Thinkpads Forum

W510. i7-q720, Nvidia FX880m, 8gb ram, 500gb HDD.

I've noticed after prolonged gameplay in Battlefield Bad Company 2 (Most of my game activity is here) the GPU will declock itself to 410 or 440? Can't remember. Anyways this happens over time it seems. I have MSI Afterburner installed and I usually do a 600 graphic and 850mhz overclock. Works fine for a couple of hours untill I notice a fps drop. When I check in HWmonitor it says current is 410 and will not budge from 410 untill I re-boot. Temps are normal for a heavy load but not dangerous by anymeans. A/C is always plugged in.

Also idk if maybe my GPU is just dying or not. I cannot play Fallout New Vegas at all. I get great fps and no issues at all during gameplay when It works. Everytime I try to play this one game my computer will hard shut down. No blue screen, nothing. Like I'm holding the power button down. I tried to fix by updating drivers but nothing. I was watching my temps both times. 1st time I was at 65c. 2nd time it happened I was at 68c. Doesn't seem like a overheat to me. This is the only other issue I've had out of my 880m

Edit: Could someone explain "core parking" I was told just now to check in my resource monitor and sure enough, some cores will flash "Parked"

I am very new to the "PC Race" as I'm sure you able to see by all of my questions. Take it easy on me.

A couple of things here, from a non-gamer:

a) ThinkPads were never meant to be gaming rigs in the first place.

b) *10 series units with dedicated graphics run quite warm to begin with, and tend to throttle in both CPU and GPU areas if pushed hard enough.

c) If you want to find out whether your GPU - and consequently the planar itself - is still healthy, run Furmark and Freestone with TPFC on "manual" for 8 hours or so each. If there's anything hiding in the bushes, it'll come out and make itself very visible.

d) Presuming that the hardware proves itself to be healthy, Throttle Stop may become your best friend. And it's free.

Good luck.

ajkula66 wrote:ThinkPads were never meant to be gaming rigs in the first place.

Best bang for buck I could find for $250.

ajkula66 wrote: If you want to find out whether your GPU - and consequently the planar itself - is still healthy, run Furmark and Freestone with TPFC on "manual" for 8 hours or so each. If there's anything hiding in the bushes, it'll come out and make itself very visible.

TPFC?

James2406 wrote: Best bang for buck I could find for $250.

I'm sure. These are fine machines in most respects.

TPFC?

ThinkPad Fan Control.

http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

Thanks. I'll make sure to set that all up tonight before bed. Also would like to add that this community is pretty welcoming. Thanks for the time/help. I appreciate it.