Overclocking issue? Possible hardware problem?

FogAgain · Nov 23, 2015

So this is my issue: I have a low-mid end laptop for gaming (Amd A8 7100 quadcore 1.8 GHz with turbo up to 3.0) and Radeon R7 M265 2GB VRAM DDR3. Although this is not a gaming laptop i was trying to run Grid 2 (2014 racing game) and it runs pretty well in High setting 720p, achieving average 40 fps never dropping 30. But when i put ultra setting i get 27\28 fps and slightly lags so i tried to overclock the graphics card using sapphire trixx. I managed to rise the core clock from 825mhz to 975mhz and the memory clock to 1100 up from 900mhz. I'm getting a 20 fps increase in graphics benchmarking tools, but in gaming (I tested Grid 2, Dirt Rally and Battlefield 4), my FPS strangely drop when i overclock. In grid it's particularly noticeable dropping from 40 average to 30... Even weirder when i undeclocked slightly (50mhz) i noticed a 4 fps increase in grid... WTF?
Also worth mentioning both overclocked and not overclocked the card never goes up 70ºC in gaming so it's fairly good i guess. My question is: Why does this happen? Maybe the overclock in gpu reduces my cpu performance? Is that possible? Or it might be an hardware problem with the graphics card being unstable in high clocks?
PS:This is a new laptop, 2 weeks old but i have a few issues: Windows 10 boot animation crashes for 1\2 seconds all times then resumes and boots but a few times happened to freeze and never boot, and i had to boot safe mode and disable\enable graphic card to make it boot in normal mode again. Never happened after upgrading drivers but still freezes 1\2 seconds...
Thanks in advance.

Arcal52214 · Nov 23, 2015

First thing you should check when overclocking a laptop is temperature, not performance. Your card may be throttling to cool itself down to safe temps because when overclocked it causes your hardware to request more power resulting in higher temperatures (higher clock -> higher power consumption -> higher temperatures -> either throttling or increased performance (depends on temps)). In this case you have 4 solutions:
1. Use milder overclocks (always check your temps).
2. Stick with what you got and simply don't overclock.
3. Buy a decent cooling pad.
4. Buy another laptop with better graphic card (more like chip because we are talking about laptops) and potentially better cooling.
5. (Not really a solution) Get a decent desktop and never worry about temps or performance for at least the next 5 years (exception - "never worry about temperature" thing doesn't apply to AMD).

About decreased CPU performance and temperature- you should know that laptop components are very close to each other because of space limitations and if one part heats up - other parts do as well which may also cause them throttling (cpu can also throttle) (yes, it's as simple as that).

About booting problems - I suggest you wait for another post because I am not really sure about the cause of that problem, but you may try booting your laptop in a colder area, reinstall windows or simply wait for the next graphics driver update, also make sure you DON'T have the option (on whatever software you overclock) "apply overclocking at startup" enabled.

Also one more thing - benchmarking software always had better overclock support than games and runs more stable on overclock than most games. Some games expect the detected hardware to run at factory defaults and become "uncooperative" when they "see" that hardware is running at other than default settings.

FogAgain · Nov 23, 2015

Well temperature of GPU never goes above 70-75º when overclocked so I'm sure it's not Gpu temperature causing performance decrease. Maybe you're right about CPU temperature causing the issue, i don't know. Well I'm generally happy with the laptop it was 50% sale, really cheap, and giving decente moderate gaming performance... That boot issue along with 3 bsods "WHEA UNCORRECTABLE ERROR" is giving me trouble. If that continues to happen i'll take it for warranty. 'll try to disable CPU boost technology which should keep CPU running at 1.8 GHz and then slighlty overclcok GPU to see what happens.

FogAgain · Nov 23, 2015

1: Core (800mhz) Memory (875Mhz)- Maximum- 51Average FPS=40.35 Minimum FPS=31.15
2:Stock Cores ( 825, 900)- Maximum-51 Average FPS=41.78 Minimum FPS=32.98
3- Core (860) Memory (950)- Maximum- 52 Average FPS= 39.15 Minimum FPS= 31.99
4- Core (950) Memory (1050) Maximum- 56 Average FPS= 37.21 Minimum FPS= 9.65

As you can see it seems overclocking drops my performance, although the maximum FPS is better, average and minimum drops considerably...
I noticed during the 4th test (The test with the higher overclock) that the game froze and fps dropped severely for a few seconds, so I'm guessing higher overclock cause my gpu to go unstable under load reducing performance, althought temps are ok.

Arcal52214 · Nov 23, 2015

Well, throttling at those temps would be really strange (it should happen only above 80-90 C for most laptops) so it's probably not throttling at all and I suspect the problem is with maximum voltage, seeing as you are doing 60+ core clock overclocks the GPU starts begging for more power (symptoms - out of place FPS drops, lower min fps and avg fps), i don't know if your software has voltage controls but I know MSI Afterburner has them (needs them to be enabled in settings) you should try it out and find out whether it supports your card in the first place (upgrade your graphic drivers to the latest version before installing just in case).
You shouldn't try 120+ core clock overclocks because laptop graphic cards simply aren't cut out for such high-caliber overclocking.
As for the memory clocks - almost every card of different architecure behaves very differently after overclocking memory clocks so find the highest stable value yourself.

FogAgain · Nov 23, 2015

Totally forgot to increase voltage, that's probably the problem, thanks!
MSI Afterburner crashes my pc if i unlock voltage control, probably it's not supported in my card. I'm not afraid of frying the GPU as I got this pc in a 50% sale it was really cheap so if it burns it wouldn't be such a loss lol
And a slight performance gain would be welcome, if I can get 4\5 fps more in games through overclocking i would be happy...
Do you know any other sofwares that allow voltage control in a laptop?

Arcal52214 · Nov 23, 2015

If your pc "crashes" to the point that it needs a restart or even hard reset then it basically means that your card itself doesn't "support" different from factory voltages and simply shuts itself down to save it's circuits. You can also try these programs (don't mind the brand, if they detect and support your GPU you can use them):
Sapphire TriXX
Zotac Firestorm
Gigabyte OC Guru II
Asus GPU Tweak
Evga Precision X
Rivatuner

I don't know if either of them supports you GPU but there won't be any harm in trying.
It's also quite common for laptop GPUs to not have any kind of voltage controller in the hardware level, especially for the cheap ones.

FogAgain · Nov 23, 2015

It doesn't crash when i change voltage in MSI, because it won't allow me to. I go to settings> unlock voltage and then it asks for restart. I restart it and pc won't boot ( black screen after Windows logo) and i need to boot safe mode and uninstall MSI Afterburner... Ii'll try those softwares thanks mate.

Arcal52214 · Nov 23, 2015

FogAgain :

No problem, always eager to help!

FogAgain · Nov 23, 2015

Tried those programs, they can't even read GPU voltage, i guess it's unsupported. I'll just keep it at 25 MHz overclock, seems stable and giving me around 1 fps in bencharmks. If i increase it any higher it loses fps i guess it becomes unstable due to lack of voltage, nothing to do about that. After all it's still a very good laptop for its price, i mean 50% sale, under 300$ and can play older games well and most recent games in low\mid settings at 30 fps so nothing bad

Arcal52214 · Nov 23, 2015

FogAgain :

Also note that if you get unexpectedly low FPS or stuttering on some games simply reset factory defaults because as I mentioned in my first post - some games are designed to not work properly with overclocked GPU and if you want to check your overclock stability then do stability tests on several games and you will notice that some games allow noticeably higher overclocks without any crashes or any other side effects (I don't know why is that, probably because of different graphics engines) and some other games crash as soon as they notice difference from factory settings.

FogAgain · Nov 25, 2015

Discovered another issue, a weird one: I get 5 fps boost when i set power plan to balanced. I double checked all setting in the high performance is correct but still i get much better performance in balanced. WTF?

Arcal52214 · Nov 25, 2015

This is probably because "High Performance" forces CPU to be always on highest performance state (basically maximum core frequency, not "utilization") to complete even the easiest tasks, however this doesn't apply to GPU (only slightly reduces latency but maximum clock speeds remain the same) because GPU can only control it's performance state by itself (Windows can't control it) depending on the application needs. The cause of 5 fps boost on balanced is because your laptop motherboard can administer more power to GPU when CPU is not running at 100% (in some laptops all components can't run on 100% simultaneously because of maximum power intake limitations). You can try plugging in other power cord if the one you are curently using is overloaded, change the adapter or try to run it "High Performance" on battery but if it's motherboard limitation then doing so won't help.

FogAgain · Nov 25, 2015

I'll try high performance under battery and see what happens.
EDIT: Found the issue: High performance plan was not crrectly configured in CAtayst Control Center. Cpu power was configured to run between 1.1-1.8 GHz instead being fixed at 1.8. That was causing weird fps drops because the cpu sometimes dropped to 1.1 GHz. Now games are running exactly the same in both power plans

Thx for help anyway

FogAgain · Nov 27, 2015

Hey man Arcal52214, you were right from the beggining. My problem is throttling.... CPU throttling to be exact. My CPU speed drops from 1.8 GHz to 1.1 GHz during gaming when it reaches 62-64ºC... Do you think a cooling pad could help? Also my CPU has turbocore feature which allows it to go to 3.0 GHz but of course it cant keep that speed for long, it throttles almost instantly in gaming. Do you think that if if get a good cooling pad it will allow me to get turbo speed in gaming, at least a little more than 1.8 GHz? (I'm not talking about overclock, talking about amd turbocore, which is useless in games due to throttling) I'm getting huge CPU bottlenecks in games due to this. This card should handle everything at 720p (Low-Medium) graphics but I'm getting drops into 20's because of the throttling, damn.

Arcal52214 · Nov 27, 2015

That is some strange news... Throttling at 62-64 C? o.o Well, it's possible if your laptop has inaccurate temperature sensors though.
As for cooling pads - yes they certainly do help, especially decent ones.
I suggest you get a size of cooling pad slightly bigger than your laptop (about 1-2cm longer and wider if possible) and it also needs to be aligned with positions of your laptop fans. Don't (more like NEVER) buy unbranded or rarely-heard-of ones, they will sound like a jet taking off and will have worse cooling capabilities than most branded ones. Take something from Cooler Master of Thermaltake. I don't know the measurements of your laptop so unless you post them I won't be able to help you choose.

FogAgain · Nov 27, 2015

Arcal52214 :

My laptop is 15.6". Yes it is throttling at 62º approximately I'm using Msi Afterburner+ HWInfo to monitor temps and usage in gaming and as soon as it reaches 62-64º CPU it will drop its speed to 1.1 GHz and then a few seconds later back to 1.8 GHz, causing 10 fps+ drops in CPU demanding games. It's like I'm playing at 30 fps stable and all of a sudden drop into 20's or high 10's

I noticed also that in HW Info Core temp is around 45º idle, but CPU package temp is at around 100ºC all the time i guess it's a bad Reading right? Also AMD Turbo Core seems to be useless because instead of "clocking up to 3.0 GHz when needed" it's doing the oposite, under load drops to 1.1 GHz immediately! For now I'm keeping turbo disabled until i find the issue, but should'n it be doing the opposite? I know it can't hold 3.0 GHz for long due to termal limits but it goes down to 1.1 GHz as soon as I load a game even if it is at 50º C :O Honestly I guess I'll do a fresh clean Windows install, there are probably some incompatible drivers or settings causing all these issue...

Arcal52214 · Nov 27, 2015

100 C?! That is dangerous for CPU lifespan! I assume you were looking at "core temps" before - don't look at them ever again , "package temperature" readings are much more reliable because they come directly from CPU and such difference between "package" and "core" temperatures is almost literally impossible so you can safely assume your "core temperature" sensors are rubish.
About AMD Turbo Core:
No it shouldn't do "the opposite" at those temps otherwise your CPU would be dead by now.
About Core Clock already decreasing at 50 C:
Nowadays cooling systems are "smart" enought to predetermine how hot your CPU will get by reading how fast your temps rise and they lower clock speeds before any damage is done.

I suggest you send it back to get it fixed if it's under warranty coverage (I don't think there is anyone who would tell you that 100 C package CPU temp is normal), if not then ask a tech-savvy friend/asquaintance to get your laptop's thermal compounds replaced (obviously, this involves disassembling your laptop so don't do it if it's under warranty) or do it yourself if you know how to do it.
Also get a cooling pad ASAP, I will post some options later if I will have enough time (I have studies and some projects to finish), what is your budget range?

P.S. Reinstalling Windows or drivers is not bad by any means but it's unlikely for it to fix that issue either.

FogAgain · Nov 27, 2015

Well I think 100ºC is a bad temperature reading, it doesn't feel hot at all and the fan rarely turns on! I don't think 100ª are correct because even at idle it stays at 95-100ºC and the fan does NOT turn on... So I'm assuming it's a bad software Reading or bad sensors. Anyway the laptop is barely 2 weeks old so under warranty. I'll take it for repair if I need but first I'm reinstalling Windows to see if it helps. And today is a cold day here barely 5ºC, so I imagine in the summer the computer will burst into flames ahah
EDIT:Just checked max temperature for core package: 113ºC while gaming, I guess that's a sensor malfunction otherwise the CPU would be burned by now

Overclocking issue? Possible hardware problem?

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