MX150 4GB not performing as expected! It can barely perform!

[matt26b]

PLEASE READ ALL OF IT AND HELP ME! SAVE THIS PRODUCT!

I recently purchased the HP ENVY X360 15 cn-0005na (i7 8550U/16GB RAM/128GB SDD/1TB HDD/ MX150 4GB) and the HP Care Pack for 3 years. I received the laptop 2 days ago.

Immediately, I downloaded and installed all updates from Windows Update, from HP Support Asssistant and I downloaded and installed the latest driver for the MX150 from NVIDIA.

I know this isn't a gaming laptop but I plan on using this for light, casual gaming (Mainly E-sport games) which this laptop SHOULD BE CAPABLE OF.

I played Overwatch and Dota 2 while plugged in. I've seen benchmark videos of the MX150 on YouTube and it performs stable on their laptops which have the i5 8250U/8GB RAM/MX150 2GB.

Ofcourse I played with the charger plugged in but the FPS was all over the place from the beginning and eventually going down to 9 FPS with the CPU temperature reaching 90 degrees and above.

I used MSI Afterburner, RIvaTuner Statistics Server and SpeedFan to monitor the temperature and usage.

I then played unplugged, the FPS was much higher and stable at the beginning then it started going down to 9 FPS again with the CPU temperature at 63 degrees which is a low temperature when gaming to be honest. It even reached to point of the laptop shutting down. I've seen other laptops perform with their CPU at 63-80 degrees and their FPS is stable as expected. 

I even tried putting the battery option on full performance, chose the High Performance battery plan and chose the thermal profile for heavy load in HP Command Center and chose the lowest graphical settings on the games. Nothing changed.

I've read other posts regarding this problem but with a different HP laptop e.g ENVY and Pavillion. They also experienced and stated similar problems. Some of them found a solution of using a 90 watt charger instead of the 65 watt AC adapter that came with their laptops, seems 65 watts isn't provinding enough power to the CPU and GPU. Using a 90 watt AC adapter reached the expected performance and solved their problem. Mine came with the 65 AC adapter. 

Therefore, can you please supply me a 90 watt or higher e.g. 120 watt AC adapter, which is compatible with my laptop model? As this seems to fix this issue for others.

Or provide me with another solution to this problem because I'll be using this laptop for many years given its high specifications. 

I'm dissapointed by this as I didn't get what I paid for.

Why put an MX150 in your laptops? It can't even perform well or at all!

This is unacceptable and unfair HP.

Please reply to this.

Thanks

[Huffer]

The Forum can't provide you with an adapter. This is a User to User thing. 

Just pointing out there are two different variants of the MX150:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-MX150-Benchmark-and-Specs-of-the-GT-1030-for-Laptops.22...

Youtube benchmarks may be showing the normal variant and I am pretty sure you have the more limited version.

You might have been better off not to install the nVidia driver but to use the HP driver, which is optimized for your machine. 

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/266286-nvidia-mx150-gpu-massively-slowed-laptops

Don't mean to be uncaring. Let's try the driver rollback and see if it makes any difference. Reading the stories at the links above, not sure it will but worth a try

[David_J_W]

This is a peer-to-peer forum. If you want a response by HP, you should really contact HP in your country for their response. You might get a HP representative respond to your post, though it is not guaranteed.

If the description you give is correct - and it is not the first time I have read such a post - the technical reasons for the behaviour are easy to understand. All notebooks employ throttling to ensure that thermal and power limits are not breached. 65W was always likely to be tight to power a heavily used 15W TDP CPU, a heavily used dGPU, the screen, memory, fans and sundry power consumers such as storage drives. Users do not expect their systems to deplete the battery when connected to external power. It seems the designers might have taken the decision to throttle power consumption down to that available from external power when a power adapter is connected.

The marketing and design decisions behind notebooks inevitably involve a trade-off. Consumers want systems that are lightweight, slim, high performance, long battery life and low cost - but you can't have all of these things at the same time. If dropping from a 90W to a 65W power adapter allows HP to hit a desired price point and perhaps also mean the majority of users have less to carry around, it is tempting to make that compromise. Many users will never notice this sort of performance limitation; as you note, this is not sold as a gaming device.

You got what you paid for - the specification says the notebook has a GeForce MX150 4GB and a 65W AC adapter.

As @Huffer says, start by reinstalling the HP supplied driver, which might be better optimised for the GPU in your notebook. If that piece of self-help fails, a 90W power adapter is not too expensive - this version (click) is under £40 from HP's UK store.

[matt26b]

Thanks for replying.

I read the link about the 2 different versions of the MX150. 

• Normal, powerful variant - N17S-G1-A1 with 1468 - 1531 MHz and 25 Watt TDP.
• Weaker variant - N17S-LG-A1 with 936 - 1037 MHz and 10 Watt TDP.

I checked mine using GPU-Z. 

My MX150 is actually the normal and more powerful variant. As you can see by the GPU Clock at the bottom in this picture.

I tried your suggestion and uninstalled my current driver which I downloaded from NVIDIA and installed the NVIDIA driver from HP instead specifically for my laptop model.

I played on the same game again which was Dota 2 with the same settings.

While playing with the AC plugged in, this time since the beginning of a match, frames are much lower, before I used to hit 60 FPS at the beginning of the match. 

The FPS eventually starts to drop like before.

Also before my GPU temperature would reach 70 to 80 degrees and my CPU temperature would reach 70 - 90 degrees.

This time with the HP NVIDIA driver, the GPU temperature is maxed at 56 degrees and my CPU temp would be 50 - 60 degrees. I even tested this in Overwatch and I would get similar results and FPS. 

Clearly the NVIDIA driver provided by HP is optimised as temperatures are lower.

Also my GPU core clock this time would be at 130 Mhz to 400 Mhz most of the time. When this chip's default clock is 1469 Mhz.

Overall, it did make a difference, but the expected performance is still not there. For now I will keep this driver as temperatures are lower.

I guess my only option is to purchase and test with a 90 watt AC adapter, since this is the most common solution I've read from other posts regarding this problem. Unless HP comes with a new updates which I'll install.

Thanks 

[matt26b]

Thanks for replying

Please check my reply to @Huffer 

Yes I know I got the MX150 4GB and 65 watt AC adapter but my point is that I can't even use it to it's full or near full potential. 

So it doesn't make sense why HP would put an MX150 in here with a 65 watt AC adapter. Maybe if they included a 90 watt AC adapter instead, which they also sell in slim versions, is likely acceptable for consumers that would want a lighter, smaller AC adapter with this laptop. 

RIght now, my only option is to purchase and test out the 90 watt AC adapter from HP. 

I checked the product you linked me, it's compatible with the different models of the HP ENVY X360 15 but my model cn-0005na is not listed. I hope they just haven't updated the list yet. I'll contact HP to check if the 90 watt AC adapter is compatible with my laptop instead.

If you do know if it's compatible with my model, please let me know.

Thanks

[David_J_W]

Unless I'm very much mistaken, there are really only three families of power adapters: USB-C, 4.5mm jack and 7.4mm jack. Modern devices are one of the first two types.

As your device uses a round power jack, I expect any HP 90W 4.5mm jack power adapter to work - but I will leave it to others to be more definitive than that.

[matt26b]

I ordered the HP Slim 90W AC Adapter since it went on sale last night and still is on sale, coincidence much.

It's on sale for £36.00, usually it's £70.00. 

It'll arive in 2 or 3 days.

I'll let you know if this solves this MX150 issue once I've received and tested it. Hopefully it does. 

Thanks again

[David_J_W]

It's always a bonus when the item you want goes on sale. If only the 150W Slim Smart AC Adapter (used by my new ZBook) was available retail at a reasonable price, as I could really do with a second one. So far as I can tell this adapter is only currently available as a spare part, though you can get an older 150W adapter retail. As a part with a cable it's just under £105!

This is ths challenge for HP when specifying systems - the larger the power adapter, the more expensive it is even when you strip out the markup applied when the adapter is sold retail or as a spare part. The 230W Slim Smart AC Adapter powering my Thunderbolt Dock G2 230W would cost a few pence under £150 from HP Parts including the mains cable, VAT and shipping!

I hope your new 90W power adapter will solve your gaming performance issue and look forward to your feedback once you receive and test it. The 65W adapter included with the system will be a worthwhile spare and perhaps a more portable alternative when you are travelling with your computer but will not be gaming.

[matt26b]

I do hope the 90 watt AC adapter will solve my problem.

I found something interesting regarding this problem but with another laptop.

I actually searched 'MX150 90 watt charger' on YouTube and I saw a video review on the 'Asus Zenbook Flip 14 2 in 1' by 'OWNorDisown'. Similar laptop to my HP ENVY X360 15 which is also a convertible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH_-sUR9ym0

In the video, the 'Asus Zenbook Flip 14 2 in 1' also had a MX150. The laptop is also looks thinner than my ENVY X360.

He did a gaming benchmark with the 65 watt AC adapter plugged in, that came with the Zenbook he's reviewing. 

He also got very similar results to mine, where the FPS would dip up and down and the GPU clock going down to 139 MHz. He even selected High Performance on Power Management and NVIDIA Control Panel and it still made no difference.

So he plugged in a 3rd party 90 watt AC adapter and his problem was solved! His GPU clock rate was actually reaching the default clock rate of the MX150 (1469 MHz). His CPU clock rate (i7 8550u) was also reaching up to 3.3 GHz which I was far off when I was testing. Both his CPU and GPU temp were around 60 - 70 degrees which is normal. And most importantly, his FPS was higher and consistent.

Hopefully I get similar results to the reviewer and that the HP 90 watt Slim AC adapter is compatible with my laptop. The HP 90 watt Slim AC adapter comes with interchangeable tips of 4.5mm and 7.4mm tips. I think my 65 watt AC adapter uses the 4.5mm.

[matt26b]

Hi

I just received the 90 watt charger. It charges my laptop.

Unfortunately, the problem isn't solved.

My GPU still throttles at 68 - 70+ degrees which are acceptable temperatures when gaming. The GPU clock rate again would start going down to 139 MHz and not below it.

I even tried undervolting my GPU to 1300 MHz using MSI Afterburner and disabling turbo on my CPU using ThrottleStop, as it would decrease the voltage so it could decrease the temperature, yet again it made no difference.

The CPU is working fine, the MX150 is not. The GPU won't stay consistent around its default clock rate of 1469 MHz.

I haven't asked NVIDIA yet so I'm going to explain my situation and ask for solutions there. 

This is so dissappointing...