RTX 3070 Ti (laptop) Power Draw & Strange Behavior - Aorus 17 XE4

[J.DV]

Hi All,

I've run into a problem with my laptop wherein my GPU absolutely can't handle any games after about 2-5 minutes post-boot.

As an example, I would regularly get 120 FPS in MWII prior to about a week ago. Now, the laptop will hit 120 for maybe half a match, then stutter and permanently drop down to 30-40 ish frames.

At a friend's recommendation I installed GPU-Z and the results are very odd. The laptop is designed for a 240W power brick, but GPU-Z is saying my GPU is drawing 750W.

If anyone has any idea what could be causing this I'd love to know. Already took it to a repair place, who just clean-installed new drivers and "tuned" NVidia control panel (no dice obviously).

I've also tried checking BIOS settings, changing power plans, running fans at max to eliminate thermal throttling, and even a clean install of windows. No results.

Help!

[Bingus_Bongus]

You might have physical electrical arcing/shorts inside your laptop. From the symptoms, your laptop boots up fine, but as components heat up there's likely heat damage that causes some things to "melt" in a way and is causing improper contact. This will lead to shorting which has a bad tendency to cause massive power draw when it's not needed.

 

I suggest just carefully opening your laptop and visually inspecting, typically around the GPU but also all over for any heat damage as well as solder or board traces/wiring that may be making contact when it looks like they shouldn't be.

 

Feel free to take pictures of anything you find and I'll be happy to take a look.