Helios 500 PH517-51 - randomly drops refresh rate from 144 to 60.

AZZIZ · January 2020

I have a very weird and annoying problem, my laptop display drops refresh from 144 to 60, and when I go to the Nvidia control panel its says its on 144 and when I try to set it to 60 the screen just blacks out and I have to wait for it to come back on (as of the refresh rate not supported)

The problem is so annoying that it made me reinstall windows and its still here, reinstalling drivers with DDU also didn't help.

any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

Helios 500 PH517-51

Emodz · February 2020

AZZIZ said:

show previous quotes

Emodz said:

I went back to 441.41 I'll do some testing and see if the refresh stays at 144.

Best of luck it did for me but didn't do that much of testing as I got a new monitor anyway. but please keep me posted.

Using those older drivers the problem went away. After several days of testing the issues never returned on the older drivers. So there's definitely something up with the drivers that came out in 2020

Emodz · August 2020

AZZIZ said:

show previous quotes

Emodz said:

Hey Azziz I thought you might want to know they finally are aware of this issue, I noticed in the latest driver notes:
Windows 10 Only [Notebook]: Some Pascal-based notebooks w/ high refresh rate displays may randomly drop to 60Hz during gameplay. [3009452]
Now its listed as still an outstanding issue but at least we know they know about it and can probably expect a fix finally soon.

Great news!!
thank you for this hopefully wont take them long

just a heads up the 452.06 driver seems to be working for me,

xapim · January 2020

AZZIZ so your issue according to what you just described the refresh rate just drops itself ???? or youre trying to run the display at 60hz instead of 144hz as it was designed to im just wondering anyway if i were you i would probably run at 120hz as the majority of gamers find that its pretty stable regarding fps and theres no big difference between 120 and 144 you can try 2 things first its a battery power drain followed by a bios setup defaults and the second its a stock recovery clean install to rule out completely any software issues (backup whatever you need first) and disable windows from updating drivers/firmware hope any of this helps if after a clan install the issue persists i would probably point to the display itself and contact acer support directly

AZZIZ · January 2020

xapim said:

AZZIZ so your issue according to what you just described the refresh rate just drops itself ???? or youre trying to run the display at 60hz instead of 144hz as it was designed to im just wondering anyway if i were you i would probably run at 120hz as the majority of gamers find that its pretty stable regarding fps and theres no big difference between 120 and 144 you can try 2 things first its a battery power drain followed by a bios setup defaults and the second its a stock recovery clean install to rule out completely any software issues (backup whatever you need first) and disable windows from updating drivers/firmware hope any of this helps if after a clan install the issue persists i would probably point to the display itself and contact acer support directly

Yes the display just suddenly drops to 60 when I'm using 144 and only way to get it back is by rebooting, its the worst when it happens mid game.

i did the battery reset, ill keep you posted and thanks for the help.

AZZIZ · January 2020

Update: turns out its a driver issue, rolled back and fixed for now hopefully nvidia can fix it soon!

Emodz · February 2020

AZZIZ said:

I have a very weird and annoying problem, my laptop display drops refresh from 144 to 60, and when I go to the Nvidia control panel its says its on 144 and when I try to set it to 60 the screen just blacks out and I have to wait for it to come back on (as of the refresh rate not supported)

The problem is so annoying that it made me reinstall windows and its still here, reinstalling drivers with DDU also didn't help.

any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

Helios 500 PH517-51

I have the same laptop and the exact same issue. What driver did you revert back to? It's driving me nuts. I'll miss the fps cap feature but I would rather have my 144hz back.

xapim · February 2020

Emodz roll back to any driver 3/6+ months old

AZZIZ · February 2020

Emodz said:

show previous quotes

AZZIZ said:

I have a very weird and annoying problem, my laptop display drops refresh from 144 to 60, and when I go to the Nvidia control panel its says its on 144 and when I try to set it to 60 the screen just blacks out and I have to wait for it to come back on (as of the refresh rate not supported)

The problem is so annoying that it made me reinstall windows and its still here, reinstalling drivers with DDU also didn't help.

any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

Helios 500 PH517-51

I have the same laptop and the exact same issue. What driver did you revert back to? It's driving me nuts. I'll miss the fps cap feature but I would rather have my 144hz back.

I'm on 441.20

Emodz · February 2020

Where can I read up on this being a known driver issue too? I've searched everywhere and your post is the only place I've ever seen it mentioned. I was beginning to think my laptop was defective.

AZZIZ · February 2020

Emodz said:

Where can I read up on this being a known driver issue too? I've searched everywhere and your post is the only place I've ever seen it mentioned. I was beginning to think my laptop was defective.

same here friend, Sadly looks like its a helios 500 only issue?? anyway I've reported the issue to nvidia hopefully they can fix it.

Emodz · February 2020

I went back to 441.41 I'll do some testing and see if the refresh stays at 144.

AZZIZ · February 2020

Emodz said:

I went back to 441.41 I'll do some testing and see if the refresh stays at 144.

Best of luck it did for me but didn't do that much of testing as I got a new monitor anyway. but please keep me posted.

Emodz · February 2020

AZZIZ said:

show previous quotes

Emodz said:

I went back to 441.41 I'll do some testing and see if the refresh stays at 144.

Best of luck it did for me but didn't do that much of testing as I got a new monitor anyway. but please keep me posted.

Using those older drivers the problem went away. After several days of testing the issues never returned on the older drivers. So there's definitely something up with the drivers that came out in 2020

AZZIZ · February 2020

Emodz said:

show previous quotes

AZZIZ said:

Emodz said:

I went back to 441.41 I'll do some testing and see if the refresh stays at 144.

Best of luck it did for me but didn't do that much of testing as I got a new monitor anyway. but please keep me posted.

Using those older drivers the problem went away. After several days of testing the issues never returned on the older drivers. So there's definitely something up with the drivers that came out in 2020

Yea sadly hopefully nvidia will look into it..

Emodz · March 2020

Tried again with newest 442.59 drivers. Issue still present. At this point this laptop does not work on any nvidia drivers released in 2020.

AZZIZ · March 2020

Emodz said:

Tried again with newest 442.59 drivers. Issue still present. At this point this laptop does not work on any nvidia drivers released in 2020.

Sadly I don't think Nvidia are aware of this issue yet, I think its a Helios 500 thing only and have no idea when its going to be fixed...

Emodz · March 2020

yeah. I also found I don't even have to reboot to get the 144 back I just have to close the laptop lid and open again which I guess turns the monitor off and back on and it'll go back from 60hz to 144 temporarily until it does it again. I wonder if the new drivers (any nvidia drivers since the implemeted frame capping) is messing with this laptops gsync even when set to off.. I have no idea but closing the lid which I guess puts it into sleep also will fix the issue until it randomly does it again. Not ideal but better than full reboot.

Emodz · March 2020

And just a note this issue does NOT happen on ANY nvidia driver 441.41 and prior.

AZZIZ · March 2020

Emodz said:

And just a note this issue does NOT happen on ANY nvidia driver 441.41 and prior.

That is so weird..
I've contacted an Nvidia represintive and linked him this post hopefully I will be hearning from him/her very soon.

Emodz · June 2020

Hey Azziz I thought you might want to know they finally are aware of this issue, I noticed in the latest driver notes:

Windows 10 Only [Notebook]: Some Pascal-based notebooks w/ high refresh rate displays may randomly drop to 60Hz during gameplay. [3009452]

Now its listed as still an outstanding issue but at least we know they know about it and can probably expect a fix finally soon.

AZZIZ · June 2020

Emodz said:

Hey Azziz I thought you might want to know they finally are aware of this issue, I noticed in the latest driver notes:
Windows 10 Only [Notebook]: Some Pascal-based notebooks w/ high refresh rate displays may randomly drop to 60Hz during gameplay. [3009452]
Now its listed as still an outstanding issue but at least we know they know about it and can probably expect a fix finally soon.

Great news!!
thank you for this hopefully wont take them long

Emodz · August 2020

AZZIZ said:

show previous quotes

Emodz said:

Hey Azziz I thought you might want to know they finally are aware of this issue, I noticed in the latest driver notes:
Windows 10 Only [Notebook]: Some Pascal-based notebooks w/ high refresh rate displays may randomly drop to 60Hz during gameplay. [3009452]
Now its listed as still an outstanding issue but at least we know they know about it and can probably expect a fix finally soon.

Great news!!
thank you for this hopefully wont take them long