[QUOTE=Rodrigo;368191]I have a new Windows 7 laptop with an AMD HD8970M GPU on which I just started trying MFAKTO (x64).

The throughput numbers look pretty impressive -- over 200GHz-days/day. However, the performance drops to around 100GHz-d/d when the screen goes to sleep, and I haven't figured out a good way to stop it from doing that.

I'm also running an HD7770 on a Windows 7 desktop machine. This one doesn't have that problem: the display goes to sleep after 20 minutes without affecting the GPU's MFAKTO performance at all.

Have tried all sorts of power settings on the laptop, Device Manager, Catalyst Control Center, what have you, and the only setting change that's prevented this from happening is to set the display to Never go to sleep, but that's not acceptable.

Am I missing something? What else (if anything) can I do to keep the HD8970M running at full capacity when the display goes to sleep? Or is it something that's inherent in laptop PCs (or maybe in mobile graphics cards)?

Rodrigo[/QUOTE]

In windows power options, you can set the laptop to never go to sleep, and set closing the lid to do nothing on battery. When you want to crunch numbers, you can close the lid. See if that helps you out.

What you could also try is to set the monitor to never not turn off but close the lid (which will turn off the monitor but not because of any "sleep" stuff).

Get back to us after trying those two options, unless the second really isn't your style.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;368265]In windows power options, you can set the laptop to never go to sleep, and set closing the lid to do nothing on battery. When you want to crunch numbers, you can close the lid. See if that helps you out.[/QUOTE]

Going to sleep is not the problem. The GPU going into power saving "mode" when the screen is off is the problem.

[QUOTE=kracker;368266]Going to sleep is not the problem. The GPU going into power saving "mode" when the screen is off is the problem.[/QUOTE]

Yes, but this should show if it's indeed the monitor being off that actually triggers this or if it's a "sleep" (or similar) effect. That's what I want to get from the second test. Think of it as seeing if it makes a difference whether windows or the GPU or the BIOS or whatever is "telling" the monitor to be off.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;368273]Yes, but this should show if it's indeed the monitor being off that actually triggers this or if it's a "sleep" (or similar) effect. That's what I want to get from the second test. Think of it as seeing if it makes a difference whether windows or the GPU or the BIOS or whatever is "telling" the monitor to be off.[/QUOTE]
OK, I've set the laptop to never sleep and then do nothing when I close the lid. In both cases, on either battery or wall power. Then I closed the lid.

The lid went black anyway when I closed it. Will wait a while and then report back on the results.

Rodrigo

UPDATE: I left the lid closed for a few minutes and then opened it to see how MFAKTO was doing. MFAKTO output was down again --although, curiously, to ~120 GHz-d/d as opposed to ~100 GHz-d/d which is what I've been seeing before tonight's setting changes.

I'll go away for a further while now, leaving the lid open but with these new settings, and see what happens.

Nope -- with these new settings, leaving the lid open didn't make any difference relative to closing it.

Per @TheMawn's most recent post, I'll go into the BIOS and see if there's anything relevant/useful in there for this issue.

Rodrigo

[QUOTE=Rodrigo;368277]Nope -- with these new settings, leaving the lid open didn't make any difference relative to closing it.

Per @TheMawn's most recent post, I'll go into the BIOS and see if there's anything relevant/useful in there for this issue.

Rodrigo[/QUOTE]

One possibility is that the GPU is clocking down due to attached display not being active. In which case, catalyst driver is where you should focus.

[QUOTE=Rodrigo;368277]Nope -- with these new settings, leaving the lid open didn't make any difference relative to closing it.[/QUOTE]

I would also advise you NOT close the lid for long when the CPU and/or GPU are working hard. Many laptops effectively rely on the keyboard as a (sometimes significant) part of the cooling airflow.

Wow, I did not know that. I'll keep the lid open, thanks!!

Rodrigo

[QUOTE=axn;368278]One possibility is that the GPU is clocking down due to attached display not being active. In which case, catalyst driver is where you should focus.[/QUOTE]
I've gone into the Catalyst Control Center a number of times and nothing looks promising there. You'd think that would be the #1 place to go, but I've gone (AFAIK) through every possible setting and there's nothing related to this specific issue. PowerPlay I had already set to "maximize performance."

FWIW the CCC version is 2013.0315.1331.22405.

Not out of options yet. Barring other ideas, next I'll be checking the BIOS for a possible setting in there, and if that doesn't do it then I'll try that "Monitor Off" utility.

Rodrigo

CPUID's HWMonitor is a good tool for monitoring certain things you may not have considered. In my case, it was the HDD temperature.

I do close my laptop monitor while crunching over a long period of time, BUT my graphics are integrated to the CPU and it has a 25W power limit. With a dedicated GPU and a stronger CPU, the overall power consumption is likely to be much higher. HWMonitor can help with that, too.

While I do close the lid, I make sure to at least leave the air intake hanging over the side of a table (or better yet, I prop the laptop on its side pointing the exhaust straight up) to improve things in that regard. HWMonitor logs the max temperature it sees so over the course of a few hours or so you can get a good idea of the range of temperatures your hardware goes through. The highest CPU temperature difference I see is 60C if it's on a flat service, 55C if it hangs over the edge and 50C if it's propped on its side. The average temperature seems to be about 5C less than the max.

Leaving my monitor flap open doesn't affect my CPU temperature but it does affect the hard drive in a small way. Flat, with the lid closed, the hard drive temperature HAS reached 58C once, but I think a windows update ran the hard drive during that time. Usually the hard drive never goes over 50C and the current temperature hovers around the upper-mid 40's.


Long story short, if you ARE committed to using your laptop for GIMPS, expect that you're going to be harming your laptop's life expectancy, though you may not do so in a noticeable way: my four-year-old laptop is a bit sluggish after intermittent Starcraft II, a few other easier games, and a year of P-1 with GIMPS, but it still functions very well otherwise.

Get something to log hardware temperature (and keep the max value) and slowly inhibit cooling to see what you can and can't get away with. Watch for CPU (if you're using it), GPU and HDD temps (and RAM if you happen to have such a thing). Start with an A-frame or propping the laptop on its side, open, and see what you get. Then close it. Then lay it flat on a surface with the vents nice and clear.

If at any point the temperature gets outside your comfortable range, you'll have to make sure you can avoid whatever that cooling configuration was. For me it was seeing my CPU hit 88C and HDD hit 58C when I decided that I needed to have the vents hanging over the side of the desk.

From [url]http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/AMD_Radeon_HD_8970M_GPU_Specs.pdf[/url]

[CODE]AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology
Automatic power management with low power idle states
AMD PowerTune technology
Intelligent TDP management technology
Dynamic clockspeed/performance enhancement for games

AMD ZeroCore Power technology
<1W idle for GPUs with inactive displays
Ultra-low power state support for multi-GPU configurations
<1W idle for slave GPUs in AMD CrossFire™ configurations

AMD Enduro™ technology
Seamlessly powers down GPU when not required, and powers up GPU when you need it
Power state-based control (AC vs. DC power) [/CODE]
There is a whole bunch of power-related stuff there. Haven't got a clue which one is messing you up :no: