FPS drops regularly when gaming

[Virilikus]

Hello All, first time poster here.

My PC has been running all of my games smoothly for about 2 years now however, as of about 1 month ago, when I am playing games on my PC I will get random fps drops that will happen for about 30 secs every couple of minutes. This makes most games unplayable so I really need to find out what is causing it.

Here are some snippets I took using GPU-Z and Core Temp.

Processor: Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0GHz
Motherboard: ASUS Z170I
System Memory: 16GB DDR4 3000MHz Corsair Dominator Platinum DHX
Power Supply: 600W SilverStone SX600-G
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4GB

 

[elbert]

Make sure shadow play is disabled. Optimize your OS by using ccleaner to clean outbad registry settings. Use advanced systemcare scan to fix all bad windows settings and boost to shutdown services you dont need. Then use blackvipers safe desktop settings to shutdown other services you dont need. Both are in popular downloads.
http://download.cnet.com/windows/
http://www.blackviper.com/

 

[Virilikus]

Make sure shadow play is disabled. Optimize your OS by using ccleaner to clean outbad registry settings. Use advanced systemcare scan to fix all bad windows settings and boost to shutdown services you dont need. Then use blackvipers safe desktop settings to shutdown other services you dont need. Both are in popular downloads.
http://download.cnet.com/windows/
http://www.blackviper.com/

Thanks for the swift response! So after making these changes, the lag is still happening but for a much shorter duration, maybe 5-10 secs, less significant too, but still happening every 2mins or so. Most notable changes when actively monitoring GPU-Z is that during the time of the lag, Memory Controller Load drops from 60% to 5-10%, and Power Consumption drops from ~100% to ~30%. This is just while leaving Overwatch open on the home screen.

 

[elbert]

Check your power management and change it to performance. See if the power management is acting up.

 

[Virilikus]

Check your power management and change it to performance. See if the power management is acting up.

Checked power management and it was in balanced instead of high performance. Switched to high performance, still getting the same issue. Not sure how to check if it is acting up or not.

 

[elbert]

Thats pretty much how to check it. Open task manager to see if any process are using a lot of cpu cycles in that time frame. If so you may need to uninstall and reinstall the programs those are associated with. Try uninstalling your video card drivers in control panel and use DDU to remove old configs. Then get fresh new drivers.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx

 

[Virilikus]

Thats pretty much how to check it. Open task manager to see if any process are using a lot of cpu cycles in that time frame. If so you may need to uninstall and reinstall the programs those are associated with. Try uninstalling your video card drivers in control panel and use DDU to remove old configs. Then get fresh new drivers.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx

Not seeing any fluctuation in CPU or Memory under the Processes tab in the task manager. Should I still try the drivers thing?

 

[elbert]

Yes try the driver and then make sure shadowplay is still off after the video drivers are reinstalled.

 

[Virilikus]

Yes try the driver and then make sure shadowplay is still off after the video drivers are reinstalled.

Thank you very much! After extensive play over the last few days I have not experienced the issue even once. Clean installing the drivers is what did it for me. I really appreciate it. Can I assume that the steps you walked me through are a good set of troubleshooting steps for any computer issue before assuming it is some sort of hardware problem?