FPS Drops Almost Every Game

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J

Jamli

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Mar 9, 2015
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Hey!

I've been playing many different games now like: Arma 3, DayZ, LoL, Wolfenstein ET (hell yeah!) and i have FPS issues in almost every game i play.

Example: normal FPS in Arma is ~30-40fps and then bam! drops to ~5-10fps for about 5-10 second and then goes back to 30-40fps. I've searched something about this from google, and i think issue is my CPU. But i have tried to overclock it, but didn't help much (probably nothing).

So any advice's to get my FPS going stable?

PC Specs:
CPU: AMD FX-8120 (3.1-3.5Ghz) i have different cooler for it.
GPU: ASUS GTX 670 (Base clock)
Some Asus motherboard (dont remember it now)
8GB Ram 1600Mhz
250gb SSD & 1TB HDD
Windows 7 Ultimate

Thanks already for any help!
 
Solution
madmatt30
Hi all 😉
Got your pm luco.

The boards throttling simply because you're running a 125w 8 core - these boards are a-ok for any 100w chip (fx6100/6300)
A turbocored 8 core will push it over the edge - while it may up core 0 to the boost speed it will drop the rest.
Keeping turbo off in bios is the best idea if you want to run 8 cores ,re-enable cool & quiet (its not at fault here) & also disable c6 states - its a waste of time & will throttle the CPU under heavy load.
While the 212 is a superb cooler it removes secondary Cooling from the vrm area which is bad on a board that has no vrm sinks.

If you're after better performance per core then really your best option is dropping 2 cores in bios to turn your chip into a 6 core .
While this...
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can understand that BIOS thing, sorry for that.

The BIOS version is shown, when you enter the BIOS (press "F2"), while booting your PC. Like Version "1701"
if the number is lower, update it.
You will need to download the up to date BIOS from ASUS,
extract it to an USB drive,
enter BIOS again, under tools, use ASUS EZ flash 2 (integrated in BIOS) and follow steps. Don´t shutdown PC while updating!

Please use the tools I suggested and not hwmonitor:

prime95: http://www.mersenne.org/download/
furmark: http://www.geeks3d.com/20141209/furmark-1-15-1-gpu-vga-stress-test-opengl-benchmark/
coretemp: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ (careful while installing, should unselect any not wanted toolbars or stuff)
3dmark: http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/3dmark#windows
AS SSD: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/6014-as-ssd-benchmark.html
 
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Yeah, so I did test with prime95 and coretemp, and my cpu cores were all at 3.1Ghz, and suddenly everyone dropped 1.4Ghz. I think thats the problem there... Also I checked my BIOS, and version was 1003 😀. Can it be that my BIOS is so behind from updates that it can't keep my processor running full ? I'm trying to get BIOS update now, thanks.
 
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Well.. I tried to update my BIOS to 1701 from 1003, but I can't. I downloaded drivers from ASUS website for my motherboard and moved files to my usb-stick and used ASUS EZ flash 2, like you said, but when i start to update it, I get this error message : "ROM ID in the file is incompatible with existing BIOS!". And yes I downloaded right drivers to my motherboard, funny as it seems. Also i tried to install drivers like this: 1003-1201-1401-1505-1701, but still getting same error message. Did i do something wrong ?
 
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I think I did it right way, but i will try it again when i get back to home.

Edit: I actually noticed that I have ASUS M5A78L/USB3 , so I have downloaded M5A78L - Drivers 😀. Whoops, my bad! I will try again at home :)
 
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Yeah, I will totally try it, if USB-stick won't work this time! 😀
 
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The USB stick has to be formatted as fat16 or fat32. Format stick in windows. If the stick is ntfs formatted, the BIOS can´t read from it.

There are several ASUS M5A78L boards with different configurations, please be absolutely sure, it´s the right one:
M5A78L
M5A78L_LE
M5A78LM_LE
M5A78LM_LX
M5A78LUSB3
M5A78LMUSB3

Before disabling APM functions, which temperature did the CPU get, shortly before the frequency dropped?

edit: "ASUS M5A78L/USB3": thought so 😉
 
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I think that it was able to read from my usb, but I had wrong drivers, so it wasn't able to open it. About temps: temps stays around 57C when CPU is at use, but I think it never went over 60C. Lowest temp is around 40C (at desktop).
 
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Well, my APM things were already disabled, don't know why, but i didnt find anything new to disable. Is it normal ?
 
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Please verify, at what maximum temperature the CPU is, while running prime95 and when it drops the frequency. Coretemp displays the highest temp while running.

No, it´s not normal that all power management things are disabled, like cool ´n quiet. Load default settings after successfully updating the BIOS. Eventually you will then have to set the boot priority like it was before.

Which power supply do you use?

If the succesful updated BIOS fails to improve your situation:

In conclusion, I think your problem is your Motherboard. The FX series demands the board components more than they are specified for, especially the VRMs (voltage regulators), which are not cooled by heatsinks on your board. You can try, installing heatsinks on them and get extra airflow to it, but getting a better motherboard would be my choice.

Like:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-ga970aud3p
 
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Well, I did update my BIOS and I did reset to default settings and they were disabled. I did Prime95 + Coretemp tests and noticed this :
http://gyazo.com/0690cc0e2748a3dc00446e3b2e3fa061
----> http://gyazo.com/517d0d16e43149ce635aaf5a1c43db23
so CPU's Ghz's dropped like this for few seconds and went back up to normal. Would this be the problem ?

This is my power supply:
http://www.coolermaster.com/powersupply/gx-series/gx-650w/

I actually played one match LoL, and noticed that there were less FPS drops, but still some.

Edit: I played Arma 3 and had Core Temp at my second screen, so every time I got this FPS lag, I checked Core Temp and it shows that my cores are at 1.4Ghz. So that's the problem i have now. Temps are less than 50C. So after updates my cooling got better (don't know how lol). When my cores goes to 1.4Ghz, temps also drops to 30C, So can it be that it wont let CPU get any hotter and it drops performance to keep it cooler?
 
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Yeah it might be motherboard that wants to keep it cooler, and wont let CPU overheat and drops performance down. It would make so much sense, because every time my fps drops down, cpu's temperature drops too.

Edit: I tested to disable Cool 'n' Quiet from BIOS, didn't stop FPS lags.

Edit2: I noticed that in BIOS there is something like this:

'Able to Change Freq. : Yes'

So does that let my cpu to change ghz's from 3.1 -> 1.4 ?
And if it does how can I change it to no, when it's not able to be changed?
 
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the motherboard itself overheats and doesn´t give the CPU the voltage for 3.6GHz, so the CPU clocks down to 1.4GHz. There´s no BIOS setting, which can fix this. Cooling those components near the CPU socket would be the only chance to save the mobo before buying a new one with more vrms:
http://www.ixbt.com/mainboard/msi/890gxm-g65/vrm.jpg

'Able to Change Freq. : Yes'

Where is it in the BIOS? Coudn´t find anything in the manual about it. Does it really say: 'Able to Change Freq.'?

C1E support is disabled?
 
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Well there is "Able to Change Freq." but it's greyed so I can't change it. How can I disable C1E support?

Edit: Is it same as Core C6 ?
 
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"Able to Change Freq. = yes" just means, the CPU is not locked and can be overclocked

C1E support (lower multiplier and or voltage, if not in use) and C6 is not the same. C6 is a part of core parking (completely shutdown cores, which are not in use)
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/465221-c1e-c3-c6-eist-speedstep-turbo-boost-core-parking.html

Did you see a C6 option in BIOS?

Read the manual to find C1E in BIOS, but it´s disabled by default.

to be sure: is BIOS version 1701 shown?
 
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Yeah I'll check manual. Version 1701 is shown in top right corner :)

Edit: And should I let C6 be disabled or enabled ?

Edit2: And also should I keep my turbo boost enabled ?

Edit3: I checked BIOS, and I couldn't find C1E Support from there. In manual it says that it should be under CPU Configuration and it wasn't there. Here's a picture from BIOS :
http://gyazo.com/aa1eb8afd05dc7c411bdf2d6f902b950
 
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I will test it right a way! Thanks.
 
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Wow! It actually was turbo core that was messing around with my CPU!!!!! I can't notice any drops and also when I have Core Temp on, my freq's wont drop anymore :) But now im with stock speed, so is there anyways that i could go for little overclock ? My FPS in arma is playable but around ~20 fps, so little overclock would maybe boost it up to 30 fps ? Anyways big thanks to all of you, who tried to solve this!
 
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Disabling turbo core is just another method for disabling APM (advanced power management) :)

I don't think your BIOS supports disabling APM natively though, but you can do it using software such as amd overdrive or AMDmsrTweaker - I think with the msr tweaker it shouldn't mess with your OC either (I've not actually used it myself).
 
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Well, so you would suggest me to overclock with this AMD OverDrive, but not via BIOS ? What you think would be my max overclock that i could go for ?
 
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Always OC in BIOS, not with software.

Your motherboard is fairly low-end with no VRM cooling and your case has poor airflow too (no intake fans added). I don't think you'll get much of an OC without an aftermarket CPU cooler (do you have one?) and some extra case fans to keep air moving over the VRMs
 
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