[SOLVED] Games FPS tank after PC is on for a while

[GabeZava]

Hey, not sure if this is the right place for this, but recently I've been having some weird issues with my games and even my PC in general.

So my system is pretty beefy and I run most games at 1440p 60fps no problem (see specs bellow). But recently, for some weird reason my games fps are just dropping to the 30s and 20s, and this happens with several games (as of now it's happened with League of Legends, Doom Eternal, Risk of Rain 2, Crash Trilogy and Spyro Trilogy).

Now the weird thing is, if I turn off and then turn my computer back on the games run completely fine and I can even game just fine for several hours. I have checked temps both when the issue is happening and when it's not and nothing seems to be overheating - cpu doesn't go over 60c and GPU max has reached about 55c.

A couple things that have happened that (hopefully) will make it easier for someone to find what my issue is. So for the past month my PC would freeze whenever the monitors would shut down because I was away for 20 minutes or so (I have it so my PC doesn't go to sleep automatically but the monitors turn off after a while). I would move my mouse and/or press keys but nothing would happen, the PC was still clearly on because all the fans were spinning, but I noticed the RGB on my keyboard was also frozen. After that happened like 4 times I decided to just make it so my monitors wouldn't turn off for at all. Then a couple days later the PC started freezing when coming out of sleep mode - the monitors would turn on, but where it would usually ask me to type in my password for my windows user account, nothing would happen (this time the rgb on the keybaord wasn't frozen but I couldn't see my mouse pointer, the screen was just frozen where windows usually shows you those nice looking backgrounds where you're about to type in your password)/

One last thing I noticed, when my FPS get extremely awful, if I try to alt+tab out of my games (I tried this with doom) and go to my desktop, everything would be extremely laggy and my cursor was stuttering HEAVILY. I also tried running the heavens benchmark thing for GPUs when my PC was being funny, and even though it said it was running at about 60-100 FPS, it looked as if it was A LOT lower, like in the 20 (I had the program running in windowed mode and for some reason if I tried alt+tabbing the heaven benchmark wasn't laggy anymore)

Sorry for the wall of text but hopefully someone can help me out. Also my specs are

CPU: i5 8600k OC at 4ghz (I have a hyper 212x on it)
GPU: a Zotac Gaming RTX 2080 slightly OC
RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance
MOBO: GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS Ultra
PSU: an EVGA 650w gold rated, can't remember exactly which one

 

[GabeZava]

Also forgot to mention, I recently bought a 2nd monitor and none of the issues I described happened before that. Not really sure how a 2nd monitor would be the issue but just thought I would mention that, as it might help with figuring out what my issue is.

 

[shiriken]

Your CPU is struggling to keep up with the GPU aka bottleneck.

Intel Core i5-8600K (Clock speed at 100%) with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (Clock speed at 100%) x1 will produce 19.14% of bottleneck. Everything over 10% is considered as bottleneck.

 

[GabeZava]

That is probably true but I've been gaming with the 8600K paired with my RTX 2080 just fine for almost a year now, and this issue only started recently.

I understand how a bottleneck might not let my GPU perform as well as it should, but not sure how that is causing me to somehow drop to 20-30 FPS in games that I can easily run at 144fps when my computer has just been turned on.

EDIT: Also, would a bottleneck cause my PC to just freeze after waking up from sleep?

 

[Nemesia]

Not a bottleneck issue. You do not have a temperatures issue either.

Did you upgrade to Windows 10 2004 version?

Use DDU to remove all traces of graphics drivers and reinstall the latest GPU drivers.

 

[GabeZava]

Not a bottleneck issue. You do not have a temperatures issue either.

Did you upgrade to Windows 10 2004 version?

Use DDU to remove all traces of graphics drivers and reinstall the latest GPU drivers.

I updated windows last night so I assume it gave me the latest version - is that the 2004 version?

Also just to make sure since I've never used DDU, I did a google search and there's like 4 different websites saying I can download it there. What's the official/best website to download DDU from?

 

[Nemesia]

I updated windows last night so I assume it gave me the latest version - is that the 2004 version?

Also just to make sure since I've never used DDU, I did a google search and there's like 4 different websites saying I can download it there. What's the official/best website to download DDU from?

Yeah that Windows Update probably screwed up your GPU drivers and maybe other drivers. So let's start with the GPU.

Here is what you're gonna do.

Download DDU - https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

Download the drivers for your RTX 2080 - https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/162105/en-us

Do this:

• Restart your PC in safe mode.
• Unplug your internet.
• Start DDU and choose NVIDIA at the right for what drivers you wanna clean and click Clean and Reboot.
• After the reboot to normal Windows install the drivers.
• Reboot.
• Plug your internet.

Let me know if everything is back to normal or not.

 

[GabeZava]

Yeah that Windows Update probably screwed up your GPU drivers and maybe other drivers. So let's start with the GPU.

Here is what you're gonna do.

Download DDU - https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

Download the drivers for your RTX 2080 - https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/162105/en-us

Do this:

• Restart your PC in safe mode.
• Unplug your internet.
• Start DDU and choose NVIDIA at the right for what drivers you wanna clean and click Clean and Reboot.
• After the reboot to normal Windows install the drivers.
• Reboot.
• Plug your internet.

Let me know if everything is back to normal or not.

Hey thanks for the detailed instruction lol I wasn't sure how to do this. Currently slammed with some work stuff but I will try this probably in the AM and let you know how it goes.

Thanks!

 

[Scollins1996]

Hey thanks for the detailed instruction lol I wasn't sure how to do this. Currently slammed with some work stuff but I will try this probably in the AM and let you know how it goes.

Thanks!

How did this work? I’m currently having the same issue after the latest Windows update and connecting a second monitor.

 

[GabeZava]

How did this work? I’m currently having the same issue after the latest Windows update and connecting a second monitor.

Hey! haven't gone around doing what @Nemesia recommended, BUT I may have found what my issue was.

So last night again, while playing Doom my FPS tanked to the 20s and I went ahead and opened task manager. For some reason Wallpaper Engine was using almost 100% of my GPU - I closed the application and voila my game was running fine again. Haven't had any freezes or any of my previous issues at all for now, so I would hope that was reason my PC was acting funny.

Wallpaper Engine had been crashing a lot for the past couple months so maybe adding the 2nd monitor did something to it? I will still try to use DDU to reinstall my graphics drivers to see if that fixes my issues with Wallpaper Engine - currently I have it off but if I turn it on same thing happens, my FPS tank because it is using an ungodly amount of GPU power for some reason.

 

[Nemesia]

Hey! haven't gone around doing what @Nemesia recommended, BUT I may have found what my issue was.

So last night again, while playing Doom my FPS tanked to the 20s and I went ahead and opened task manager. For some reason Wallpaper Engine was using almost 100% of my GPU - I closed the application and voila my game was running fine again. Haven't had any freezes or any of my previous issues at all for now, so I would hope that was reason my PC was acting funny.

Wallpaper Engine had been crashing a lot for the past couple months so maybe adding the 2nd monitor did something to it? I will still try to use DDU to reinstall my graphics drivers to see if that fixes my issues with Wallpaper Engine - currently I have it off but if I turn it on same thing happens, my FPS tank because it is using an ungodly amount of GPU power for some reason.

Great! You found the issue and you did not have to try what I said. It's probably Wallpaper Engine not working properly with the new Windows 10 2004 version. It will probably be fixed soon on a new wallpaper engine version. Glad you have your FPS back!

 

[Scollins1996]

Hey! haven't gone around doing what @Nemesia recommended, BUT I may have found what my issue was.

So last night again, while playing Doom my FPS tanked to the 20s and I went ahead and opened task manager. For some reason Wallpaper Engine was using almost 100% of my GPU - I closed the application and voila my game was running fine again. Haven't had any freezes or any of my previous issues at all for now, so I would hope that was reason my PC was acting funny.

Wallpaper Engine had been crashing a lot for the past couple months so maybe adding the 2nd monitor did something to it? I will still try to use DDU to reinstall my graphics drivers to see if that fixes my issues with Wallpaper Engine - currently I have it off but if I turn it on same thing happens, my FPS tank because it is using an ungodly amount of GPU power for some reason.

Glad to hear it seems to be fixed! I’ll check task manager next time I have that issue as well. Thanks for the heads up!