Question GPU randomly dropping to 0% utilization

[BaaaaL44]

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for the reply.

I guess i was naive to hope a repair shop would actually investigate the issue. Esp. an elusive one.
If you took it to them they would probably replace the 6800 and be done with it.

Hmm... Where is the Samsung 980 PRO 2TB? The CPU side M.2 slot?
That would rob the 6800 of some of it's full capability as the PCIe 5.0 x16 slot downgrades to x8, but it should not cause problems.
Maybe the 980 Pro is doing something that causes the PCIe slot to choke.

You cannot really move the NVMe around, but you can check if there is something weird going on when GPU util. drops to 0%. Are there any crazy reads or writes? Is it overheating?

I'm unsure which M.2 slot the SSD is in (checked when I got the PC in July but forgot) but according to GPU-Z the 6800 is operating at the full x16 bandwidth. I activated the NVME sensors in OCCT while I'm gaming to check if there is anything out of the ordinary happening when the usage drops.

Edit: The NVME is actually in the M.2 slot right below the GPU since that's the only M.2 slot on the mobo that has a built-in heatsink.

 

[35below0]

You could see it in BIOS, if you wanted to. There's a list of devices, and info on where they're connected etc.
If the 6800 has full x16 then it's academic anyway.

 

[BaaaaL44]

You could see it in BIOS, if you wanted to. There's a list of devices, and info on where they're connected etc.
If the 6800 has full x16 then it's academic anyway.

By way of update, I uninstalled the latest Windows update KB5036893 which many people complained about, and which also royally f-ed up my VPN connectivity, but all it did was cause a green flash in the screen and a driver timeout message from Adrenaline every time I launched a game (game launched and ran normally after that), so I reinstalled it from the Windows update menu, since then, timeouts are gone again. Weird.