? I installed throttlestop but dont know how it works. Dont really understand any of the things in it. I turned it on and load the performance preset but it didnt work.

so im using the dell 680m 1000v revised vbios and apparently it makes my sli gpu usage throttle like crazy when there seems to be a lot of stuff going on on the screen in crysis 3, bf3, and a lot of other games. overclocking seems to make it worse. when there are no AI on screen i get a steady 95-97% usage on both cards but as soon as the screen begins to fill up with AI, it drops to 50%-40% per card and i get horrible fps...btw i got a 3940xm OC to 4.3ghz so idk if it could be a cpu bottleneck. just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.

Yeah this is the same problem i am having with every vbios in crysis 3. at 75c it throttles down to 15-20fps. This happens if there is alot of AI on screen or other stuff like grass.

I wonder why because i get 79c on Dead Space 3 and it plays flawlessly no throttling at all there.

And in borderlands 2 i dont even get to 70c but if there is alof of physX effects and explosions or corpses on screen i get this same thing. Really annoying.

From what I gather the 680M is an intentionally crippled card that Nvidia released in order to merely unlock the extra voltage/clocks and re-release the same chip as a new "higher tiered" card such as is the 680MX that was recently introduced. So that said...yes flashing the overvolted bios will net you a huge performance increase. I was able to do a little better than your current clocks on the stock unlocked bios, but I am now running the 1.05V bios and for benchmarking will push +382 on core and +350 memory netting me 3Dmark11 scores around 8400..... I game at around 1000mhz and never see temps get above 80 unless I'm pushing the Crysis 3 beta at max which I saw temps hit 90! Which is a question I had for you SVL7.. I noticed that the throttle threshold was 90? It seemed the temps would "bounce" from 89 and when it hit 90 the game would stutter till the temp came back down that degree again.. it might have been placebo affect but the cards temps would not go any higher, and I of course did not want to utilize my accidental warranty so soon haha. Again this only happens in Crysis 3 running all settings maxxed.

Then how come my card throttles at 70-75c in crysis ? other games it doesnt throttle anything at higher temps.

@MrValle.

Think my head is beginning to hurt too. I've re-read your posts and there sure is alot going on with your 680. It doesn't sound like a card that is developing failure. It appears to be performing beautifully during bench marking. I am running Borderlands 2 without issues, and you have ran it in the past without issues so something in your system, OS, hardware or firmware has to have changed for it not to be running properly now. Sorry for stating the obvious, but when you try so many different things to find a solution, it starts to get unclear just how exactly the system is behaving.

I would recommend that you start over from the beginning. Start by re-flashing the M18 motherboard bios, and re-check all the bios settings. Next perform a clean install of windows, and at this point only load the Cougar 66 chipset driver and nothing else. Then install the Nvidia 680M driver. Next install 3D Mark 11 and Nvidia Inspector and perform some benchmark tests. If results are good then install a network driver to gain access to the Web to download and I install Steam and Borderlands 2. Do not install any other drivers, no windows updates, no anti virus, absolutely nothing but what is required to get that game up and running. Then game and see if throttling occurs. Test and change only one thing at a time and build the system up slowly.

I'm happy to help compare settings and gaming performance if we stick to Borderlands 2 as we both have it. If it helps PM me and I'll give you my Skype details so we can arrange to perform testing live as it will greatly speed the process along rather than bouncing posts back and forth in this forum. Have a think and let me know.

Thanks, any ideas,tips or tricks is appreciated.

I just bought dead space 3 for pc. it ran in 130fps and 77c gpu temp during main menu. But no throttling at all, it was working well.

So, some rare games just dont like my card

I will try what you suggested, i will reflash bios A05 that i already have just to make sure, and load default bios settings. And then i will format and install windows 8 again because i like it and it shouldnt be the culprit in this problem imo. And ill go from there.

And all feedback from you and others are all appreciated thank you.

I tried unplugging the battery and running on AC, and flashed the latest modded DELL Vbios by SVL. i set core clock to +150 and started up Crysis 3 MP Beta.

When it reaches 69c it starts to throttle until temps go down to 58c and repeats like this all the time .

@SVL

Is there a way to modify the thermal throttling in the vBios, maybe even remove it since 69c isnt high temps. And on some other games i get higher temps without throttling at all (usually high 70´s). I even tried the catzilla benchmark and it reached whopping 84c on heavy settings but no throttling. This is really making my head spin o.O

The highest cpu temp recorded during this test was 77c which should be no problem right?

or maybe i need to undervolt my card.

@MrValle.

Just thought of something else you could try. If you suspect the PSU failing, remove the battery and run on the PSU alone. If it’s dropping out you’ll notice it this way.

This is an awesome idea man . I honestly thought of this sometime ago but totaly forgot. Thanks for getting it back . I shall try this right away.

@MrValle.

Hopefully that will restore your system to proper working order, but sadly I suspect not as I've ran Afterburner with the 680 and had no issues. If my GPU continued to throttle my next step was to revert to the default vbios. I don't have access to it at the moment but if you need the default bios let me know and I will upload it for you. Is your 680 throttling in all games you play? I noticed all the titles you mentioned are Online Multi Player Titles, try playing a game totally Offline and see if throttling occurs.

Edit:

I will run Afterburner and HWinfo again on my system tonight to see if throttling returns and post the feed back tomorrow.

Back on stock vBios i got throttling in all benchmark programs. And i couldnt overclock a single mhz. But not sure if i got throttling in games though. I want the overclock option since i have shotcut keys for stock profile and another one when i need a little bit extra power (very mild oc).

These modified vBioses from SVL worked like a charm for a long time, i can even run benchmark programs with them. It was all of a sudden i noticed throttling only in the 3 mentioned games (BL2,Serious Sam3,Crysis 3 MP BETA) so i wonder what might have happened there. I get throttling while playing those games offline also (except crysis 3 which is not playable offline atm).

i am currently on

Dell 680m - 80.04.5B.00.02_'OCedition'_revised_00.zip

but will flash to

Dell 680m - 80.04.33.00.32__'OCedition'_revised_00.zip

again and try it out.

@Vlad Fomitchev & Sirana – Thanks guys for your help and support.

Last night I got in about an hour and a half of gaming and this how I got on.

I had HWinfo and MSI Afterburner set to launch at Startup, the first thing I did was to close both programs. I then downloaded Nvidia Inspector (as recommended by some members in the forum, thanks guys), first time I’ve used it and I really like it. It has a nice interface and could be described as GPUZ and Afterburner all in one. I used this as my new GPU monitoring tool.

I then launched Planetside 2 throught Steam and began gaming. I run FRAPS to keep an eye on frame rates and for ten minutes my Frame rate stayed in the high 40s and no throttling was present. I then decided to up the anti and push the GPU a little harder so I OC the core to 858 and proceeded to game in PS2 for another 40 minutes. No trottling at all. NInspector graphed the GPU at a constant usage at 70 – 99%, just as I would expect in PS2. I then decided to run Borderlands 2 and gamed for about 30 minutes and no trottling, with my frame rate at an almost constant 60.

I may have cried wolf a little too early, but I was definitely experiencing trottling on both game titles yesterday. Hopefully it may have been as I expected a Steam update or windows update in the background.

@MrValle. I checked my system details and I am running SVL7’s modified vbios 80.04.33.00.32 and driver version 310.90. Thanks to the guys at Laptopvideo2go, I download my Nvidia drivers from there, so I recommend giving that a go. I backed up my GPUs original firmware so if you want I can give you the unmodified vbios if you would like to try that, just let me know. My 680M is a the 2Gig Dell version. I really do hope you get your GPU running OK. Any help at all you need just keep posting here or PM me, and I will try my best to offer support.

Over the next few days, if I get a chance to do some more gaming, I will post any issues I may have.

Maybe it is my monitoring programs that is the issue then. I always have Afterburner running with the accompanied OSD. I will try to uninstall that and use this Nvidia Inspector.

Sorry MrValle for I meant to say that it is good to meet you here and thank you for posting in response to my issue. It is always easier to find solutions with more help.

I tell a lie, I did flash the other vbios, immediately tested the GPU with 3D Mark 11 and got a lower score on the new vbios. I ran the benchmark a couple of times just to make certain the results were coming out the same, and found that my score dropped by approximately 90 points with the new vbios. I immediately reverted back to the older vbios and left it well alone.

The fact that you have performed a clean install of windows and the throttling issue still remains, cancels the possibility of software incompatibilities or software updating causing the issue. Thanks for letting me know I won’t roll my system back now.

How long has your GPU been experiencing throttling? Are you only getting throttling in some games and not others?

Nice to meet you as well.

This throttling problem i have noticed in games as Borderlands 2, serious sam 3 bfe (or whatever its called, didnt play it more than a few minutes when i noticed the throttling), and also Crysis 3 MP beta. Lastly i can say that i even got this throttling in Entropia Universe which is also a crytek engine based game but the weird thing is i got the throttling in Entropia Universe during christmas when i was at my parents place. Now i simply cannot replicate the throttling in Entropia Universe but on the other hand i get throttling on the other 3 games all the time.

EDIT:

When i sometimes boot up the computer and windows plays its melody it can hang and sound messed up for a brief moment, and sometimes the melody plays in slow choppy motion. I can also get it sometimes when i play a video or a game when everything just locks up and the current sound played stretches out for the duration of the lockup which is about 3-4 seconds. And on som very rare occasions the computer can freeze and i have to do a hard reset.

Might be my GPU/MOBO or something else starting to give up on me. Or maybe GPU isnt getting enough juice maybe a power related issue.

@ MrValle.

Ah.... I was going to try the 80.04.5B.00.02 vbios tonight, as in a post SVL7 did mention it being more stable than the earlier one. I ran out of time last night to begin properly testing the GPU but I did run Darksiders 2 on maximum settings with Vsync Off and it utilized the GPU to 99% usage continuously without any throttling. I did notice though that temps never exceeded 63C. The GPU throttles most in Planetside 2 but PS2 does make it reach 72 – 75 degrees C, more than Borderlands 2. I might use Hwinfo to control the fans and purposely slow them down to increase the GPU temp when running Darksiders 2 to see if throttling occurs. I had a spare PSU to try and I can say now it made no difference. I use Norton Ghost to backup my system so I can quickly and reliably skip back a few weeks to when my GPU did not throttle to see if it all runs smooth once more. You never know what nasties good old Windows Updates bring with it.

MrValle, what version of windows are you running, and what version of Nvidia driver are you on?

Do you game through Steam? I use Steam and I am slightly suspecting it, or a combination of it and the background applications I have running on my system.

I am on UK time so will try and do some testing tonight and give you feed back early morning. At this stage, to me anyway, it doesn’t look like hardware failure. Hope fully we get it sorted, two heads are better than one and all that hey!!!

@svl7. Please may I draw upon your experience here, does throttling only in some games sound like possible hardware failure or software issues?

Yeah im interested in hearing from you after you have flashed 80.04.5B.00.02 how it works out for you.

It might be a steam issue, as i said i get this throttling in Crysis 3 MP beta and it has to be started via origin which is a steam-like program so maybe it has the same issue as steam has.

When this first started i was running windows 8 pro, so i formatted and installed windows 7 pro but i still have it. I have gone through alot of drivers so i am most certain its not a driver issue.

I also tried the new 3dmark and it seems to run all OK even with a mild overclock.

Come to think of it, i havent tried borderlands 2 on steam with the steam overlay disabled. Will try this when i have the time.

Hi All,

I am running a 680M in an Alienware M17 R3. I have SVL7s unlocked vbios on there, but am currently not overclocking the GPU as so far it has proven powerful enough for my gaming needs. I have HWino and MSI Afterburner launching on startup to monitor performance and temps. Last night when playing Planetside 2 and Borderlands 2 the GPU was constantly trottling. The core clock never dropped below the default maximum of 758Mhz but the GPU usage/load would drop as low as 30%, constantly adjusting itself back up to 99%, up/down, up/down.....all the time. Is this know as throttling if the core clock never drops?

I checked for unwanted programs running in the background, restarted games, un checked Vsync options to try and force the GPU to full load at all times but it still throttled alot. Nothing to my knowledge on my system has changed since it functioned properly. Any ideas what might cause this?

My GPU temperature in both games sits around 65 – 72C. It can’t be brought on by thermal throttling at these temperature could it?

I ran 3D mark 11 when it was throttling but my score was normal 6120, and Afterburner graphed the GPU usage at 99% during all GPU tests. Strange!!!!

Any help much appreciate guys. Thanks.

Sorry if i say this but, finaly someone else who has same problem as me. I get this weird throttling in borderlands 2 also, with or without physX settings on. I also get this in Serious Sam 3. HWinfo says cpu throttling "NO". And my gpu and cpu temp max out at low to mid 60´s in borderlands 2. So its not thermal throttling. FPS goes from 60+ down to exactly 11-12fps on both games.

Oh, i forgot to mention that i get these exact same drops in the Crysis 3 MP beta. And i was so looking forward to play that game .

I have tried these vbioses;

Dell 680m - 80.04.5B.00.02_'OCedition'_revised_00.zip

Dell 680m - 80.04.33.00.32__'OCedition'_revised_00.zip

Dell 680m - 80.04.33.00.32__'OCedition'_revised_00 - OV 1000v.zip

Could it be my psu giving up on me or other hardware failure? or should i try an even higher overvolt? All these problems are on stock clocks, and gpu worked beautiful with svl´s modified bios for a month or so before these weird symptoms started.

M18X r1, 680m GTX, i7 2820qm

I think maybe the 680m gpu degrade over time easily. I have been playing games flawlessly but lately when i play Borderlands 2 maxed with physx high and fight some kaotic bosses it sometimes out of the blue drops from 46fps down to exactly 11-12fps and stays like that for 3-4 seconds and then jumps back up again. I havent timed how long it takes for it to dip down again but it does like this all the time when theres action.

I get the exact same thing in serious sam 3 or whatever its called.

I had monitoring on and when the dip occurrs gpu usage drops down to 20% or so, temps drops as well. And cpu temps and usage also drops. This just started happening out of the blue while i was running windows 8. I didnt have this problem before, so i formatted and installed windows 7 and its still there. My guess is that the gpu is getting tired.

Yes i have repasted both cpu and gpu and temps are good.

Does anybody know why my GPU suddenly started going down from 98% gpu usage to 30% in FarCry3. Also i get these huge fps drops in Borderlands 2 all of a sudden.

anybody know if there is a way to find out what is causing my driver crashes? I get them alot in games after i have played a while. My temps are fine at around high 50´s . I have had this with all kinds of drivers. Running win8

@svl7 Hi, I'm having "problems" with your latest vbios for Dell 680M, I'm realizing that my gpus in some games don't use the highest core clocks I had set on MSI AB, but it uses the memory clocks. I'm using latest beta drivers 310.61

For example:

@ Counter Strike Global Offensive

I have set fps_max 130 fps and the gpu just uses 500Mhz core clock or so...

Could anyone help me? thank you

I Think that is becase the GPU only uses as much juice as it needs. CounterStrike isnt a really demanding game. I can play borderlands 2 and the gpu runs Cold and quiet, but cryengine games it blasts away at high rpm and temps at 75+.

Thank you, i will definately send a small donation your way as soon as my paycheck comes.

Anybody know where to find undervolted DELL 680m bios with unlocked oc?

Where is it ? I don't find it on the 2 first posts. Only OV versions.

(I have M17x R4 / single gtx 680m)

Have you found the undervolted 680m dell bios yet?

i would also like to try out the undervolted 680m bios for dell cards but i cannot find it :S

i also got the "no recognized adapter" when trying to install drivers on stock bios and modified bios. The .inf file from laptopvideo2go didnt work either so i had to mod the .inf file myself with the hardware id of my card to get it to install. And the throttling is there whichever bios or overclock and underclock i run. And throttlestop is also a no go.

It is a mystery why these cards throttle when benching. My card throttles with stock bios and all stock clocks. I tried to underclock it but it still throttles so its weird.

Ahh that makes sense Mr.Fox. I really dont care about benchmarking, just wanted to be absolutely sure everything runs as it should. No worries then Thanks

I tried the "Dell 680m - 80.04.33.00.21.rom_900default_OV" and it throttles in 3dmark 11 for me :S

edit: it seems its throttling when i try furmark or 3dmark 11. But i played entropia universe (cryengine) for a good while and it didnt throttle. Anybody know why it does that?

Hehe sorry, i wasnt very clear on that. I play fps with controller. And those regular games that usualy is played with controller. But mmorpgs and such are a real pain if played with controller.

I have been searching for a real 5.1 headset with good price tag so i ended up with roccat kave 5.1. Only bad thing is the hassle with those 4 3.5mm plugs you have to plug into the machine. Would be easier if there was a headset with hdmi or if it was possible to get real 5.1 via usb headset hehe.