Disable Powermizer

Here are some ways I gather from the internet about the topic "Disable Powermizer".
The current graphic card I am using is Nvidia Geforce 9500m GS so if you have an older or newer card this might or might not work. And this works in Windows Vista Home Premium.

Please go to an updated "Disable Nvidia Powermizer" for a shorter post and ways to disable Nvidia Powermizer. Feel free to read on if you wish.

If you are a PC gamer and you play games using a gaming laptop that houses a Nvidia GPU(Graphic Processing Unit), chances are you will encounter sudden drop in performance while gaming.

The reason behind this after lots of searching about online in website like http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ made me realize it is a problem with the Nvidia Driver that is installed within my laptop.

While gaming using a laptop is not really a good way to go, it is definitely doable since gaming laptops are becoming more and more common and they can be as powerful as a lot of desktop PC out there. I am stuck with laptop gaming for the moment because when I went to UK for my studies and bought a laptop. It is easier to carry around and it has been with me since.

Why laptop is not a good way to go? My opinion is that laptop's hardware is small and they all need to fit in a very tight space. There is always the heat issue when it comes to overclock gaming. Many gaming enthusiasts or pro gamer will know how to handle the heat issue even if they overclock their GPU. The heat issue is not so hard to solve if you are using a desktop since you can swap a lot of different fans or even use liquid cooling system provided you have the knowledge.

Laptop's GPU heat problems is harder to solve because they are one with the motherboard or I think they call it integrated graphics. While I have heard that some laptop's GPU is swappable, I am not a pro gamer or expert in PC to have seen or try one. The tight space in a laptop is not helping with the heat dispersion and if you overclock your graphic card chances are the heat problem will arise.

Before I even know about Nvidia Powermizer I have been playing games with another laptop that has a Nvidia Geforce 8600m GS. This graphic card fried after about 6 months or so of usage and I did not even overclock the card. Luckily I still have my warranty and they have to change the whole motherboard to get my laptop to run again. Well I cannot say that the frying of my Nvidia geforce 8600m GS is a good thing but it surely is not as bad, I manage to get another laptop that has a more powerful Nvidia Geforce 9500m GS, although some said that the Nvidia Geforce 9500m GS is a rehash of the Nvidia Geforce 8m series.

Powermizer is created by Nvidia to regulate your GPU power consumption, performance and heat.(Correct me if I am wrong). Unlike desktop GPU, laptop manufacturers are using ways to help you save your laptop's battery life. This is when Nvidia Powermizer kicks in.

Powermizer will help you save energy for your laptop, but what it does is it will decrease your gaming performance sometimes to a point of unplayable. You will experience stutter and frame rate drop after about 20 minutes of gaming. Some user might have a different experience but this problem is true and it still exist as far as I know. Heat can also trigger Nvidia Powermizer to slow down your GPU, that is what I had experience myself.

After the GPU drops in performance it stays there unless you restart your computer or restart your graphic card from the device manager. There are also ways to disable Nvidia Powermizer by going into the registry. Trying to disable Nvidia Powermizer from the registry works but I think it is rather tedious and some have reported the Powermizer effect might reoccur when you install a newer driver for your graphic card. It is only after a while someone created the Powermizer Switch and made our lives much easier. The author of Powermizer Switch is Alexander Rubinov. I have to thank him for this great program. If you are using Windows XP, you can switch the Powermizer off in the Nvidia Control Panel. Vista's Nvidia drivers do not have this function and it cost me some time to find out how to disable Nvidia Powermizer from the Internet since I can't solve it myself. Google Powermizer Swith and you should find it, it is free. (Currently it is on version 1.1)

It seems like my problem is solved after I disable Powermizer and my GPU stays in the same performance throughout gaming. After sometime maybe because of Windows update or a Nvidia Driver change, the drop in performance reappears, only this time after checking my graphic card the performance is the same, it did not downclock.

I found out later that my CPU core clock and OS load drops to half after a certain amount of time gaming. Since I am not a tech geek I do not know why. This problem causes me weeks without gaming trying to find a solution. That is when I stumble upon a suggestion from the forums of laptopvideo2go.com. The poster mention a freeware call Right Mark CPU Clock Utility. Have to thank him for that but too bad I forgot his forum name.

Right Mark CPU Clock Utility (http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml) can help you boost the CPU core clock and OS load back to full speed. Just go to Advanced CPU settings and uncheck all entry except Enable C5 and C6 modes in the Chipset section. You need to check the Apply these settings at start up for the program to remember your desired settings.

My performance drop happens in game so I have to get out from the game to windows to make the performance get back to full speed. You will notice the performance drop when it happens. I know it from my second monitor when I am monitoring my laptop's every performance.

Even if you do not have any Powermizer problems I think you can still use Right Mark CPU to put your CPU core clock and Throttle in maximum performance. The heat will surely go up a bit but nothing to worry about if you did not overclock anything.

Once again, I have to say thanks to those people that help solve this problem. Trying to disable Powermizer in Vista is pretty easy and straight forward now. I am still using this method and it still works. Please leave a comment if you find that this solution does not work anymore or did not even work in the first place.