K415S poor performance

[Tyaculo]

Hi everybody, I'm new to the forums and I need some help (duh ).

I own a Vaio PCG-K415S notebook and I'm having some big problems with it. I had them for a while but I can't think of anything I can do about it anymore.

It can't seem to keep the performance speed up. This mainly is noticeable when playing videogames. It stutters through the game for a couple of minutes, then runs perfectly smooth for a couple of seconds and drops back to the extremely poor speed. (For example, Half-Life 2 and Half-Life: Source have these problems)
The specifications shouldn't be a problem, but currently even Diablo II is having trouble playing correctly, and that's a game I played on my Pentium II 450mhz machine!

Also, when I surf around the net and watch a video from my harddisk, the video often slows or stutters. The sound keeps on playing, but the video itself just stutters or shows a single image.

When I run a program, game etc., the clockspeed (right-click -> my computer) often drops all the way to around 250mhz. Is this normal?

I downloaded MobileMeter because someone on this forum recommended it. The frequency seems to stay at 3.06ghz, probably because I haven't run anything aside from Firefox.
The temperature is at 73.0 degrees celcius. Is this supposed to happen with the K415S type?
HDD temperature is at 42 degrees.

Wew, that was a lot of text. I hope someone can help me out here, I tried everything I could think of. Including updating the video drivers for my Ati Mobility Radeon 9200 but it said it couldn't install.
Thanks a lot in advance,
Tyaculo

[Blencogo]

Hi Tyaculo,

Have you checked that Direct Memory Access (DMA) is enabled and working?

1. Go to Device Manager and expand IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.
2. Double-click on Primary IDE Channel.
3. In Advanced Settings check that 'DMA if Available' is selected for both Devices and check that a DMA Mode is in the 'Current Transfer Mode' box.
4. If not go back and right-click on your Primary IDE Channel and choose Uninstall.
5. Reboot and check the Current Transfer Modes.



EDIT: Welcome to Club Vaio

Your Vaio is too hot. Try blowing some compressed air though the vents to the fan and see if you can dislodge some dirt!!!

:smileygrin:

[Tyaculo]

Hey Blencogo, thanks for your reply.

I checked the DMA.
It says:
"Device 0"
Device Type: Auto Detection (grayed out)
Transfer mode: DMA if available
Current transfer mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5

"Device 1"
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer mode: DMA if available
Current transfer mode: Not Applicable

I reinstalled it, and at device 1 it still says 'not applicable'. Is this a big deal?
Also, I don't know why, but since I'm running MobileMeter to check my clockspeed things appear to be running better
Half-life 2 ran almost without shocking, and that was only after I putted it on 1280x800 pixels to test it out (I think it's too much for my 64mb video card).

[Blencogo]

Do you have a secondary IDE channel in Device Manager - if so check that for DMA. You should have two devices running DMA - Your Hard disc (which is probably the UDMA5 device) and your DVD Drive (which should be UDMA3 ish).

Whatever you did seems to have improved things a bit!!!!

Hope it stays that way???????????

[Tyaculo]

Ah yes, my second DMA device has "Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2"
I guess that's ok.

I'll play a few games to see if things improved. However, since the only thing that's really different is the videocard driver, the problem might lie there.

Also, I'm not sure if they sell compressed air here (I live in the Netherlands), I never heard of it but that could just be me
Would cooling my CPU temperature, by cleaning the vents, help my speed problem? Or is the high temperature something that might eventually damage my hardware?
Thanks!

[rich912]

Hi Tyaculo,

Would cooling my CPU temperature, by cleaning the vents, help my speed problem? Or is the high temperature something that might eventually damage my hardware?

If you reach a CPU temperature whereby passive cooling (a reduction of the CPU speed) kicks in then yes this will certainly affect performance. The processor in your notebook has a max. operating temperature of 95 C so passive cooling will kick in at around 90 C.

Operating at the extreme end of the temperature range will almost certainly reduce the life of the CPU and other components.

I am sure that you will find compressed air for sale in most PC outlets in the Netherlands – possibly labelled as an ‘Air Duster’ or the equivalent translation…