Frame Rate Failure with Mobility Radeon 9000

Agw101 · Dec 17, 2005, 02:06 PM

I run a Mobility Radeon 9000 on a Dell Latitude D600, 1.3 Ghz, 768 MB RAM.

Everything runs great in Windows. Problems occur when I play Delta Force Black Hawk Down and games in the Madden Series. The games operate completely fine for a while. I am talking about incredible framerates at 1024x768. Then, after a few minutes, something just clicks. The graphics slow down incredibly, as low as 2 frames per second. Needless to say, this makes the game unplayable. Even mouse movement is difficult at this rate. I exit the game to Windows, and everything works fine.

This was occuring on the original ATI drivers. I installed the Omega Drivers and the same problems continued. Any advice?

**Vikingod** · Dec 17, 2005, 03:35 PM

Welcome to DH!

First of all, when you installed the Omegas, did you run Drivercleaner? If not, uninstall the Omega's, run drivercleaner in safe mode (read instructions), and reinstall the Omega's. All these can be found at http://www.driverheavendownloads.net/ .
Next, you may want to take a temperature reading of you notebook. Do a google search for "i8kfangui". Download and install the program, it will show you the temperature of your notebook and give you control of your fans (read instructions for that as well). High temps can cause this type of behavior, so I would look to that route. Post your temps (celcius)reading after doing all this we'll work from there.
Also, a spyware and virus scan should be done. Good luck.

Agw101 · Dec 18, 2005, 01:09 AM

Ran the driver cleaning utility like you had indicated. Followed all instructions, and then reinstalled Omega drivers. All went smooth.

Also downloaded the fan speed/temp utility. My computer had been running for several hours and just running Windows and AIM (5% CPU Power) I consistently ran at about 50 degrees Celcius. Then, I started playing some Black Hawk Down (which takes 100% CPU). My temperature slowly rose as I played for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the graphical failure ensued. I quickly Alt-Tab-ed to Windows and my temperature was at 70 degrees celcius.

So, is this an extremely high temperature that could cause these sort of problems? I have read that Dell Latitudes run hot. If so, how do I fix this? Are there settings that I can override? It's a laptop so its not exactly easy to get more cooling in there! Or are we still looking at some kind of driver problem? Thank you!

Agw101 · Dec 18, 2005, 07:18 PM

I played around some more today and the problem seems to most obviously be overheating. Everytime at 75 degrees celcius, the graphical failure occurs. A sat my laptop on a bag filled with ice and I was able to play Black Hawk Down for hours and a problem never occured. So the question is now, is there something I can enable in the settings which would prevent this shutdown? How can I make my laptop run cooler? I am going to try and vaccuum out any dust later tonight, but where do I go from there?

**Vikingod** · Dec 18, 2005, 11:23 PM

That is the problem, 70 c is extremely hot. There are a few fixes. First, use i8kfangui to turn your fans on a bit earlier. Experiment, the noise will be more, but it will save your compy (i went through 3 mobos and a new system before I realized how important this can be). Next, take a can of compressed air and blow out the heat sink to your lappy and any other vents you can find. This will keep down the thermal dust that causes overheating. You may want to do this every couple of weeks, as dust on laptops builds up fast. YOur last hope may be a laptop cooling pad. Vantec makes nice pads, and they are reasonably priced. We have reviewed a couple of them here at DH, read up and chose what is best for you. If damage has been done to your system, get on the phone with dell and get it fixed. Throw a fit and get them to replace the mobo, you may also want to find out if others are having problems with the same model you have and what they did to get it replaced. I had a nightmare of a time, but after some arguing and headache, mine runs smooth as silk (thanks to i8kfangui). Good luck, and post back with your solution and any other questions you have.

edit: ice is a bad idea, condensation will destroy you lappy, try the cooling pad. Also, do not disable the saftey crash feature, without it, your cpu and mobo will fry.