[SOLVED] Gaming performance issues

[Tombog636]

For the last week, I’ve been experiencin performance issues during gaming. Mostly I play Minecraft & Forza. For example, when I walk, run, sprint in Minecraft, the screen freezes for a second or two then carries on. It’s not just a Minecraft issue and it’s only started happening in the last week or so.

Java is up to date, so are my drivers, I think. Anti-virus shows healthy system.

Maybe it’s something running in the background that’s using processor power ? ICue for example ?

If so, how can I check this in Windows 10?

I would appreciate any advice, thank you.

My built is about 10 months old, and is as follows :

MOTHERBOARD : ASUS PRIME Z270-A Intel ATX Motherboard

RAM : Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000MHz

STORAGE :
Seagate Barracuda Pro 4TB HDD
Samsung 500 GB 860 EVO Sata III 64L V NAND SSD

GRAPHICS CARD : ASUS Radeon 8GB RX580

CPU : Intel Core i7 6700K Processor (4 GHz, 4 Core, 8 Threads, 8 MB cache)

FAN : Cooler Master Hyper 212X CPU Air Cooler

POWER SUPPLY :Corsair 650W ATX PSU

Additional : Windows 10 home edition

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

Right off the bat, it could be lots of things.

But seeing as it's mostly gaming we can start there. First thing I'd say is make sure you do have the most up to date driver for the GPU, but also the latest system drivers too. Check your mobo manufacturers website for those. FOr the GPU it's worth un-installing the current driver with something like DDU. It will clear it off completely. Then do a fresh install of the newest driver, that way we can be sure it's not driver related.

You can use MSI afterburner OSD to show some system metrics while you are gaming. Set it to show CPU usage/clockspeed/temp, System ram, GPU clockspeed/usage/vram/temp, and we can see what's going on while it's happening. If you notice an unusual things that might show the issues. You can probably expect CPU usage and/or GPU usage to be up to 100% and that will be okay. But you can take screenshots and post them, and we can help see if there is anything peculiar happening.

It's worth doing the obvious things like checking power cable, re-seat the GPU to make sure it's locked into the PCIE slot etc. Clear out and dust that builds up on the GPU fans.

 

[Tombog636]

Thank you so much for your reply. There was a more recent GPU driver so I clean installed it as you suggested. I also checked the power cables and the seating of the GPU - all seemed fine.
Yesterday we got a SMART BIOS message to say the hard disk was about to fail and today it looks like it has. After the BIOS message, I ran all available disk checks on the Seagate website and no issues were detected.
however on start up today, the hard disk performance ran at 100% then the system froze.
I don’t understand why the hard disk would have failed after only 10 months and I’d like to understand before I replace the disk. Do you have any advice before I order a new hard drive ?
many thanks

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Just because the HDD is at 100% usage, doesn't mean it's failing. It could mean there are running tasks causing the 100% usage. Have you run Anti-virus, malware etc to ensure there are no software issues etc?

A failing HDD, can certainly cause issues like this. Given the signs, I'd suggest backing up the drive immediately. And looking at a replacement whether SSD or HDD based. Otherwise you may have to re-install the OS on a new drive and risk losing your other data.

However, performing the anti-virus, malware check is important before you back up. You don't want to transfer any potential virus/malware to the newly copied drive.