Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition - Graphics Issues "Lag"

Tizerak

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314853

This is what I bought 2 months ago except it has a 17'' screen, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD.

 

At first I thought it was great I was playing just Ark on Steam before I moved and the graphics were great. Then I started experiencing issues with multiplayer games and I couldn't figure out if they were on my end or the ISP. I haven't noticed anything wrong with some games like Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel or ARK: Survival, but for games like FFXIV Heavensward, DotA 2, and Dark Souls 2: SotFS I notice issues. Certain map and item textures are slow to load, with DotA 2 and FFXIV sometimes things will come to a halt then everything "catches up".

 

http://i.imgur.com/XTh6Z1s.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/18IteIV.png

 

I never had these kind of problems on my 3 year old desktop that's AMD based with a 4 core Phenom 2, Radeon HD 7900 series GPU, and 8GB of ram.

 

I do use a monitor plugged into the HDMI port (which is odd to me that it is connected to the Intel GPU and not the NVidia one, I guess there's some kind of threading between the 2 GPUs?).

I have the latest NVidia drivers.

I have battery boost off in GeForce Experience (I read somewhere that might help).

 

I'm kind of stuck at the moment, I hope I didn't buy a bad product. 

Mrriddle

which Nvidia Version # you have im assuming is 358.50 been latest recommended one, it caused me alot of problems and few others on NVidia forums

Pie

I notice you mention an external monitor,  there was a thread that found having the monitor plugged during boot could bizarely cause issues with overheating in some situations which caused lags.

Try plugging the monitor in only after it's booted.

Here's the thread

http://community.acer.com/t5/V-and-VN-Series/Aspire-V-15-throttles-CPU-instead-of-cooling/m-p/362059#M939

Tizerak

Yes I have that version but I was having issues before 358.50

Tizerak

Hmm I might reboot and try that as well as check out that thread.

Tizerak

I'm still not having any luck with booting with the monitor disconnected and then plugging it back in after logging in to windows, I've been trying it without the monitor all together too.

 

I've been having this issue before 358.50 anyway.

Tizerak

Is there a more stable driver I can install since 358.50 is so wonky apprently? Also, do I need all this Acer bloatware? They aren't as bad as they used to be but in Event Viewer I've been getting DCom errors and a lot for Bonjour (apple) and some iCloud/Google Chrome thing.

 

Mainly I'm just worried about the graphics performance in the OP, I don't get how this laptop with better specs then my old desktop can perform so poorly when it has these "hiccups".

Mrriddle

i lost all my acer bloatware when i went to windows 10, i am currently using geforce version package 350.12 from http://www.geforce.com/drivers, which is 353.53 nvidia driver version

 

also the one from acer website should work it is previous version to one im using currently from http://www.acer.com.au/ac/en/AU/content/drivers

 

im getting no problems currently laptop working like a charm best laptop ive had yet

 

otherwise i would just watch https://forums.geforce.com/default/board/37/ and see if anything there may help you

 

 

Tizerak

Apparently they just released a new driver yesterday I'm gonna try it out 358.87 before rolling back to the one you mentioned Mrriddle. I still have all my Acer bloatware from when I upgraded to Windows 10 I might uninstall it all to see if it makes a difference.

Tizerak

Ok, so I rolled back to the Nvidia driver provided by acer (353.54) and now my CPU is running extra hot at 80-90 degrees celsius... I just can't win with this thing, I'm starting to really regret this purchase and wish I went with an ASUS or MSi or something...

Pie

Do you get these issues with lower graphics settings?  Which graphics card and how much video ram does it have?

I notice you are comparing to your old desktop but that desktop card does have quite a bit higher memory bandwidth than the laptop cards which could perhaps be related to the lags in loading textures.

Are your graphics card temps ok, and is gpu throttling at all?

Tizerak

The specs are posted on the OP, if I had known this thing was gonna be so poorly put together I would have never bought it.

I don't over clock, I've never over clocked, I don't think it's a good idea, just buy a better card. It typically runs 50-70 degrees celsius. The CPU's bother me running at 90 degrees celsius when running any game. I don't have every game on max settings but I shouldn't have to turn down the settings because of some fluke. I don't have any problems with Borderlands: TPS even with everything turned up to max settings.

Pie

When I say throttling I mean is it automatically underclocking, but if the temps are on 50-70 then i shouldnt imagine it would.  If your cpu is overheating however that could be throttling down and causing issues.  There are a few threads on here with people suffering the same.  Suggestion for fixes include manually increasing fan speed above normal limits using a 3rd party software, reducing voltage on the cpu using software, fixing the cpu clock speed to stop turboboost and one enterprising chap took his cpu heatsink out and reseated it with new thermal paste, apparently it had been originally applied really poorly.  I'll see if I can find the threads for your

Pie

My own suggestion actually would be to record the cpu clock speed just to see if it is really overheating causing throttling and then if it is get in contact with acer support and ask them if they would re-seat the cpu heatsink if you're still under warranty.  This was the guy who tried everything and eventually opened it up http://community.acer.com/t5/V-and-VN-Series/VN7-591G-70RT-version-Overheating-My-experience-and-Review/m-p/385114#M5428

Tizerak

I'm not well versed in over/underclocking anything, I've just never had to deal with Intel processors for years, when I built my AMD desktop I knew I put the thermal paste on myself and did it right. Besides possibly getting Acer to check the seating/paste of the CPU since it is under warranty; how would I go about making the CPUs not use so much power because 80-90 celsius makes me worry a lot.

I did read that post, but I'm unfamiliar with the terminology of some of these 3rd party applications that manipulate your CPU.

Pie

1. For adjusting voltage, from the following thread "you have to download Intel XTU, then you go into the Manual menu and you set the offset to -75mV. Then Apply and Save. You will just have to relaunch it at every boot"

http://community.acer.com/t5/V-and-VN-Series/Aspire-Nitro-VN7-591g-54WZ-in-game-freezes/m-p/365260/highlight/true#M851

 

2. Another idea from the same thread "Go in the power plan avanced setting in windows and set your cpu utilisation to 99% and this will prevent your cpu from going in turbo mode and over heating. I actualy recomend to put it at 80% for better result"

 

3. To increase the fan speed you can use a program called rw everything.  You can follow the instructions near the top of this thread https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3489863

 

4. Also update the BIOS if you can.  Apparently there are possible performance improvements

 

Let us know how it goes

Tizerak

According to the Acer downloads for my serial number I have the latest BIOS (1.11)

 

For the power plan do you mean this? http://i.imgur.com/ZfNjAek.jpg

 

Ok, never tried Intel XTU before, never messed with this kind of stuff before, never needed to. I don't see a manual menu, is this the setting you mentioned? http://i.imgur.com/jL6wzE0.jpg

 

Before I test out these changes here is what Open HW monitor was getting when:

Idle - http://i.imgur.com/1c9DBfc.jpg

Game - http://i.imgur.com/j1gGQid.jpg

Pie

For the power plan yes that's correct.

 

For xtu its core voltage offset rather than cache voltage offset that needs to change.  You can run a stress test in that programs once you've applied the change to check it's still stable.

Tizerak

http://i.imgur.com/HqsyQqb.jpg

I'm still new to Intel XTU and how it works, is this what it's supposed to look like? After I changed the core voltage and created that profile it won't let me click on Default and "load" that profile if I wanted to, not sure if there is even a way to load a profile manually.

 

I still don't get why it's so hot at idle though, maybe it is the thermal paste on the processor? Maybe I should send it back in while its under warranty and say "hey, reseat this thing and make sure the paste is on there right". I wouldn't be afraid to do it because I've swapped motherboards on Dell/HP laptops for work where you have to strip them down to their bare bones but why when its still under warranty?

 

Edit: And now my system just restarted from a Critical Event 41 Kernal-Power event... yay

Pie

To load the profile you click on it then press 'show values' above then you can apply those values on the right.

 

I don't know what to say about the idle temps, from what i've read the 4720hq is quite a hot chip.  you can always ask support and see what they think.

 

If you're having stability issues then reduce the amount of offset until it runs stable.

 

Any improvement in games?

Tizerak

Yeah that's what I figured, I got loading/saving the profiles down, now I just need to make a scheduled task to run it on startup with admin privaledges when I'm not... lazy.

 

I ended up turning the core voltage offset to -25 instead of -75 and I haven't had a kernal-power error again since then. I left the max processor setting in the power options at 99%. It runs around ~40 celsius idle and 60-70 ingame.

 

Game improvement? Inconclusive... I ended up moving DS2 and DotA2 to the SSD from the HDD to see if there's any improvement with texture loading but I still don't get why stuff like this happens:

https://i.imgur.com/YqToqZC.jpg

I blacked out names the important bit is the red circle where another little person icon is supposed to be and its blank, sometimes it flickers. My FFXIV subscription ran out so I can't test anything there. With Borderlands sound files don't load properly sometimes or the initial video in BL:TPS where you get shot out of the moonshot cannon struggles when it starts up. The sound thing is the little echo box pops up with a character and there's a delay before they say anything or I talk to someone and they start animating and the lips move but the sound delays.

 

I don't get these texture loading / sound issues, I've never had so much trouble with a brand new device before, its quite frustrating. I don't know if its this particular laptop or this whole series of laptops, if the inner-IT person in me wasn't so hell bent on fixing it myself I would have returned it within the initial 30 day period. At least I have the manufacturer's 1 year warranty and newegg's 1 year warranty thing.