Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series
Post Reply
Message
Author
u666sa
Freshman Member
Posts: 51
Joined: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:40 am
Location: Sochi, Russia

Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#1 Post by u666sa » Thu Mar 09, 2017 8:41 am

Hello fellow thinkpad owners. On my W520 thinkpad frame rate in World of Tanks would drop form 120 fps to ~30 fps, and then come up again back to 120 fps, no matter what I do. I tried solutions like xbox DVR + 2 regedit tweaks, didn't help. What help me though, is TPFanControl app. At that, I'm not evening running it, just installing it seemed to help me a lot. I think problem is in that W520 is not compatible with Windows 10, and TPFanControl is the missing piece that is needed. After installing TPFanControl (and not running it) my fan spins at 64 setting (maximum) while I am gaming, it is considerably higher than without this app. So if you are bought on Windows 10 (it is good OS, and I am Windows 7 fanatic) then you need TPFanControl to make it all work.

Cheers!

BakedKentucky
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2017 7:01 am
Location: Kentucky

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#2 Post by BakedKentucky » Tue Mar 14, 2017 2:21 am

So the fan ap slows the fan speed?? or increases it? Or just regulates it better?
I have windows 7 on my w520 and i like it well enough, you dont think 10 is compatible?? How come? Have others said this same thing?
Also what quadro do you have in your 520? the 1000 or the 2000? The 520 isnt really known for gaming, you dont think its the integrated quadro gpu that really is dropping your frames??

Im a newb, just trying to learn more. I love these thinkpads, actually just ordered another one and its coming with windows 10.

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#3 Post by kfzhu1229 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 1:34 am

if you see sudden frame drops and raises, check the thermal paste on CPU and GPU! W series are heavy duty workstations (same applies to A and G series), therefore they pack very powerful and produces a huge amount of heat. My friend has a T520 with i7-2820qm and after 5 years of gaming, his thermal paste was so dry that the CPU idles at 70 degrees and in games it drops to 1-2fps from time to time before he comes to me with that problem! I was surprised that the CPU didn't die!
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

crux
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Mar 11, 2017 10:05 pm
Location: St. Louis, MO.
Contact:

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#4 Post by crux » Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:16 pm

I just took delivery of my new W520 a few days ago and it came with Windows 10 Pro. I've got 3 other machines running FreeBSD but am keeping Windows on this one so I can play some of my older games.

I had seen people talking about how the W520 could run hot but was surprised how cool mine ran overall and while gaming. That's The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion it's running now. I have no idea what the frame rate is but it looks great with no signs of lag. I'm planing to get Skyrim but have barely scratched the surface of Oblivion.

While waiting for it to be delivered I was looking for cooling pads when I saw these Opolar cooling fans on ebay and decided to try one out:

http://www.opolar.com/shop/laptop-coole ... ling-pads/

http://s28.postimg.org/d8tujk1cd/520gaming2.png

It defaults to an auto setting that spins the fan down when air drawn from inside the laptop drops to 89F, and again at 88F, but really does better with a manual setting slightly above that. It does make sense from the point of drawing air directly though the case as opposed to a fan blowing air up at the bottom of the case, and you can see the temp dropping on the display and if you can monitor it from the desktop.

Overall, the W520 doesn't run hot enough to warrant it (beside the fact of it being kind of bulky), and is better utilized cooling my Sony Vaio while it's compiling ports.

Windows 10 runs fine on my W520. I'd rather have got Windows 7 if I had to choose, but have finally got 10 tweaked to my satisfaction. If it wasn't for gaming though I'd wipe Windows in a heartbeat in favor of FreeBSD.
W520 running OpenBSD 6.2
T43 running OpenBSD 6.2
T61 running FreeBSD 11.1 x's 2
X61 running FreeBSD 11.1
T400 running Solaris 11.3

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#5 Post by kfzhu1229 » Mon Mar 20, 2017 4:21 pm

As a comparison, my T530i came with 2nd Gen i3 and then subbed in a 2nd gen i5-2520m. Recently upgraded to 3rd gen i7-3720QM and learnt how bad the 2nd gen i5 was. That i7 is more than 2 times faster than the i5 while producing identical amount of heat due to being a newer gen, thus learnt the inefficiency of that i5 which still costs around $120 on eBay (seriously, a Xeon X3363 I have subbed into an OptiPlex 960 is both better and cheaper which barely cost me $50 with LGA 775 switcher pre-installed, while OptiPlex also handles its TDP very well because they are supposed to handle its sibling - the less efficient C2Q with higher TDP, price and lower performance anyways)
As of now, the 3720QM is very powerful to today's standards even though the real bottleneck seems to be the Nvidia NVS 5400M. Anyways Windows 10 flies on that machine after upgrading to 3720QM and 16GB RAM. The NVS 5400M, even though as a bottleneck, is still more than sufficient to play Blu-Ray disc by taking all the load and leave my i7 at 0-3% usage.
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

Hans Gruber
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 817
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:18 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#6 Post by Hans Gruber » Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:39 am

World Of Tanks is a pretty demanding game graphically. Exactly what did you expect using even a W520 to play World of Tanks? Keep your resolution @ 1920x1200 but lower the graphics settings and turn off the AA and your FPS should go up a bit. 30FPS is all you need for World Of Tanks.
:beer: T43p,T61,X200,X200s,x201,T500,W500,T510,T410,T410s,T420s,T430,T430s :parrot:

RealBlackStuff
Admin Emeritus
Admin Emeritus
Posts: 23809
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:17 am
Location: Loch Garman, Éire

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#7 Post by RealBlackStuff » Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:50 am

Hans Gruber wrote:Keep your resolution @ 1920x1200...
W520 has only 1920x1080.
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
Lenovo: X240, X250, T440p, T480, M900 Tiny.

PS: the old Boardroom website is still available on the Wayback Machine
.

Hans Gruber
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 817
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:18 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#8 Post by Hans Gruber » Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:10 am

RealBlackStuff wrote:
Hans Gruber wrote:Keep your resolution @ 1920x1200...
W520 has only 1920x1080.
Ok, 1080P. Those are pretty good frame rates already for World Of Tanks. That is a game I used to play a fair amount.
:beer: T43p,T61,X200,X200s,x201,T500,W500,T510,T410,T410s,T420s,T430,T430s :parrot:

kfzhu1229
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2484
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:59 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#9 Post by kfzhu1229 » Tue Mar 21, 2017 4:34 pm

Well, one big pity when I use my T530 (same applies to W520) as video editing is that Adobe Premiere Pro does NOT support the GPU acceleration for both the nvidia and Intel HD (only 5000 or 6000 are supported for OpenCL). This means my i7-3720QM has to make up for EVERYTHING!
Dell Lat CP MMX-233 64mb 40gb W2k
600 PII-266 416mb 40gb WXP
T23 PIII 1.13ghz 1gb W7
Precision M4300 X9000 8gb 160gb WUXGA Ultrasharp fp W10
T530i 15.6" i7 16gb fp W10
UXGA:
A30p PIII 1.2 1gb W7 (IDTech)
T43p 2.26 2gb fp W10 (Sharp)
Lat C840 P4-2.5 2gb 60gb W7 (Ultrasharp)

jcvjcvjcvjcv
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 754
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:42 pm
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Re: Windows 10 + W520 frame rate drops to ~30 fps in games

#10 Post by jcvjcvjcvjcv » Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:19 am

W520 GPU's are very weak. For certain applications it's a bonus that it's a Quadro (hey, and that's what I bought it for), but it doesn't compare at all to an equal-cost desktop gaming GPU. Or an equal-cost mobile GeForce GPU for that matter.

Gaming-wise you can about break even with the Quadro 1000M with a gaming card that was $300 in late 2007. It's absolutely no match for any current $300 gaming card.
W520
T61

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 38 guests