GTX 660m underperforming while gaming

[Squall56]

Hello everybody,
Here is my problem, I bought a mid-range gaming laptop few years ago : MSI GE70-0nd 051 (http/www.materiel.net/ordinateur-portable/msi-ge70-0nd-051fr-77686.html)
Proc : i5 - 3210
GPU : Nvidia GTX 660m
I added 4 gigs of ram for a total of 8 and change the HDD for an SSD.
I used to play games without problem, getting mostly high FPS running in medium quality. I played Heroes Of The Storm with around 80 FPS a year ago. I wanted to give it another try, and found that my FPS dropped down a lot. Mostly around 40 FPS, but i can go down to 20 sometimes but also up to 110 FPS or more at other times.

I thought it might be my graphic card which is now quite old, I tried the last driver (out a few days ago), i tried older driver (2015) but I am still not performing well. I thought maybe the game changed and it requiered more ressources, but I am also encountering the same problem in others games. (And I am always running the games at the lowest quality)

The thing is that my FPS aren't even stable at all. I cleaned my laptop using an aerosol dust remover and used MSI Afterburner to check on my GPU activity. I discovered that it was not running at its full performance as you can notice in the attached pictures. (GPU core clock is at 405Mhz, I should be way higher. I am running the laptop in high performance power input, I also checked Nvidia panel to get the best performance.

I have nothing running in the background not even my browser..
The clock does not seems to go higher even while playing.. You can also see that the temperature is quite low (~60°C)


Pictures of MSI Afterburner : http/imgur.com/a/phWbv
Any idea of how to fix this ?

 

[Alan Caldwell]

Try this,
First of all you need to TOTALLY remove all the old drivers. Use this link.
http/www.wagnardmobile.com/?q=node/69
Note:
Select the respective company(i.e Nvidia or ATI) drivers to be uninstalled.
Use clean and restart option.
And then install the new drivers after rebooting.

 

[Squall56]

Thanks for you answer sir, I did what you recommended, and even installed drivers that come out just today (13th May) but it is not getting any better..

Any other suggestion ?

 

[Alan Caldwell]

So you tried clean installing? Try OCing to the stock clocks.

 

[Squall56]

Yes, clean installation with the software you proposed then lastest drivers avalaible.
By the way I can now reach 835 Mhe, it seems that launching the game in x86 instead of x64 solved that part, however I still think that it is not performing as expected.
I am Ocing via MSI Afterburner (+135Mhz) so I am supposed to reach around 970Mhz I think, but it is not overclocking to that value and stays at 835Mhz.
You can find attached new pictures after starting the game in x86. Maybe the game is badly optimized, is there any benchmark thing I could test so you could check better ?

http/imgur.com/a/sabVT

EDIT : It's down again to 405Mhz, no idea why.

 

[Alan Caldwell]

Which games are you referring to?

 

[Squall56]

I am trying to play Heroes Of The Strom from Blizzard : http/us.battle.net/heroes/en/

Requirements : http/www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/heroes-of-the-storm/12507

 

[Alan Caldwell]

Turn off the anti-aliasing and see if that helps.

 

[Squall56]

Everything is at minimum, so no antialiasing at all. It would not make the GPU core clock to take higher value tough.

 

[Alan Caldwell]

In MSI Afterburner, open up the settings and look for option : Disable ULPS. Make sure you tick the box and hit ok.
You will be asked to reboot your system and you will have to agree with that otherwise it wont work.

 

[Squall56]

It looks like ULPS is a AMD only option so i cannot check/uncheck it.

 

[Alan Caldwell]

It sounds like the driver crashed and recovered, and it's stuck in safe mode clocks. Try this, change those clocks to the full 3D clocks using Nvidia Inspector Link.

 

[Squall56]

I already overclocked through Nvidia Inspector. It works on some games but not in Heroes Of The Storm. I'll try a windows reinstallation when I have some time.