[SOLVED] Frame drops, stutters, and sometimes unexplained poor performance.

Sep 2, 2020
4
0
10
Hi, I am having some issues with performance when playing games, for example in Total War: Three Kingdoms I get weirdly poor performance. I used to get about 55-70 fps in the campaign at 1440p at high-ish settings, but now when I play I can barely hit 45 fps at medium. I am really not sure what could cause this issue, and it is not the only issue I have. Another issue (which really isn't important to me) is that in Minecraft I am not able to run shaders reliably because it crashes when I apply them, and in league of legends I sometimes get large drops in framerate to about 40 fps with massive stutters which align with a spike in cpu usage. I am also not able to run r6 siege using vulkan because of terrible performance. I was thinking because of the cpu spiking in league that my cpu is defective in some way and it could be solved with an upgrade, which wouldn't be too bad, but I am worried that my graphics card is defective which could be a bit of an issue.

System Specs:
Ryzen 5 2600
Asus tuf rx 5700
x570 aorus elite
8gbx2 trident z neo cl18 at 3000mhz
550w corsair psu
Graphics Drivers: version 21.3.1
 
Solution
3 - 4 years is getting "old".

There are, of course, dependencies such as the initial quality of the PSU and how much power demand was imposed on the PSU.

Remember that most products have some built in EOL (End of Life). Through one or more factors (e.g., just powering on/off) some component will eventually falter or fail.

Yes, If I understand correctly you plan to swap in your brother's PSU to determine if that makes a difference. Commonly done as a general troubleshooting method.

Before going through that GPU swap try the following:

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Check, by sight and feel, that all connectors, cards, RAM, and jumpers are fully and firmly in place,

Use a bright flashlight to...
Sep 2, 2020
4
0
10
How old is the 550 watt Corsair PSU?

Past use for heavy gaming?

Look in Reliability History for error codes, warnings, and informational events that correspond with the crashes and performance drops.
The PSU isn't very old, I believe it's a CX550M that I bought about 3-4 years ago, which I originally used in a system with a gtx 1060-6gb, so no heavy gaming. I can mark down the times of performance drops and check in the error codes. The only game that hard crashes is Minecraft which comes up with no error code. When I have time I am going to swap my test my gpu in my brother's system to see if it has the same problems to hopefully eliminate some variables. It has a higher wattage power supply so I will see if that makes a difference.
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
3 - 4 years is getting "old".

There are, of course, dependencies such as the initial quality of the PSU and how much power demand was imposed on the PSU.

Remember that most products have some built in EOL (End of Life). Through one or more factors (e.g., just powering on/off) some component will eventually falter or fail.

Yes, If I understand correctly you plan to swap in your brother's PSU to determine if that makes a difference. Commonly done as a general troubleshooting method.

Before going through that GPU swap try the following:

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Check, by sight and feel, that all connectors, cards, RAM, and jumpers are fully and firmly in place,

Use a bright flashlight to look for any signs of damage: bare conductor showing, pinched/kinked wires, brown or blackened components.

Then try the swaps. Be methodical and careful.

Be sure that all important data is backed up, proven recoverable and readable.

You and your brother should be doing that anyway....
 
Solution
Sep 2, 2020
4
0
10
What I meant to say was that I would switch GPUs so that I could test the performance of my GPU in another system. His system has a ryzen 5 3600x and 750W power supply, and my 5700 seemed to perform as expected, and better than what I experience in my system.
Just swapping cards and putting it back in my system seemed to solve the r6 vulkan issues, which I find baffling because I have reassembled my PC multiple times when doing upgrades, and it was never able to run well. I also think that the Minecraft crashing is probably a software issue because shaders crashed on both cards. The performance on TW: Three Kingdoms was a little worse than I would have expected in my system, but I guess that could be attributed partially to the better cpu.
When I fill out my components the power supply calculator on newegg it says I only need about 400W, which theoretically means 550W should be enough. I also do not think my computer has ever crashed due it trying to draw too much power before, and since the 2600 isn't extremely power hungry I wouldn't think my system has stressed the PSU too much, but I could be wrong. The fact that LoL stutters at the same time as CPU spikes makes me think that maybe my CPU is dying rather than my PSU. I mean, I have always heard that the power supply is one of the most reliable and long lasting parts of a system. I did try overclocking my CPU a while ago, though I was careful not to come close unsafe voltages but I wonder if I did something then that decreased the lifetime of my CPU.
I guess I am really asking if it is more likely that my CPU or PSU is the issue, because I don't want to waste money on a unnecessary upgrade.