FPS drops + sound stuttering. 970A-G43. VRM's too hot!?

[Spacez0r]

First of all, let me introduce myself since i'm a new member.

My gametag is Spacez0r, i used to play a lot of MOBA's but since PUBG is out i'm totally hooked to that game, lol.

I've got a problem that i havent had before with MOBA's but with higher demanding games;

When i'm playing for like 15-30 minutes, and the tempreaturs of the hardware increases i get FPS drops ingame. from like 80 FPS to 10-15 FPS, sometimes but not always even the sounds starts to stutter. This lasts for like 10-20 seconds and repeats every couple of minutes or when something happens ingame. Since i havent experienced this before, i was thinking that maybe PUBG is just earlyacces and still isn't that stable yet. Tho, i played GTA 5 and the same thing happened.
(PS. i tried almost all the PUBG fixes that's out on youtube, increased my fps, but didn't fix the drops). So i thought it must be hardware.

I increased my 8GB DDR3-1600MHZ to 16GB already because of this game. Since i wanted to upgrade my GPU earlier already, i also bought a GTX 1060 and replaced my R9 380 (2gb).

And still, FPS drops. Now i did hours of research and i finally tracked the cause of my problem: It are the VRM's on my mobo that are overheating.
I downloaded HWMonitor and i found out that TMPIN1 are the VRM's. How? I simply blowed my lungs out on the VRM's and i saw a the temperature drop from 65 degrees in idle mode to 51 in idle mode.

My set-up:

MoBo: 970A-G43
CPU: FX-8320 (not overclocked)
GPU: GTX 1060 (3GB)
HDD: 1TB Baracudda
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600mhz

I also found out that the mobo isn't suited for OC the cpu, because of the lack of heatsinks.

I now have a normal big-ass fan on the side of my PC to help the cooling a bit, it works a little but just temporarly.

So, what should i do?
I'm not feeling to upgrade to intel (yet) since i just upgraded GPU and RAM, it will cost me a lot to replace the cpu, ram and mobo. I'm looking for a cheaper alternative, maybe to heatsink the mobo(VRM)? Or to just simply buy a better mobo, but which one?

Ofcourse i tracked my temperatures ingame:

When ingame, the following temperatures in degrees:

CPU 60 MAX.
GPU 65 MAX.
Mobo 70 MAX.
HDD 40 MAX.

I really appreciate helpfull comments!

 

[madmatt30]

What country are you in ??
A good down blowing CPU cooler with vrm cooling would help immensely (as you already know though the big problem is that board is very very weak vrm wise for any cpu over 95w) , really a board replacement is the sensible option.

You can lock 2 cores off (turning it essentially into a 6300) & drop voltage as much as possible.

This will all help.

 

[Spacez0r]

Hi madmatt30,

Thanks for your answer. I'm living in The Netherlands, why?
I'm not feeling ok to lock 2 cores, i rather upgrade the MoBo then, but to which one?

I found a Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 for €90.

 

[photonboy]

*Did you even MONITOR THE CPU usage?
See if the frequency is even dropping a LOT before you make assumptions of thermal throttling.

Sound stuttering can also be causes by a software issue such as a driver hogging the CPU for too long. LatencyMON may help you there:
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

**If you have a spare HDD or SSD around (at least 60GB) I would try this:

1. get latest Windows 10 64-bit
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

2. unhook other HDD/SSD drives

3. install W10 + NVidia drivers + game or games*

4. test

*You can reinstall Steam to C-drive (default), then shut down and add back the HDD or SSD with your "Steamapps" games folder on it. Bootup, then if you boot to the old drive reboot into BIOS and change to the new version of W10.

Then make a new folder in Steam Library settings that matches the folder on the old HDD (so it can link to the folder and let you play those games). May need to reboot.

If things work now it's due to a software issue, not a hardware overheating issue which I doubt is the problem.

 

[photonboy]

also, test system memory with MEMTEST86 www.memtest86.com

boot to the USB/CD/DVD then run a FULL PASS or until errors

 

[Spacez0r]

*Did you even MONITOR THE CPU usage?
See if the frequency is even dropping a LOT before you make assumptions of thermal throttling.

Sound stuttering can also be causes by a software issue such as a driver hogging the CPU for too long. LatencyMON may help you there:
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

**If you have a spare HDD or SSD around (at least 60GB) I would try this:

1. get latest Windows 10 64-bit
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

2. unhook other HDD/SSD drives

3. install W10 + NVidia drivers + game or games*

4. test

*You can reinstall Steam to C-drive (default), then shut down and add back the HDD or SSD with your "Steamapps" games folder on it. Bootup, then if you boot to the old drive reboot into BIOS and change to the new version of W10.

Then make a new folder in Steam Library settings that matches the folder on the old HDD (so it can link to the folder and let you play those games). May need to reboot.

If things work now it's due to a software issue, not a hardware overheating issue which I doubt is the problem.

Hi, thanks for your reply!

I didn't actually monitor the CPU frequency, i did/do monitor the VRM temperature.
Like i mentioned earlier, i'm using a regular fan for some extra cooling lol. And it's doing a pretty great job.
Before, without the fan, the VRM did hit like 75-80 degrees, now it doesn't go over 62 degrees. And didn't had any lag at all.

So i'm pretty sure the drops are caused because of the lack of VRM cooling. Now i still got the dilemma to buy an other (but which?) MoBo or to upgrade cooling (but how?).

 

[Spacez0r]

What country are you in ??
A good down blowing CPU cooler with vrm cooling would help immensely (as you already know though the big problem is that board is very very weak vrm wise for any cpu over 95w) , really a board replacement is the sensible option.

You can lock 2 cores off (turning it essentially into a 6300) & drop voltage as much as possible.

This will all help.

Hi madmatt30,

Thanks for your answer. I'm living in The Netherlands, why?
I'm not feeling ok to lock 2 cores, i rather upgrade the MoBo then, but to which one?

I found a Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 for €90.

 

[madmatt30]

@ photonboy - its the board throttling , with 100% certainty it will because of vrm temps.
Its a known issue with the MSI g43/g46 , asrock pro 2/3,extreme 2/3.
They will all do it with absolute certainty , its not a question of if even , simply how long prolonged load will take to do it.

These boards simply do not have a good enough vrm setup for a 125w CPU.

@Spacez0r - plainly the side fan is helping but it may still throttle under really heavy load . The sensible choice is a board swap in all honesty , my suggestion of dropping 2 cores was merely a temporary/testing measure to see if it makes a difference- its a one click bios setting & easily reversible

What you should do is download amd overdrive
Install it , run, open the CPU status tab.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/over-drive

Download & unzip to desktop intel burn test

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/intelburntest.html

Run it, start a test, watch core clocks & thermal margins on all cores on the overdrive display .

You'll likely see after maybe 20 seconds big clocks drops across numerous cores , erratic jumps & spikes - the thermal margin will likely be absolutely fine - above 0c is acceptable

If this happens (& im sure it will) then this is board vrm throttling .

What cooler are you using ? Stock amd or aftermarket ??

 

[Spacez0r]

@ photonboy - its the board throttling , with 100% certainty it will because of vrm temps.
Its a known issue with the MSI g43/g46 , asrock pro 2/3,extreme 2/3.
They will all do it with absolute certainty , its not a question of if even , simply how long prolonged load will take to do it.

These boards simply do not have a good enough vrm setup for a 125w CPU.

@Spacez0r - plainly the side fan is helping but it may still throttle under really heavy load . The sensible choice is a board swap in all honesty , my suggestion of dropping 2 cores was merely a temporary/testing measure to see if it makes a difference- its a one click bios setting & easily reversible

What you should do is download amd overdrive
Install it , run, open the CPU status tab.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/over-drive

Download & unzip to desktop intel burn test

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/intelburntest.html

Run it, start a test, watch core clocks & thermal margins on all cores on the overdrive display .

You'll likely see after maybe 20 seconds big clocks drops across numerous cores , erratic jumps & spikes - the thermal margin will likely be absolutely fine - above 0c is acceptable

If this happens (& im sure it will) then this is board vrm throttling .

What cooler are you using ? Stock amd or aftermarket ??

Thanks again for your comment.

I'm using the Cooler master Hyper 103.

And thanks, i will try!

PS. What about a Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0?

 

[madmatt30]

^ I guessed as much - you stuck a tower cooler on a poorly specced vrm set board.

That is quite possibly the worst thing you could ever do.

What you did there is remove any secondary airflow from the vrm caps that would be there with the stock amd cooler or a decent down blower.

Yes the evo is a good board , am3+ boards have shot up in price lately because they're out of production now.

If you're on a budget & are not in search of big overclock the ds3p will do the job though for €30 less

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/347331/gigabyte-ga-970a-ds3p.html

 

[Spacez0r]

What you should do is download amd overdrive
Install it , run, open the CPU status tab.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/over-drive

Download & unzip to desktop intel burn test

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/intelburntest.html

Run it, start a test, watch core clocks & thermal margins on all cores on the overdrive display .

You'll likely see after maybe 20 seconds big clocks drops across numerous cores , erratic jumps & spikes - the thermal margin will likely be absolutely fine - above 0c is acceptable

If this happens (& im sure it will) then this is board vrm throttling .

What cooler are you using ? Stock amd or aftermarket ??

Ok, so this happened whilst testing:

''TMPIN1'' = VRM, above 70 degrees or so it's just lagging in games.
CPU just getting around 60 degrees which is perfectly right, right?

https://prnt.sc/g6wpkr

 

[Spacez0r]

^ I guessed as much - you stuck a tower cooler on a poorly specced vrm set board.

That is quite possibly the worst thing you could ever do.

What you did there is remove any secondary airflow from the vrm caps that would be there with the stock amd cooler or a decent down blower.

Yes the evo is a good board , am3+ boards have shot up in price lately because they're out of production now.

If you're on a budget & are not in search of big overclock the ds3p will do the job though for €30 less

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/347331/gigabyte-ga-970a-ds3p.html

Thing is, i bought the PC like this, with this fan, from a PC-build store. And i can admit there is 0 airflow in my case.
Do u prefer any other fan that could solve the problem? Instead of buying an other MoBo?

And i want to OC, not that high but just like 4,1-4,2 ghz?

 

[madmatt30]

Overclock on that board ?? No mate not going to happen.
4.1/4.2 on a 8 core requires a good board full stop.
You'd be pushing it with a hyper 103 at that clock speed too (good a cooler as it is its only a 92mm tower)

The issue with a board like the g43 with it's weak vrm is that when that vrm gets hot it also loses efficiency.
Meaning it tries to push more voltage to stabilise & actually gets hotter & hotter - its a chicken & egg situation (if you're familiar with the term) - in essence a losing battle.

You are doing well to keep to keep constant clocks while stress testing there by the way - I'm honestly surprised by that.

The vrm temps though are dangerously high.

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/394978/raijintek-pallas.html

The Pallas is an option you 'could try' , it is hands down the best down blower cooler on the planet IMO.
It offers excellent vrm & CPU cooling in one package.

It is not cheap though & there's still no guarantee it would hold an overclock with your current board !! €15 more gets you that ds3p board instead & you could likely do 4GHz on there with your current hyper 103.