I7-3635QM lagging horribly?

[zander_2]

I recently bought a laptop (Samsung NP700Z5C-S02UB) with an i7 3635QM processor, and I've been getting terrible performance in CPU-heavy games such as Planetside 2 and ArmA 2. I'm pretty sure it's the CPU that's bottlenecking, for three reasons:
1. The laptop has a 640m, which I've played these games with before and had no trouble.
2. Framerates don't improve at all when I change graphics settings, suggesting GPU doesn't have much to do with it.
3. One game (planetside 2) says specifically that the CPU is the bottlenecker 100% of the time.
I ran passmark to get a quick bench to see if the thing was malfunctioning, and it scored 6200, which is higher than the first-gen i7 my friend has that plays these games pretty well. I'm sure there's no throttling going on, as all 8 threads were at 3.2ghz under 100% load during a Prime95 test. My BIOS is up to date, and it will not let me turn off hyperthreading so I can't tell if that's causing any issues.

I don't seem to understand why this chip performs so much worse than the 3610qm that I've used before. I've heard something about this being a BGA chip, meaning it's soldered to the motherboard, but I don't see how that could degrade performance. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[lostgamer_03]

I recently bought a laptop (Samsung NP700Z5C-S02UB) with an i7 3635QM processor, and I've been getting terrible performance in CPU-heavy games such as Planetside 2 and ArmA 2. I'm pretty sure it's the CPU that's bottlenecking, for three reasons:
1. The laptop has a 640m, which I've played these games with before and had no trouble.
2. Framerates don't improve at all when I change graphics settings, suggesting GPU doesn't have much to do with it.
3. One game (planetside 2) says specifically that the CPU is the bottlenecker 100% of the time.
I ran passmark to get a quick bench to see if the thing was malfunctioning, and it scored 6200, which is higher than the first-gen i7 my friend has that plays these games pretty well. I'm sure there's no throttling going on, as all 8 threads were at 3.2ghz under 100% load during a Prime95 test. My BIOS is up to date, and it will not let me turn off hyperthreading so I can't tell if that's causing any issues.

I don't seem to understand why this chip performs so much worse than the 3610qm that I've used before. I've heard something about this being a BGA chip, meaning it's soldered to the motherboard, but I don't see how that could degrade performance. Any help would be appreciated.

It's the GPU, it's really slow. You can try to download HWINFO64 and you can watch usage of GPU and CPU and I'm sure you'll see that your GPU is the one in your way. The CPU will never run at 100% while gaming, while the GPU will.

 

[Sayno]

Me and a buddy bought a pair of these laptops at best buy a few weeks ago and experience the same issue in planetside. I ran gpu-z during some planetside gameplay and the gpu never clocks past 405mhz core and peaks around 15% load, leading me to believe it is only being used for physics. Optimus has issues with a few games. The two i noticed have been tera and planetside.

Calling a 640m slow is plain ignorant though, I can play bf3 on high at 1600x900. I wouldn't call that "slow" for a laptop. The only faster video cards available from nvida are the 670,675, and 680. The 660m is the EXACT same card, with higher clocks, and anyone posting on Tom's should know how to oc their 640m well past 660m clocks anyhow.

As far as the i7-3635qm goes, it is again one of the fastest cpus you can get in a laptop today. Only a few are clocked higher.

 

[zander_2]

Me and a buddy bought a pair of these laptops at best buy a few weeks ago and experience the same issue in planetside. I ran gpu-z during some planetside gameplay and the gpu never clocks past 405mhz core and peaks around 15% load, leading me to believe it is only being used for physics. Optimus has issues with a few games. The two i noticed have been tera and planetside.

Calling a 640m slow is plain ignorant though, I can play bf3 on high at 1600x900. I wouldn't call that "slow" for a laptop. The only faster video cards available from nvida are the 670,675, and 680. The 660m is the EXACT same card, with higher clocks, and anyone posting on Tom's should know how to oc their 640m well past 660m clocks anyhow.

As far as the i7-3635qm goes, it is again one of the fastest cpus you can get in a laptop today. Only a few are clocked higher.

Well, I believe your GPU problem might come from running games with the HD4000, because my GPU runs at 700mhz and 100% load in GPU-heavy games, so it's not defective or anything. I have no issues with GPU, I swear.

 

[zander_2]

It's the GPU, it's really slow. You can try to download HWINFO64 and you can watch usage of GPU and CPU and I'm sure you'll see that your GPU is the one in your way. The CPU will never run at 100% while gaming, while the GPU will.

Interestingly, my GPU works fine in games that are GPU-dependant. I've used a 640m before, on a laptop with a 3610QM, and it worked just fine. When I used that program in a GPU-intensive game, sure enough, the CPU hovered around 40% and the GPU hovered around 100%. Makes sense. When I switched to a CPU-intensive game (Planetside), however, both hovered around 50%. I'm not sure why this is, but the game has a built-in feature that tells you what the bottleneck is, and it says CPU, even though it's nowhere near 100% load. I promise you, the GPU is not a problem, but the CPU seems to be acting weird in Planetside. Maybe it's just the game?

 

[simon12]

I read somewhere that planetside 2 runs better with hyperthreading disabled, worth a try if the bios has the option.

 

[nascar0509]

I have same machine & you have to right click on the desktop launch icons & select which GPU to use I.e. CPU embedded HD 4000 or high performance GT 640M. For the majority of games I believe that the default is the Intel HD 4000. You can change the default GPU for individual games in nvidia control panel.

 

[Ztary]

Signed up to post that I have a similar model (NP700Z5C) and I notice that it is RIDICULOUSLY slow. Not just in games. I ran some tests and it performs near processors almost 3 years older than it. Considering I dropped a fat grand on this computer what the fuck is going on? I can barely run games that came out 2 years ago. I have to make the resolution less than high definition and far less than the built in screen size. Seriously upset here. I got it around black friday 2012 and I have basically resigned myself to the fact that this computer is a lemon.

Sorry to bring back a dead topic

 

[cat1092]

It's been some time since the last post in this discussion, yet am responding because I have the exact same notebook (Samsung NP700Z5C-S02UB). First there's the matter of having on of the slowest 5400rpm HDD's on the market, the puny 8GB iSSD doesn't help performance. Either step up to a WD Scorpio Black or better yet as I did, a SSD. Installing a 256GB Crucial M550 & disabling the iSSD cache drive (critical for success) gave the notebook a much needed boost in performance & in par with a SATA-3 SSD. If the iSSD cache is not disabled through the Samsung settings, performance will be less than on an SATA-2 port. Go to the Start Menu, click onto Quick Starter, and these options will be shown, also a Windows 7 like Start Menu (install may be required). There were over 2GB of drivers & product updates alone, not counting Windows update nor the update to 8.1.

Though be careful, the power & SATA connector is very flimsy, can actually be seen through, a clear butterscotch color cable. It is easily broken is not handed like eggs. Seriously, and for a $1,300 notebook after taxes, was quite surprised at the build, only one of the two RAM sticks can be upgraded for a total of 12GB. The 8GB iSSD cache is a joke at best, SanDisk, the vendor Samsung used, had 24GB ones at the time. The included slot loading optical drive is also a piece of junk.

Finally, and yet another fault of Samsung, the max TDP for both the GPU & CPU are 45W each, guess what? Samsung only provided a 90W PSU to handle the hardware. This results in the screen flickering that many users has reported, when the need for more power arises, will pull off of the weaker battery, producing the screen flicker.

To solve this, though I wanted a 150W PSU (of the same amperage), the unit will not be harmed, will only draw what's needed, could only find knockoffs in this range & settled on a Genuine Samsung 120W PSU by Delta Electronics (they build PSU's for many OEM's), and guess what? Not only did the power brick run much cooler, it also ended the screen flicker. My posting of this fact when reviewing the unit on Amazon led to the sale of the other 49 units the seller had inside of 3 days. Prior to that, no one had purchased the first one, though some were purchasing 150W knockoffs.

The PSU was intended for one of the Samsung Series AIO PC's with a larger monitor, so that's why more power was needed.

Samsung tried to compete with Apple with these flimsy notebooks & never had a chance, when running Windows 7, all was good. Then came Windows 8, then 8.1 & firmware issues dogged the models (well documented), one cannot even install Linux on the notebook w/out fear of bricking the firmware, a fix that the warranty won't cover & they keep their fix guarded like Fort Knox, though oddly, involves using a Linux tool for the job.

It also won't cover Windows 10, is an 'unsupported' OS for the notebook & the upgrade removes all Samsung extras, including the option to disable the iSSD.

So the issue is much everything else other than the CPU, though the Passmark score is much lower than the 3630QM.

Chances are, at under 4 years old, many of these units has been recycled into new ones, fortunately for Windows users, Samsung has long been out of building Windows computers, are now building Chromebooks, where they may be better at with onboard weak iSSD's & so on. I haven't booted mine for over 2 months, and have Windows 8.1 Pro on it. Shameful waste of what could had been good hardware, and unfortunately, Samsung made sure that there would be no selling of the CPU's in the secondary aftermarkets (eBay & Amazon). Just the entire MB only.

Just wanted to share my story of how I made the best out of a bad purchase decision by someone else. It was given to me, less than 2.5 years old, for setting up a new notebook for a relative, along with a new wireless router, making sure the printers were connected, about 6 hours of work. I did it not expecting the notebook, she was ridding herself of the problems, mainly the slowness, the issue here.

Cat

 

[Fitztorious]

@catilley1092

Wow agree with everything you've said. I've had the same laptop as you for over 3 years now. Upgraded ram to 12 GB, put at SSD in it and overclocked the 640m. Honestly I'm pretty happy with it and heating wasn't an issue after replacing the thermal paste. Never experienced the screen flicker though.

I'm googling around now because my laptop has no power, disconnecting the battery doesn't seem to help, DC jack is confirmed working and the laptop will run fine if the batter is charged. On-board battery connector is getting 0.1 V which seems low to me but I'm new when it comes to testing electrical components.

Your comment about the 90W PSU not being enough caught my eye. I'm using a 90W universal PSU so I'm going to try and find a 120W PSU that might bring it back to life but not holding my breath.

 

[cat1092]

Fitztouious, I found mine on Amazon for about $45-50 a few months back, you can see my review, evidently the other purchasers didn't bother to leave one (typical). If these were lemons, everyone would had left negative reviews & demanding refunds.

http://www.amazon.com/GENUINE-Samsung-BA44-00269A-Replacement-Adapter/product-reviews/B00S6QZIAW

Here are a few 120W options for the Samsung Series 7 models, keeping in mind that the higher the price, the better the quality likely will be. It's best to stick with the ones that specifically says for Samsung Series 7, as they'll share the same power input. More wattage never hurts, just like PC builds, the system will only draw what it needs.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr1?rh=i%3Acomputers%2Ck%3Asamsung+120W+PSU&keywords=samsung+120W+PSU&ie=UTF8&qid=1457383100

Hopefully this will give you some leads in the right direction!

Cat

 

[cat1092]

@catilley1092

Wow agree with everything you've said. I've had the same laptop as you for over 3 years now. Upgraded ram to 12 GB, put at SSD in it and overclocked the 640m. Honestly I'm pretty happy with it and heating wasn't an issue after replacing the thermal paste. Never experienced the screen flicker though.

I'm googling around now because my laptop has no power, disconnecting the battery doesn't seem to help, DC jack is confirmed working and the laptop will run fine if the batter is charged. On-board battery connector is getting 0.1 V which seems low to me but I'm new when it comes to testing electrical components.

Your comment about the 90W PSU not being enough caught my eye. I'm using a 90W universal PSU so I'm going to try and find a 120W PSU that might bring it back to life but not holding my breath.

I meant to ask you, how did you go about OC'ing the GPU? Mine won't even update to the latest driver, believe Samsung has a lock on it somewhere.

Please let me know, this is a 1GB GDDR5 card.

Cat