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  • Graphics card question...

    My fiance bought one of those excellent $1400 gaming laptops with his tax return a year or two ago and so far it has yet to disappoint. It can run Skyrim on its highest settings with no trouble and hardly any heat from the card. Same for Minecraft, which is more taxing due to size than graphics, but whatever.

    But then there's Sims 3.

    When I started playing it, it would take virtually no time at all for the area around the num pad/arrow keys (presumably where the GC is) to get BLAZING HOT to the point if I rested my hand there for more than a few seconds, it would start to hurt.

    What's up?

    I've removed Sims 3 and am playing 2 without much complaint (only thing I really miss is the easy customization) but want to know -- what is going on?
    My Guide to Oblivion

    "I resent the implication that I've gone mad, Sprocket."

  • #2
    Fans

    I never trust the fans to kick in time, so I have wired the last two laptops I owned so a three way switch offers normal computer control, low and high fan speeds.

    In the high speed mode I never found the machine running hot.

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    • #3
      Just a hunch, but try turning Vsync on. Sometimes, especially with casual or older games, a good graphics card is so fast that the CPU is fully occupied feeding it with data. Vsync has the side-effect of limiting the framerate, so reducing the work to do.

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      • #4
        Ahh, so that's what Vsync is! I was curious about that.
        My Guide to Oblivion

        "I resent the implication that I've gone mad, Sprocket."

        Comment


        • #5
          Yep. If it still gets hot, you might be able to switch the fans to high during the game (if they aren't), or you can rig up a fan (potentially), or a myriad of other "improv" solutions. Those are riskier, and not particularly aesthetic.

          Vsync should limit framerate to whatever the monitor is able to handle. If a monitor is a 60 Hertz, that means Vsync will limit framerate to 60 FPS at a max. If you disable it, then you can get more FPS, but it will blur and pretty much flood the card with so many frames, bogging it down. That generates extra stress and heat, not to mention the CPU having to send it all and thereby creating the flood.

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          • #6
            A simple thing to also try (if you haven't already done it) is to get a vacuum that blows air and give all the vents a good blow out - the fans could be getting dusty and helping the overheating.

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            • #7
              If the fans are all working properly(not choked with dust/lint/catfur, etc), you can always look at something like SpeedFan. It monitors temperatures and fan speeds, and you can manually override speeds if necessary. Crank the GPU fan up to full before playing and leave it there.
              "If your day is filled with firefighting, you need to start taking the matches away from the toddlers…” - HM

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              • #8
                It may be the Vsync thing, then again I am the only one who really cleans the dust off it, so...

                It only has fans on the back . I'll have to get a can of air or whatever it's called to really clean them as I noticed some minor dust buildup around the edges.
                My Guide to Oblivion

                "I resent the implication that I've gone mad, Sprocket."

                Comment


                • #9
                  Thanks

                  Quoth Crossbow View Post
                  If the fans are all working properly(not choked with dust/lint/catfur, etc), you can always look at something like SpeedFan. It monitors temperatures and fan speeds, and you can manually override speeds if necessary. Crank the GPU fan up to full before playing and leave it there.
                  Thanks, I give it a try. Maybe no more rebuilding my machines.

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                  • #10
                    I think it might be just a Sims 3 thing.

                    I got a copy from the last Humble Bundle, and installed it on my kids' desktop, which has an MSI Hawk OC'd Radeon HD 5770. This is a card that, even though it's factory OC'd, is supposed to run quietly.

                    My daughter was playing it last night, and you could hear the twin fans on the card working hard, spinning as fast as they could. I never heard that from any of the other games I run on this system, at least not that noisy.

                    Then, I read this article, with Maxis saying that the next version will work better on low-end machines.

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                    • #11
                      Quoth Tama View Post
                      It may be the Vsync thing, then again I am the only one who really cleans the dust off it, so...

                      It only has fans on the back . I'll have to get a can of air or whatever it's called to really clean them as I noticed some minor dust buildup around the edges.
                      It probably has vents on the side and\or underneath for it to pull air in.

                      Make sure it's on a hard surface so the vents are unimpeded or better yet get a laptop cooler to put more air through it
                      Lady, people aren't chocolates. D'you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling. Dr Cox - Scrubs

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