[SOLVED] CPU usage goes down the 33 percent while gaming, causes FPS drop

[Terence McCormick]

These FPS drops used to happen to me, but it usually involved my GPU, not CPU. When I ran Prime95 and kept and eye on my cpu temps/usage, the usage always went to 33 percent, always in the same pattern, but my temperature is at a cool 50 degrees. This happens on any CPU intensive game, but the patterns still don't make any sense

My CPU is a FX6350 overclocked to 4.2ghz and my GPU is a GTX 960 2GB

 

[atomicWAR]

make and model PSU, motherboard and ram installed?

 

[Terence McCormick]

RAM: PNY Optima 8GB
PSU: Corsair CX450 Watt
Motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M Plus/USB3

I'm going to try to reset my bios and see if that helps at all

 

[TerryLaze]

Well 33% is exactly 2 of your 6 cores so something is affecting the affinity and locking the software to only 2 cores.
But it could also be that it is thermal throttling,the safety measures of motherboards reduce clocks to keep the heat in check so temps will always be fine,you will have to look at clock speed while the drops happen to rule this out.

 

[Jaxk_B]

There is a program called ParkControl which can force your CPUs to work at 100% but I'm not so sure its healthy for your hardware to use. Could be a temp fix for now though.

 

[Terence McCormick]

Well 33% is exactly 2 of your 6 cores so something is affecting the affinity and locking the software to only 2 cores.
But it could also be that it is thermal throttling,the safety measures of motherboards reduce clocks to keep the heat in check so temps will always be fine,you will have to look at clock speed while the drops happen to rule this out.

I don't think it's a thermal issue, I have a Hyper 212 EVO cooler and Arctic Silver thermal paste on it, and my temps never exceed 50 degrees, even while gaming. One thing I have noticed is when the usage drops, the core clock and temps drop as well, almost like it is trying to thermal throttle.

 

[Terence McCormick]

These are my clock speeds and Usage when the lag happens:

Core Temp When Lag Happens
Task Manager When Lag Happens

As I said, it's almost like it's trying to thermal throttle, but why would it start to throttle at 52 degrees? This makes no sense to me

 

[atomicWAR]

What is the color of your CX PSU...if the writing (CX450) is green and white that may be your problem. Those are horrible PSUs IMHO and could be throttling you thus explaining why it happens at low temps. They have a pretty poor/mediocre track records. If the writing is all black though you should be fine as though units are far better quality. LMK also have your tried setting the CPU affinity? Put all of widnows tasks on one core (threads 0 and 1)and then assign the game to the remaining threads in task manger. Again LMk of this makes a difference.

 

[Terence McCormick]

I believe it's green with white lettering, idk if it's even a CX variant I've had it for nearly 5 years lol, that's what I remember it being

 

[atomicWAR]

Time frame is right for the Green and white CX units. I would check it out and if it is a green and white CX unit...replace it immediately. After replacing if the issues still pop up we can trouble shoot it further. Pop open your case and LMK what unit you have.

 

[Terence McCormick]

Time frame is right for the Green and white CX units. I would check it out and if it is a green and white CX unit...replace it immediately. After replacing if the issues still pop up we can trouble shoot it further. Pop open your case and LMK what unit you have.

I fixed it all I did was factory reset my SSD, guess I must have messed with a setting or some app who knows, but thanks for trying to help