ASUS N53Jn - low benchmarks

[varsfx]

Here are the results of my laptop and temperature. Left HWMonitor open during the test(benchmark). I am wondering why 3DMark score is lower than average for GT 335M and i5-450M is higher?

Reason of this benchmark thing is because I noticed performance drop in games. Might be because of driver updates or game updates but changing drivers doesn't seem to fix it ... I am just exploring other possiblities of the issue ( Heroes of Newerth is refusing to launch, crashing on startup, might be S2 Games issue. Generally noticed performance issues in march/ early april, there were some Starcraft 2 updates and Nvidia driver as well, not sure...)

I noticed this because Starcraft 2 started to lag, I did benchmark test and 3DMark scored 400ish or even less but then I changed power managment in Nvidia control panel for my GT 335M from Adaptive to Maximum performance, seemed to solve problem but not entirely.. :/

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/835/capturevo.png
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/559/capture2tw.png

So question, should I just wait for updates come along, or could it be issue of Hardware failure? Power managment issues? I am hooked up to AC without battery and Power Plan is set to High Performance.

[David (PassMark)]

Yes, the 3DMark score (539) does seem to be slightly down on the average (620).

If a single game is always crashing at startup, it is likely this is a software issue. (Either a bug in the game or the device driver).

Regarding the low performance on a laptop, the 2 obvious things to check are temperature and power management. But you have done this already. I would next suggest having a look in the device manager control panel and check you aren't forcing some some of the card settings to high (e.g. 8x anti-aliasing).

Slow CPUs can also cause poor 3D results, but your CPU result is OK.

[varsfx]

Aha, during the DirectX 10 test, FPS is really low ( 9 - 10 tops ) and next to the resolution ( which is not native screen resolution for the whole 3D mark test , why ? ) it shows - 8x Multisample which I assume is AA, but where do I turn it off ?

Turning off AA in Nvidia Control Panel does not seem to work, DX10 test still shows it's on, setting it very max performance doesnt change anything either. :/

[David (PassMark)]

I just looked up the specs for the N53Jn machine. Does this machine have Nvidia's Optimus graphics switching technology?

This is known not to work very well. That is to say, it doesn't always switch when it should. Nvidia claim it is fully automatic, but it isn't.

We had one customer say E-mail us this,
"I just wanted to tell you that I got it to work. I right-clicked pt.exe and did chose the alternative I didnt try when I mailed you. This time I got into nvidias control panel where I could make a choise which programs should use wich card. So I forced optimus to use nvidia-card in pt.exe!
And it really worked (low score in first 3d-test though, dunno why) but much faster in other tests!"

Some programs (including the DX10 test in PT) try and force the AA settings.

[varsfx]

Yes it has that Optimus ... crap...

Well I have set it to use GT 335M all the time, no auto or what so ever and I did launch pt.exe with Nvidia, 1st test of 3dmark with Intel HD was way better, but others were worse, however with GT 335M 1st test is worse but other better. So it is working sort of properly.

http://img195.imageshack.us/g/56255682.png/
My Settings for Nvidia Control Panel, changing them to performance/off etc. did not seem to change anything noticably :/

[David (PassMark)]

Maybe it is just all normal for this laptop (being ~13% below the average)?
By definition someone has to be below the average
Really need to find someone with an identical machine to see if they all perform like this.

[varsfx]

Well yeah, it's not as bad as 400ish, which was A LOT worse, maybe time will fix the problem lol.