[nklynx]

Hey People,

I'm having problems with my dell latitude d600 with an ati mobility radeon 9000 32MB.

Whenever i'm playing games such as farcry, call of duty, quake 3, etc, after about 10-15 minutes into gameplay, my frame rate goes down to slideshow mode. I'm running on AC, ati's powerplay setting is on optimal performance , and i've chosen performance over quality settings for all supported options.

Currently my only resort to fix this problem is to restart the system.

I've tried multiple driver releases (using the dh mod tool) but with no luck.
I'm currently using ati's doom 3 beta drivers.

any help will be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
nklynx

System Specs:
Intel Pentium M 1.4GHz
Ati Mobility Radeon 9000 32MB
768MB DDR Ram
30GB HD
2x Phillips DVD+RW
Dell TrueMobile 1300 WLAN Mini-PCI Card
Bios Ver A13

[Geminiwave]

hmmm...it sounds like its overheating and the comp is slowed it down to keep it from killing itself(hooray for computers saving themselves)

now the question is why it would be heating up? I assume that you are not overclocking at all(if you are, STOP!) hmmmmmm...interesting.

Another idea is that its accessing some other driver which is going bad. Have you tried DriverCleaner and Cab cleaner in safe mode? If not, do that next.

Then after that get the REAL 4.9cats since the official release was recently and there are even 4.9 OMEGAS!!! w00T! so yeah upgrade to those because the beta 4.9 cats had some SERIOUS slowdown problems in other games.

Other than that I dunno. Lemme know if anything here worked.

In fact do the driver cleaner\cab cleaner in safe mode after deleting all drivers and ATI control panels, then install new 4.9 cats(either ATI or Omega) and see what happens. I hope this helps.

[Louiemaster]

I had this problem too and somehow it magically disappeared when i installed the regular drivers and reinstalled back the omega drivers. Both with driver cleaner. But try the 4.9 omegas. I also have the exact same card as u with the exact same amount of memory.

[Geminiwave]

see there yah go. What a helpful community we got here, neh?

Try that out. I've actually had similar problems with my desktop before. Could have just been a prob installing the drivers like the download was corrupt or something.

redownload it (And jeez get the non-betas)

[nklynx]

thanks for the advice, i'll try cleaning and re-installing the drivers tonight

i'll let you know what happens.


nklynx

[nklynx]

nope..no luck, framerate is still going down.

This is what i did:
uninstalled ati's drivers and control panel,
boot into safe mode and ran both driver cleaner and cab cleaner,
rebooted and installed ati's cat 4.9 drivers,
played farcry (lowest graphical settings) & call of duty and got the same issue.
installed the omega 4.9s over the ati's drivers, ran the games - same problem.

hey fellas, am i doing something wrong here, or do I just go back to not playing video games at work.


nklynx

[Isaksen]

Suddenly had the same problem, after upgrading to bios version A14 on my D600. Turned out the old A06 bios was a bit more liberal with respect to CPU temperature. The new bios slows the CPU and bus frequency down when the temperature is at appx. 65 degrees Celsius...which makes all gaming go down to about 1 fps after 10-15 minutes.

After downgrading to the A06 bios again, the problem seem to have disappeared :-)

[LeanWolf]

install this fan program for Dell laptops
http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html
i've been using it for years and it's great!
it lets you choose at what temp the fans switch on and how fast.
blasting them while gaming should fix overheating problems

[agent99]

I am having exactly the same problem, which I am sure is an overheating problem with the GPU. I notice you have mentioned that reverting back to BIOS A06 solved it. The question is where can I get this bios? I have searched everywhere for it. Can anyone help?

[agroking]

I have a D600 Latitude with a Radeon 9000 as well. I have updated to the latest video drivers off the Dell website. The MAJOR problem I am having is that none of my favorite games will work...Diablo 2, Sacred, AvP2...anyone have an idea?

[germanjulian]

Originally Posted by agroking

I have a D600 Latitude with a Radeon 9000 as well. I have updated to the latest video drivers off the Dell website. The MAJOR problem I am having is that none of my favorite games will work...Diablo 2, Sacred, AvP2...anyone have an idea?

lol as in not work how? wont install. wont start, wont run, crash????

[agroking]

sorry...as in will install, but will not run...sacred will give me the blah...blah about causing problems and will be shut down. Diablo 2 says that it can't find a video mode and will not run on this computer...here is the wierd thing...If my laptop is in the docking station with a seperate monitor...everything works fine?

Getting frustrated. What is the point of having wireless if I have to lug a 40 pound monitor around to play games.

[Louiemaster]

Instead of using the Dell drivers use the latest omegas. They help alot. Dell's "latest" drivers are like 2 years old.

[Geminiwave]

oh ho. ho ho ho ho! I had the same problem on my brothers laptop! What YOU need is to do something about your resolution. it works fine with a seperate monitor, but im guessing your LCD screen is outside of normal CRT specs. Probably a 1:1 ratio or a widescreen? anyway you need to change resolutions.

and yeah use Omega drivers definatly. Those help alot.

[powersd]

Sorry, I'm new to this forum. Can anyone provide a link to the most stable and latest drivers that will work for this laptop? Also, can anyone tell me if it's even worth it to upgrade from Dell's latest provided drivers to the current ones? Will I see any substantial performance improvement? I will be playing World of Warcraft solely.

Much thanks.

dmp

[Geminiwave]

yeah. should be a very nice little speed boost.

on the other hand, there might be none at all. It really depends and the only way you'll find out is installing them to find out. It really wont hurt your computer, so dont worry about it.

first things first, go to the front page of Driverheaven(the one that isnt the forum but has links to news articles and stuff) look on the left hand side(thats the side that says START on the taskbar. LOL jk jk I know you arent that dumb) and find Driver Cleaner. install that(but dont use it yet) make sure you read its instructions. Dont worry though, its REALLY easy to use.

Then download Omega drivers @ www.Omegadrivers.net get the latest Cats there. Also you might want\need the Mobility Modder that I believe is found nearby where you got Driver Cleaner. That may assist you if you cant get the Omega's to install properly(they should do it on their own though).

Be sure to ask any and all questions that you have if you're nervous. We want this to go off without a hitch, and while this wont hurt your computer one little bit, it sucks to have to troubleshoot if there is a problem.

Hope things work out for you.

[Saykar]

I have the exact same problem. I have used driver cleaner and then installed Omega drivers. Whilst I did get improved performance using these drivers I still get the same slowdown after about 15 minutes of gameplay (fps drops to about 10). Other than restarting my computer nothing seems to fix this problem. Any ideas?

[eastcoast]

Well, a few years have gone by. Have any solutions been discovered for this problem.

[eastcoast]

I am also experiencing this problem running windows xp professional on my dell latitude d600. I8kfanGUI tells me that the computer slows down when the memory temperature reaches 140F and it goes back to normal at 120F, repeating the cycle until I stop playing.
It seems that when I play off of my battery, it works fine. When it's running off AC is when the problem occurs. Is it possible to change settings somewhere so that it limits itself the same while running on AC as it does while running on the battery?

[eyeguy616]

Maybe there's dust build up or just not enough airflow in there. I know when I play certain games or push it with a lot of stuff, my old d600 heats up like mad but haven't noticed the ram getting that hot, and since I have a cat the dust buildup can be pretty bad at times.

An odd option might be to pull out the dvd-rom if it has the pull tab on it (or if you can at all depending on game/cd needs) and maybe try pointing a fan toward it. I usually have I8kfanGUI force the internal fan on high speed whenever I'm going to start doing something that'll tax the old hardware. I just have to wait until summer hits Texas to see if I'll have this problem as well... for some reason it hasn't gotten very warm at all so far this year so the ambient temps aren't bad at all. Are your conditions fairly warm?

My lap usually burns up but I've learned to just deal with it since the laptop temps drop a little haha. I usually balance it on one knee so it's right under the bigger hot spots. SpeedSwitchXP might be something to try out; it can sort of change the power settings while on ac or battery though not sure if that's what'll do it.

[chupacabra86]

I had this problem for a long time and after trying every possible solution (including hacking into my fans so they run constantly) I finally decided to look outside the box. I got in touch with the fine people at ATI and the Mobility Radeon is not designed for gaming. While it carries the Radeon name and 32MB of VRAM, it's not designed for high temperatures. Since it's in a laptop, it has to shut off earlier than if it were in a desktop to keep from melting down. So, that being said I then started looking into other options (like trying to increase my VRAM or anything else that could fix it) but I was SOL. They need to make a PCI extension slot that slides into a laptop's PCMCIA slot so you can hook up an 'external video card' to help increasing gaming performance. I mean, 1GB of RAM and a 1.7GHz processor and no video card capabilities? That's like dangling a doughnut in front of a diabetic!

[Mousey]

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!
Just thought i'd say that.
And by now surely you should have just got a new lappy? Jeebus :\