Completely underwhelming GPU performance

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BlackBeetle

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Apr 17, 2015
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Hi guys. First of all apologies if this is not the right section to ask question, but it's my 2nd time here and the 1st was ages ago and i don't remember.

Moving on to my problem.
My current laptop is, almost surely, performing very badly for what it's capable of. It's not a good gaming laptop, it's just a normal one. However, it's just way too much i think.

My laptop is an Asus X552L. It has an:
-Windows 10 64bit
-i5 4210U @ 1.70 GHz-2.40 GHz.
-6GB RAM
-Integrated graphics card is an Intel HD Graphics Family, "normal" GPU is a Nvidia GeForce 820M
-HDD 1TB.

I thought, and read online before buying this laptop and so on that, although the GPU being kind of low-end, it would still be able to play old-ish games easily with decent graphics.
My old laptop (which is like 8 or 9 years old) can run CS:source with pretty high settings with constant FPS, this, however, with settings medium-low, can only get between 10-30 FPS (mind you, they both costed roughly the same)

League of Legends, which is my main problem with this, should run the game with medium settings or so at a constant 60 FPS. It doesn't. It runs it very very slowly even in the lowest settings. I don't understand how or why, but there must be something wrong, as this very same laptop used to run League of Legends about 1 year ago with medium settings and run at roughly 60 FPS. Another example if NFS Underground 2. Which although being a game from 11 years ago, after a few minutes (i suppose it's because the GPU starts heating up) it starts having FPS drops as well. For a game that's 11 years old... is that really supposed to happen?

I'm sorry for overwriting, but i feel like i should explain the full problem for easier understanding and so i could get help easier.

Is there something that i can do to try improve the performance? Laptop's on full potential (connected to power directly), and the GPU's drives are updated.
Any question feel free to ask, but i'd really like to get this problem fixed. Or if it's not a problem, at least know about it so i can stop stressing myself over it.

Thank you in advance
 
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Three things occur to me w/ respect to LoL performance. Your comment about the GPU heating up may be dead right. Have you tried monitoring your temperatures with HWINFO64, Speedfan or other software? If it's been a year since you last ran LoL, there may have been a build up of dust in your laptop clogging up your fans, impairing your laptop's ability to cool the GPU.

Another possibility is power settings. If you search for Power Options in Win10, is it set to Battery Saver or similar? If you've configured it to save power, that will also throttle your performance. Also make sure that you're actually using your 820M, not the GPU built into your CPU. Usually there's an option in graphics settings to choose which GPU to use.

Final possibility is that they've upgraded the quality of the graphics in LoL. If there's been a major overhaul of the graphics, that could explain how the laptop is slower now than it was a year ago.

EDIT: See this for info about how to choose the correct GPU: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2615/~/how-do-i-customize-optimus-profiles-and-settings%3F
 
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Thanks for the quick reply.
Yes i used to monitor the temperature when i played NFS, because it really did feel like it was directly related to the heating. However in LoL, it starts slow right from the starts, which, although i don't know much about any of this, would indicate that it's not related to heat.

The power option, when not connected to a power source, is indeed to save energy. However when connected, it's programmed to use as much as possible (Power4Gear High Performance (and i've tried to fiddle with the settings but they seem to be as high as possible), so it's not that.

Possibly, yes, but even if they did increase that much, i don't believe it'd be enough for such a drop. And even if it is, like the CS:S example i gave, it performs worse than my old laptop, which i find ridiculous.

And yes it's actually using the Nvidia card. I've thought of that before and i have a little icon in the notification bar of what applications are using it, and LoL is one of those.

I've tried maxing out the GPU fans manually, but my laptop doesn't seem to have that ability
 
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Those were the first things that occurred to me...

Have you tried using GPU-Z to monitor your GPU clock speeds and usage? And have you tried Task Manager and Resource Monitor to make sure you don't have some background process eating up system resources?

How do regular apps perform? Notice any slowdowns in non-gaming applications?
 
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I did now. Played for about 5 minutes, this is what it shows.
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/15/10/03/5j7.png
Seems like the Core clock, Memory clock and Shader clock are at maximum or nearly maximum, despite the GPU load being at around 30 only. Temperature is also kind of decent for a Nividia card as far as i know.

Other apps seem pretty normal as they're just run of the mill ones. I do occasionally use apps like Excel, Powerpoint or Word, but they're not quick nor slow, they seem to be pretty normal to me. I also use Matlab from time to time, and although taking quite a while to actually turn on, after turning on it's rather fast, even compared to other computers who are slighly higher end.
 
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I googled a bit on what clock speed is, but honestly i couldn't really know what it is "in real life". Like, what does it mean if it's high or not? What can be wrong too? Is it hardware or software?

No, i haven't. The laptop is pretty new, i bought it last September, and although i use it often, i don't push the Nvidia GPU often, but who knows. You think that'd be a likely fix?
I said that i thought it was pretty normal because i thought Nvidia cards all achieved 70~90s ºC when being used by games.
That being said, according to the website you showed, this card should be able to run games on low. Meanwhile, my laptop can't run 11 year old games on medium...

Any suggestions besides blowing in with compressed air? It's still in warranty if that's relevant

EDIT: I've switched the GPU-Z to show maximum speeds and whatnot during game play. http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/15/10/03/g5c.png
The clock speed is nearly what you said it's supposed to be
 
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Two references that state the temps on an 820M shouldn't ever go over 80C:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/766548/what-is-nvidia-geforce-820ms-max-temperature-/
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2251915/degrees-celcius-normal-temp-2month-laptop-idle-mode-browsing.html

Blowing it out is the best you can do without taking it apart and giving it a thorough cleaning. I'm concerned that taking it apart might void your warranty. Try blowing it out as a first step and see if you can get those temps down.

EDIT: Directions on how to blow out your laptop: http://www.howtogeek.com/194479/how-to-clean-the-dust-out-of-your-laptop/

Go to the directions for "If You Can't Open Your Laptop".
 
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In the most recent pick, the gpu temps is 89C, I believe it's throttling down due to heat because look at your usage. Were both pics during a gaming session? You could get a laptop cooler if that's what it is, they do help some and aren't that expensive...$20-30.

It should only drop clocks that low if it's throttling and you can see much higher gpu usage when it is low clock speed vs higher clock speed and very low usage if that was during gaming.
 
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Thanks. Tomorrow or soon enough anyway i'll try to get it blown ( i don't have the tools at home ) and i'll post an update here. Although i doubt it'll fix it if i'm honest, but what do i know. Thank you for all your help ^^

@Reaper Eh, it's best if you ignore the 1st pic. I minized the game to take the pic, so it was a bit... idle. The 2nd one it was during maximum usage, so it's best to guide through there.
I have one lying around, maybe i should try to use one to see if something happens
 
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Ahhh gotcha, yeah give it a try because nvidia will start throttling before 90, I think it's around 83C depending on the series. And in that 2nd pic, even though the cards can go to 90C and it wont hurt them, they will throttle down either by dropping clocks or dropping usage and you can see how low the usage is, which in turn will just drop your performance way down.

It shows GPU load, which is also usage as 50% max on that pic. It should be in the 90% range.
 
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As a test, can i sort of... lower the card's security's level so i could maybe push it a bit foward? Or is it REALLY not recommended/not possible? I wouldn't mind shortening a bit the lifespan of this laptop (seeing as how much weaker it's proving to be compared to what i thought it'd be) in trade for a tiny little bit more performance
 
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