Hello. I have an HP Omen gaming laptop. It has an intermittent problem playing games. Sometimes it will play games fine, then other times it will drop to a very low FPS. The problem with it being intermittent makes it hard for me really know what the issue is, so I thought I'd reach out for some help. Thanks in advance! The specs: HP Omen laptop EDIT: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Intel Core 07-9750 16gb RAM Windows 11 Home Nvidia app is up to date It also has this Omen gaming hub, which seems to want to optimise settings for games, which is also what the Nvidia app does. Not sure if there is a conflict. I've removed the back of the case and vacuumed the fans, so they are free of dust. I tried the "reset this pc" option and then updating everything I could think of. Initially the laptop ran games fine and I thought I'd solved the problem. Then suddenly it's running games slowly again. The game I play (or try to play the most) is Helldivers 2. So it's fairly demanding 3D game. When it is running ok it will run at 60fps, although loading it a little slow and janky. However now most of the time Helldivers 2 will run at about 10-15fps. What might you tech wizards suggest? Might it be an overheating problem? I did read something about power modes, but am a bit confused, as the laptop has those settings, the Nvidia app has them, and also the Oman gaming hub has settings like that. Help me bit-tech forum. You're my only hope.
I've loaded Helldivers 2 with some technical specs showing (through the Nvia app I think, or maybe steam). Does any of this info show any problems? Also, I know that the battery is in a poor state. The laptop has to be run plugged in to the power socket, or it will run out of power pretty quickly. Might there be any problems there? Thank you for your time.
The thing that stands out as suspicious to me is that you're running a demanding game, the GPU's at 73% load... but 50°C? In a laptop? If I had to guess, the GPU's not being spun up from its minimum operating clocks: when you're just at the desktop, it'll run very slowly to save power; when you fire up a more demanding application, like a game, it's supposed to increase its clocks dynamically. If it's not doing that, then you'd definitely get very poor performance. Doesn't look like whatever you're using there actually shows you the GPU clocks, only the CPU clocks. Have a look in the Nvidia app - in mine it's under "PowerMizer," but I'm on Linux so I have no idea if the Windows version calls it the same thing. As I write this, my GPU is running at a range of 300-645MHz graphics clock and 810MHz memory clock "level 0"; if I fire up a game, it jumps to "level 4" with 300-2160MHz GPU clock and 14000MHz memory clock. Big difference! Also double-check that the game is actually running on the Nvidia GPU, and not on the processor's integrated graphics.
If it is going up and down it would suggest a thermal or power delivery problem If its thermals it will hit a temperature and then the clocks will drop whilst it cools, similarly if your PSU is overheating as a bad battery means its always full load it may also stop charging which will put the GPU etc in low power mode, so it'll be a bit of trial and error to figure out where, you might consider loading hwinfo64, to monitor all the things as you play. Go in to power setting by right clicking on the battery in the taskbar and going into power and sleep options, in that menu one of the menu items will be power mode, select best performance to rule that out.
Thank you both. That has given me quite a bit to work with. I do see the Nvidia app is showing a GPU clock of 300MHz. It has an automatic tuning option, which I turned on and it did a scan for almost ten mins. It says it added 49MHz. I ran the game and still runs the same. So I will investigate the GPU clock settings, as I believe the app was still showing 300MHz as the game was running. Also I will look into hwinfo64 to monitor temperatures. So I'll go away now and see what I can work out. Thanks to both of you for your advice!
Quick update. So I believe the GPU clock now recognises I'm playing a game and it shot up to 1600MHz playing Helldivers 2 at 70fps! So it perhaps was just this auto tuning option in the Nvidia app. I will also keep an eye on temps as it still could be a problem there somewhere. Thanks to both of you.
