[SOLVED] CPU Clock Speed locks to low speed after idling for awhile

[KennyGilbertS]

Hey guys, this is Kenny.
This is the first time i start a tom's hardware thread, so I hope i am doing this right, and posting in the correct forum.

The PC In question is my main rig, with the processor Ryzen 5 3500, which i built approximately a year ago. I pair it with :
RX 480 4 GB,
20 GB of DDR4 OC'd to 2800 (more on this weird configuration later..),
Alseye H120D Cpu Cooler,
Asrock AB350 Pro 4 Motherboard,
V-Gen Super NVME M.2 240 GB
ADATA SU650 480 GB M.2 Sata
Corsair CX550M.

So the ram configuration might confuse some of you, let me explain.
I was originally running a 16 GB Dual channel Configuration, OC'd to 3333.
But a friend of mine had his ram stick go bad on him, and so i decided to lend him one of my ram sticks, and thus my system was left with 8 GB system memory on a single channel.
So i went rummaging through my tech pile and found 3 sticks of 4gb ddr4 ram, and just put it in my system, making it currently in a 4+4+4+8 configuration. This is not permanent though, and i will be looking to get three 8 gb sticks to make it 32 GB.

Now, i will talk about the core of the problem.
Firstly, i'd like to mention that this has happened very recently (or i have just noticed it very recently), but whenever i leave my pc on idle for 20-30 minutes, and then come back to use it, i notice my performance really suffers a lot.
I noticed this when after coming back from idling my pc, i decide to run apex legends one day, and just be astonished as my FPS has been practically halved, and the gameplay was full of frame drops and it was a stuttery mess.

After checking the task manager, i found the problem. It records my CPU Speed as maxing out on 1.44 Ghz, and it never exceeds that value. A typical ryzen 5 3500 runs at 3.6 Ghz Baseclock, and 4.1 when it's on the boost clock.
I checked my temperatures and found that it was okay, i used AMD's ryzen master to check, and it shows that my temps were around 40-50s on idle, and under load went up to 60-70s which should be totally acceptable.

But regardless of these readings, i have not replaced my thermal paste in a while, so i might have to try that.
I am a bit suspicious of my ram configuration though, as it seemed like the problems appeared right around the time i lend my ram stick to my friend, could a weird ram config cause this kind of problem?

For information, i am running the ram sticks on 2800 Mhz, 1.35 V, Timings on auto, and infinity fabric freq on 1400 Mhz (As i read that you should set it to half your ram freq)
The problem kind of goes away when i restart it immediately though, and my CPU Speed will go back up to normal if i do, but if i leave it on idle for awhile again then the same problem persists.

Any help or insight on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
I don't really know what i should do as it dumbfounds me, i have never seen anything like this before.
Thank you in advance!

My PC:

• 
  ■AMD Ryzen 5 3500
  ■Asrock AB350 Pro 4
  ■Dell Prebuilt RX 480 4 GB
  ■20 GB RAM 4+4+4+8
  ■Alseye H120D CPU Cooler

 

[TheJoker2020]

Download and install HWinfo64 and see what that says, I expect it will say the same thing.

Your odd (temporary) RAM setup is likely this issue, especially as it didn't do that before. As far as I know, your RAM will actually be running in single channel mode.

You might possibly get better performance running with just 2x4 GB RAM, just be aware that it will hit your swap file, so make sure that is correctly configured (set min + max to 8196 MB will be fine), and of course if it fixes this issue then problem fixed until you get your correct RAM configuration back up and running.

 

[KennyGilbertS]

Download and install HWinfo64 and see what that says, I expect it will say the same thing.

Your odd (temporary) RAM setup is likely this issue, especially as it didn't do that before. As far as I know, your RAM will actually be running in single channel mode.

You might possibly get better performance running with just 2x4 GB RAM, just be aware that it will hit your swap file, so make sure that is correctly configured (set min + max to 8196 MB will be fine), and of course if it fixes this issue then problem fixed until you get your correct RAM configuration back up and running.

Thank you for your reply!
I will do just that and will get back to you soon regarding the hwinfo results.

Regarding the performance, i actually felt my system run better with this odd temporary setup rather than my old 16 GB setup, But I don't know if the 4 GB increase actually did increase the performance of my system or it's just placebo effect.

And i didn't really do any benchmark or anything, i just felt that when i play apex it ran smoother than usual.

Maybe i should keep the temporary ram config and just restart everytime the issue happens?

I really think that 8 GB isn't enough anymore for 2021.