Low frames 50% of the time (Lenovo Y50-70)

[MartinAH]

Hello, I've had my Lenovo Y50-70 laptop for about a year now. For almost three months I've struggled with it acting wierd.

I've noticed it mostly in games like Dota 2 and CS:GO (Source games)

I play the first 10-20 minutes all well and fine with 100+ fps, then suddenly it will drop down to around 20-30 for two minutes. Then it will be normal and go down again 2 minutes later. This will repeat over and over again and it'll run 50% of the time and slowly 50% of the time changing every 2-3 minutes.

I guess the fact that I use an external monitor to play on might me a factor, but I have no clue.
Any help would be appreciated!

Specs:
GTX 960M
8GB RAM
i7-4720HQ 2.6GHz
1080p monitor (external)

 

[Samat]

Does the laptop get hot? Could be thermal throttling causing the drops. Get HWMonitor to check temps. Also check for any dust buildup.

 

[MartinAH]

No, the heat shouldn't be a problem as the laptop always sits on an external fan.

 

[king3pj]

I would still run HWInfo or HWMonitor while playing just to double check. Like Samat said, it sounds like thermal throttling to me.

The game starts off good with 100 FPS because your hardware is cool. It then drops to 20-30 FPS for a few minutes because the hardware is getting too hot so it slows itself down. After the hardware has cooled off for a few minutes it goes back to full speed until it gets too hot again.

This isn't guaranteed to be the problem but it sure sounds like it to me.

Do you have control over the internal fan speeds? If so I would set a more aggressive fan curve. It will make your laptop run louder while gaming but it might keep it cool enough that you don't have thermal throttling slowing you down.

Another option is to enable VSYNC. Assuming your monitor has a 60Hz refresh rate this will limit you to 60 FPS. The reason this will help is because if your hardware is capable of putting out 100 FPS it won't have to run at 100% load to maintain 60 FPS. This decreased load means less heat output and less heat output means you are less likely to have thermal throttling.

 

[MartinAH]

I would still run HWInfo or HWMonitor while playing just to double check. Like Samat said, it sounds like thermal throttling to me.

The game starts off good with 100 FPS because your hardware is cool. It then drops to 20-30 FPS for a few minutes because the hardware is getting too hot so it slows itself down. After the hardware has cooled off for a few minutes it goes back to full speed until it gets too hot again.

This isn't guaranteed to be the problem but it sure sounds like it to me.

Do you have control over the internal fan speeds? If so I would set a more aggressive fan curve. It will make your laptop run louder while gaming but it might keep it cool enough that you don't have thermal throttling slowing you down.

Another option is to enable VSYNC. Assuming your monitor has a 60Hz refresh rate this will limit you to 60 FPS. The reason this will help is because if your hardware is capable of putting out 100 FPS it won't have to run at 100% load to maintain 60 FPS. This decreased load means less heat output and less heat output means you are less likely to have thermal throttling.

I'll try it out and report back here.

 

[MartinAH]

Ok, so my findings are. It does get hot, 80-90 degrees at max during benchmarks and high graphic gaming. I also have found out that when my laptops does get hot, and every time I get frames drops my CPU clock drops down to a max of 800MHz...

tldr; when laptop gets hot I get framedrops cause my CPU drops to 800MHZ

 

[MartinAH]

I would still run HWInfo or HWMonitor while playing just to double check. Like Samat said, it sounds like thermal throttling to me.

The game starts off good with 100 FPS because your hardware is cool. It then drops to 20-30 FPS for a few minutes because the hardware is getting too hot so it slows itself down. After the hardware has cooled off for a few minutes it goes back to full speed until it gets too hot again.

This isn't guaranteed to be the problem but it sure sounds like it to me.

Do you have control over the internal fan speeds? If so I would set a more aggressive fan curve. It will make your laptop run louder while gaming but it might keep it cool enough that you don't have thermal throttling slowing you down.

Another option is to enable VSYNC. Assuming your monitor has a 60Hz refresh rate this will limit you to 60 FPS. The reason this will help is because if your hardware is capable of putting out 100 FPS it won't have to run at 100% load to maintain 60 FPS. This decreased load means less heat output and less heat output means you are less likely to have thermal throttling.

When I enable Vsync I notice some lag between an interaction and it happening on the screen. example: I move mouse to the corner of the screen in Dota 2. The screen starts moving in that direction 0.1 sec, or something minimal like that, later. That is annoying.

 

[Samat]

Ok, so my findings are. It does get hot, 80-90 degrees at max during benchmarks and high graphic gaming. I also have found out that when my laptops does get hot, and every time I get frames drops my CPU clock drops down to a max of 800MHz...

tldr; when laptop gets hot I get framedrops cause my CPU drops to 800MHZ

So the CPU is thermal throttling. Get some compressed air and blow out the dust (there are videos on youtube), there could be some that has gotten onto the heatsink(s).

 

[MartinAH]

Ok, so my findings are. It does get hot, 80-90 degrees at max during benchmarks and high graphic gaming. I also have found out that when my laptops does get hot, and every time I get frames drops my CPU clock drops down to a max of 800MHz...

tldr; when laptop gets hot I get framedrops cause my CPU drops to 800MHZ

So the CPU is thermal throttling. Get some compressed air and blow out the dust (there are videos on youtube), there could be some that has gotten onto the heatsink(s).

I opened the laptop 10 minutes ago and didn't find any dust anywhere ( it has a filter on the bottom, so I guess that's why there isn't anything there.)

 

[Samat]

Ok, so my findings are. It does get hot, 80-90 degrees at max during benchmarks and high graphic gaming. I also have found out that when my laptops does get hot, and every time I get frames drops my CPU clock drops down to a max of 800MHz...

tldr; when laptop gets hot I get framedrops cause my CPU drops to 800MHZ

So the CPU is thermal throttling. Get some compressed air and blow out the dust (there are videos on youtube), there could be some that has gotten onto the heatsink(s).

I opened the laptop 10 minutes ago and didn't find any dust anywhere ( it has a filter on the bottom, so I guess that's why there isn't anything there.)

Could also be a problem with thermal paste or contact of cooler with cpu, but I have no expertise on how to deal with these issues with laptops. Did you play these games on it before it started this?

 

[MartinAH]

Ok, so my findings are. It does get hot, 80-90 degrees at max during benchmarks and high graphic gaming. I also have found out that when my laptops does get hot, and every time I get frames drops my CPU clock drops down to a max of 800MHz...

tldr; when laptop gets hot I get framedrops cause my CPU drops to 800MHZ

So the CPU is thermal throttling. Get some compressed air and blow out the dust (there are videos on youtube), there could be some that has gotten onto the heatsink(s).

I opened the laptop 10 minutes ago and didn't find any dust anywhere ( it has a filter on the bottom, so I guess that's why there isn't anything there.)

Could also be a problem with thermal paste or contact of cooler with cpu, but I have no expertise on how to deal with these issues with laptops. Did you play these games on it before it started this?

yep

 

[Samat]

Ok, so my findings are. It does get hot, 80-90 degrees at max during benchmarks and high graphic gaming. I also have found out that when my laptops does get hot, and every time I get frames drops my CPU clock drops down to a max of 800MHz...

tldr; when laptop gets hot I get framedrops cause my CPU drops to 800MHZ

So the CPU is thermal throttling. Get some compressed air and blow out the dust (there are videos on youtube), there could be some that has gotten onto the heatsink(s).

I opened the laptop 10 minutes ago and didn't find any dust anywhere ( it has a filter on the bottom, so I guess that's why there isn't anything there.)

Could also be a problem with thermal paste or contact of cooler with cpu, but I have no expertise on how to deal with these issues with laptops. Did you play these games on it before it started this?

yep

If it is still under warranty you might want to check with the retailer/manufacturer what they say about it since it seems like a issue with the cooling solution. Pulling it apart yourself to fix it will void the warranty atleast. There should be some people on these forums that know about reattaching coolers and applying new thermal paste on laptops.