Can a faulty PSU cause high usage/load of CPU/GPU ??

[tom_green]

I had a faulty PSU fan last week and I replaced the stock fan with a cheap one,the new fan is connected to the PSU with the help of some gaffa tape,over the days I've noticed some unusual CPU usage spikes... For instance when I open an app the CPU meter climbs all the way to 80% and sometimes 90% and eventually settles down to around 20-30%... this never happened before and I'm dying to figure out the cause....

 

[clarkjd]

How could supplying power possibly cause a spike in CPU usage? Have you run a Virus scan?

 

[tom_green]

How could supplying power possibly cause a spike in CPU usage? Have you run a Virus scan?

I know,it's rather a silly question but that's the only change made to the PC since it started behaving oddly and yeah,my PC is free of spywares...
I can't think of anything else that could cause spikes......

 

[correon]

Maybe an update is downloaded which scanned your system?

 

[tom_green]

Maybe an update is downloaded which scanned your system?

Well,the previous day I had installed AMD's catalyst driver,along with the card...

 

[clarkjd]

Well,the previous day I had installed AMD's catalyst driver,along with the card...

Full system specs would be a help in diagnosing your issue..

 

[tom_green]

Full system specs would be a help in diagnosing your issue..

Well,my PC is about 2+ years old,
CPU- AMD Phenom 2 X2 550,3.1 Ghz
Motherboard- ASUS M4N68T-M LE V2
RAM - 2*2 GB 1333 Mhz DDR3
PSU-450 W
HDD-500 GB ( my C drive is almost full,less than 2gb free)
OS- Windows 7 Ultimate,64 Bit version,
GPU- Sapphire HD 7750 1GB GDDR5 OC edition (overclocked by Sapphire) connected to a single LCD monitor..

 

[clarkjd]

Well,my PC is about 2+ years old,
CPU- AMD Phenom 2 X2 550,3.1 Ghz
Motherboard- ASUS M4N68T-M LE V2
RAM - 2*2 GB 1333 Mhz DDR3
PSU-450 W
HDD-500 GB ( my C drive is almost full,less than 2gb free)
OS- Windows 7 Ultimate,64 Bit version,
GPU- Sapphire HD 7750 1GB GDDR5 OC edition (overclocked by Sapphire) connected to a single LCD monitor..

Based on the fact that you have a 64-bit OS and only 4 GB of ram, It wouldn't surprize me that your system is doing a lot of swapping to the Windows swap file, which would require the CPU to swap whatever is in RAM to the swap file and back again.





edited--Typo 🙁

 

[tom_green]

Based on the fact that you have a 64-bit OS and only 4 GB of ram, It wouldn't surprize me that your system is doing a lot of swapping to the Windows swap file, which would require the CPU to swap whatever is in RAM to the swap file and back again.





edited--Typo 🙁

wait,so you're saying that my RAM isn't sufficient enough and is causing those CPU spikes??but the funny thing is my RAM barely crosses 50% usage,even when the CPU is over 90% and all my programs function quite swiftly....

and another thing that's bothering me,most modern games are supposed to utilize more of the GPU rather than the CPU,is that ryt??

 

[clarkjd]

wait,so you're saying that my RAM isn't sufficient enough and is causing those CPU spikes??but the funny thing is my RAM barely crosses 50% usage,even when the CPU is over 90% and all my programs function quite swiftly....

and another thing that's bothering me,most modern games are supposed to utilize more of the GPU rather than the CPU,is that ryt??

A 64-bit OS requires more ram to load a program in than a 32-bit system, so ram is used up quicker in a 64-bit system, therefore making it swap to virtual memory more likely.

As for modern games and the GPU, you are correct, except that the CPU still has to feed the GPU data to crunch before it can generate an image.

Remember: You can never have too much RAM or too big of a Hard drive!

 

[tom_green]

A 64-bit OS requires more ram to load a program in than a 32-bit system, so ram is used up quicker in a 64-bit system, therefore making it swap to virtual memory more likely.

As for modern games and the GPU, you are correct, except that the CPU still has to feed the GPU data to crunch before it can generate an image.

Remember: You can never have too much RAM or too big of a Hard drive!

so all I need is more RAM??that's simple enough to implement,I'll switch to 4*4.....

So CPU and GPU highly depend on each other,but then what would be the ideal CPU usage while running a hig-res game??(not the theoretical ideal-which would be zero.. but in practicality) ... when do you say,"ah well,that's exactly how a CPU and GPU are supposed to respond to a game"...

 

[clarkjd]

so all I need is more RAM??that's simple enough to implement,I'll switch to 4*4.....

So CPU and GPU highly depend on each other,but then what would be the ideal CPU usage while running a hig-res game??(not the theoretical ideal-which would be zero.. but in practicality) ... when do you say,"ah well,that's exactly how a CPU and GPU are supposed to respond to a game"...

I'm not really sure how to answer that question..
What you don't want is your CPU bottle necking your GPU. an easy way to tell: if you increase your resolution and your FPS stays the same, then your CPU is bottle necking your GPU. if the FPS goes down, then your GPU is the bottle neck.

 

[tom_green]

I'm not really sure how to answer that question..
What you don't want is your CPU bottle necking your GPU. an easy way to tell: if you increase your resolution and your FPS stays the same, then your CPU is bottle necking your GPU. if the FPS goes down, then your GPU is the bottle neck.

Well I don't mean to be James May here but in reality isn't that always the case??either your FPS remains a constant or it reduces,I have never come across a real life situation where the FPS increases with the increase in resolution..that would almost be fairy-tale like 😛

 

[clarkjd]

Well I don't mean to be James May here but in reality isn't that always the case??either your FPS remains a constant or it reduces,I have never come across a real life situation where the FPS increases with the increase in resolution..that would almost be fairy-tale like 😛

You are right about FPS usually not increasing with an increase in resolution. As your resolution changes (up or down) if the FPS remain constant, then your limiting factor is your CPU. (or you have vertical sync enabled)

 

[tom_green]

Best answer selected by tom_green.