GPU usage drops.

[Fraser Cunningham]

I've been having this problem for awhile now. I've been monitoring my gaming using MSI Afterburner, and I've noticed that my GPU usage drops, and then this results in an FPS drop. I've recently formatted my computer via a recovery Windows CD. I've updated all drivers, I've even download my graphics card beta drivers, but no luck. Temp is fine, roughly 75. I've tried running games on lower settings, but still the same drop. It happens on every game that I play, to name a few: League of Legends, Smite and Counter Strike: GO. In LoL my GPU usage is roughly 25%, then drops to 8%, possibly lower. In Smite around 50% usage then drops even lower.

I'd really appreciate some help with this problem, I'll leave my System Specs here.

Here you will find my DxDiag: http://www.datafilehost.com/d/122034c8

 

[biflash]

well your cpu could be botleneking your graphic,all the games you said are cpu boud and prefer clock vs cores, i would recomend core parking if you havent already done (google it) and overclock a bit the cpu to see if there is any diference.

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

well your cpu could be botleneking your graphic,all the games you said are cpu boud and prefer clock vs cores, i would recomend core parking if you havent already done (google it) and overclock a bit the cpu to see if there is any diference.

I've already unparked my cores, didn't do anything. I overclocked my CPU, still low gpu usage now and again, still the same deal.

 

[biflash]

overclock will only help so much, lets say you overclocked 20% the cpu, at best you will get 20% higher fps on cpu intensive parts, are your fps realy low? try a free benchmark like 3dmark13 and see if your gpu usage drop that much, if so you may have a problem on your psu that may underclock the cpu duo to lack of power

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

overclock will only help so much, lets say you overclocked 20% the cpu, at best you will get 20% higher fps on cpu intensive parts, are your fps realy low? try a free benchmark like 3dmark13 and see if your gpu usage drop that much, if so you may have a problem on your psu that may underclock the cpu duo to lack of power

I'm about to test the benchmark, however after more testing it seems I have some more information. Playing Smite on max settings, my GPU and CPU sometimes go to 100% then drop. Could this signify anything?

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

overclock will only help so much, lets say you overclocked 20% the cpu, at best you will get 20% higher fps on cpu intensive parts, are your fps realy low? try a free benchmark like 3dmark13 and see if your gpu usage drop that much, if so you may have a problem on your psu that may underclock the cpu duo to lack of power

Also my PSU is a Coolermaster Elitepower 500W. If that helps in any way.

 

[biflash]

it could be a sign of a bad psu, try checking the cpu clock while gaming in windowed with cpu-z to see if it can sustain-it, or create a log with hardware monitor

 

[biflash]

that is way to litle for that cpu, and coolermaster is not a very good brand for psu, just looking at the first review that i found, your cpu alone can consume up to 579w overclocked lol, dont overclok it on that psu please, its most certain the cause of your problems

 

[terry4536]

One idea is to totally uninstall the graphics card (using a driver cleaner utility). Then do a hard boot, and reinstall the card as if it was a new card. A new instal of the OS is a possibility too. The system tends to accumulate garbage files over time that slows everything down.

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

it could be a sign of a bad psu, try checking the cpu clock while gaming in windowed with cpu-z to see if it can sustain-it, or create a log with hardware monitor

I tested it in windowed there, the core speed stayed at 3415 MHz. It fluctuated only once to about 1215MHz. For some reason the frame rate only dropped once.

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

that is way to litle for that cpu, and coolermaster is not a very good brand for psu, just looking at the first review that i found, your cpu alone can consume up to 579w overclocked lol, dont overclok it on that psu please, its most certain the cause of your problems

Could you possibly recommend another PSU which will do me good? Also thanks for all the help so far, appreciate it man.

 

[terry4536]

Here is a good economical 750 watt power supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207015
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

Here is a good economical 750 watt power supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207015
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Thanks. Really hoping this solves the problem and that I'm not gonna waste my money.

 

[biflash]

the XFX from the post above is a great buy, its build by seasonic and rebranded, one of the best psu makers
evga, seasonic, xfx and corcair except the cx line are all good choices, chose the better deal you find on your usual suplier.

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

the XFX from the post above is a great buy, its build by seasonic and rebranded, one of the best psu makers
evga, seasonic, xfx and corcair except the cx line are all good choices, chose the better deal you find on your usual suplier.

Great, thanks again. I have another question however. If my Graphics Card wattage is 400W and my CPU wattage is 212W, how does my PC even run exactly?

 

[biflash]

your graphic car consumes about 100-120w during gameplay, the 400w number is the recomended power suply maybe, and your processor consumes about 150-300w during gameplay, check the reviews on this very site to get an idea, now there may be spikes were it reach higher values and the psu cant handle and your motherboard detecting the lack of power underclock the cpu.

hope it fix your problem

you can do a quick test to see if it helps by undervolting the processor, lets say your processor is at 1,45v you could probably lower it to 1,35v and if it doen't crash and the gameplay is smoother then it is the psu fault for sure since it has to push less power now

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

your graphic car consumes about 100-120w during gameplay, the 400w number is the recomended power suply maybe, and your processor consumes about 150-300w during gameplay, check the reviews on this very site to get an idea, now there may be spikes were it reach higher values and the psu cant handle and your motherboard detecting the lack of power underclock the cpu.

hope it fix your problem

you can do a quick test to see if it helps by undervolting the processor, lets say your processor is at 1,45v you could probably lower it to 1,35v and if it doen't crash and the gameplay is smoother then it is the psu fault for sure since it has to push less power now

Is there an easy way to undervolt? Can't really find out how to properly :/

 

[biflash]

easy not really, you have to go to your motherbord bios and select manual voltage and ideally lower it bit by bit and test for stability, since you just want a quick test, you could do bigger steps like 0.025v or even 0.050v and do a quick gaming test.
whats your motherboard model, it doest appear on the dxdiag.

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

easy not really, you have to go to your motherbord bios and select manual voltage and ideally lower it bit by bit and test for stability, since you just want a quick test, you could do bigger steps like 0.025v or even 0.050v and do a quick gaming test.
whats your motherboard model, it doest appear on the dxdiag.

ASUS M5A78L-M

 

[biflash]

your problem may be bigger after all
that motherboard is known to have trotling problems

This motherboard has known throttling issues, even at stock speeds!

I have the ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard with an AMD FX-4100 3.6 GHz running at stock speeds and an Arctic Freezer 13 Pro tower heatsink cooler (with cross-blow fan) plus two 120mm top case fans beside the CPU heatsink. Full system specifications in my signature.

Even at stock speeds, when stress testing my processor with IBT or OCCT at 100% load, my FX-4100 will constantly throttle down from 3.6 GHz stock to around 3.3 Ghz then back up again, with the multiplier constantly jumping back and forth between 18 and 16.5.

This is with Turbo Core, C6 and Cool 'n' Quiet disabled in the BIOS and power settings in Windows set to High Performance settings. It is not possible to disable C1E or APM in the BIOS of this motherboard, however. I have flashed my ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard to the latest BIOS version 1503 (2012-12-04). I have also tried undervolting down from 1.41 V to 1.35 V and even 1.25 V respectively.

I have verified the throttling issue not to be attributable to high system temperatures during full load as they were only hitting around 25°C max on the CPU and 35°C max elsewhere on the motherboard. My AMD FX-4100 idles at a very cool 5°C thanks to the Arctic Freezer 13 Pro cooler.

Evidently, APM keeps kicking in and throttling down my CPU to prevent overheating and damage to on-board components such as the VRMs.Touching the VRMs beside the CPU socket, they get very toasty indeed during 100% load. This has been widely experienced and reported by many other owners of the same motherboard series, both at stock and overclocked speeds.

To confirm whether this is the case, since it's not possible to disable APM in the BIOS, I used the AMD Overdrive program to disable AMD Turbo Core, which as documented in AMD's official 'AMD FX Performance Tuning Guide' on p10, also disables APM. With APM disabled I ran another stress test with IBT and also OCCT, and at 100% load the multiplier remains at 18 and core speed at 3.6 GHz, thus indicating that APM and overworked VRMs to be the culprit.

This means that, in order for me to be able to run my AMD FX-4100 even at 3.6 GHz stock speed on this motherboard during 100% load, I have to circumvent APM using AMD Overdrive. Of course, circumventing APM and the throttling is not a good thing since it's throttling for a reason!

The ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 specifications states CPU support for up to 140W - yes in the sense that the processor will work, but for the majority, not as you'd expect.

possible solution

Mmn. In AMD OverDrive you need to click 'Core/Voltage' under Performance Control, then click the 'Turbo Core Control...' button in the Clock section. When the Turbo Core Control options appears, uncheck the 'Enable Turbo Core' checkbox at the top to disable AMD Turbo Core feature (which consequently will also disable the AMD APM feature).

Since my original post I've found a better way of disabling the AMD APM feature on this motherboard at system boot using a command line program called AmdMsrTweaker.

See my post in the following thread for more info: http://www.overclock.net/t/1202751/amd-fx-cpu-throttling-fixes-please-sticky/70#post_21417413

also, check last pages on this thread

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

your problem may be bigger after all
that motherboard is known to have trotling problems

This motherboard has known throttling issues, even at stock speeds!

I have the ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard with an AMD FX-4100 3.6 GHz running at stock speeds and an Arctic Freezer 13 Pro tower heatsink cooler (with cross-blow fan) plus two 120mm top case fans beside the CPU heatsink. Full system specifications in my signature.

Even at stock speeds, when stress testing my processor with IBT or OCCT at 100% load, my FX-4100 will constantly throttle down from 3.6 GHz stock to around 3.3 Ghz then back up again, with the multiplier constantly jumping back and forth between 18 and 16.5.

This is with Turbo Core, C6 and Cool 'n' Quiet disabled in the BIOS and power settings in Windows set to High Performance settings. It is not possible to disable C1E or APM in the BIOS of this motherboard, however. I have flashed my ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard to the latest BIOS version 1503 (2012-12-04). I have also tried undervolting down from 1.41 V to 1.35 V and even 1.25 V respectively.

I have verified the throttling issue not to be attributable to high system temperatures during full load as they were only hitting around 25°C max on the CPU and 35°C max elsewhere on the motherboard. My AMD FX-4100 idles at a very cool 5°C thanks to the Arctic Freezer 13 Pro cooler.

Evidently, APM keeps kicking in and throttling down my CPU to prevent overheating and damage to on-board components such as the VRMs.Touching the VRMs beside the CPU socket, they get very toasty indeed during 100% load. This has been widely experienced and reported by many other owners of the same motherboard series, both at stock and overclocked speeds.

To confirm whether this is the case, since it's not possible to disable APM in the BIOS, I used the AMD Overdrive program to disable AMD Turbo Core, which as documented in AMD's official 'AMD FX Performance Tuning Guide' on p10, also disables APM. With APM disabled I ran another stress test with IBT and also OCCT, and at 100% load the multiplier remains at 18 and core speed at 3.6 GHz, thus indicating that APM and overworked VRMs to be the culprit.

This means that, in order for me to be able to run my AMD FX-4100 even at 3.6 GHz stock speed on this motherboard during 100% load, I have to circumvent APM using AMD Overdrive. Of course, circumventing APM and the throttling is not a good thing since it's throttling for a reason!

The ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 specifications states CPU support for up to 140W - yes in the sense that the processor will work, but for the majority, not as you'd expect.

possible solution

Mmn. In AMD OverDrive you need to click 'Core/Voltage' under Performance Control, then click the 'Turbo Core Control...' button in the Clock section. When the Turbo Core Control options appears, uncheck the 'Enable Turbo Core' checkbox at the top to disable AMD Turbo Core feature (which consequently will also disable the AMD APM feature).

Since my original post I've found a better way of disabling the AMD APM feature on this motherboard at system boot using a command line program called AmdMsrTweaker.

See my post in the following thread for more info: http://www.overclock.net/t/1202751/amd-fx-cpu-throttling-fixes-please-sticky/70#post_21417413

also, check last pages on this thread

That seems to have fixed it, I'll tell you if the problem crops back up. I still think I should get a new PSU at somepoint however.

 

[Fraser Cunningham]

your problem may be bigger after all
that motherboard is known to have trotling problems

This motherboard has known throttling issues, even at stock speeds!

I have the ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard with an AMD FX-4100 3.6 GHz running at stock speeds and an Arctic Freezer 13 Pro tower heatsink cooler (with cross-blow fan) plus two 120mm top case fans beside the CPU heatsink. Full system specifications in my signature.

Even at stock speeds, when stress testing my processor with IBT or OCCT at 100% load, my FX-4100 will constantly throttle down from 3.6 GHz stock to around 3.3 Ghz then back up again, with the multiplier constantly jumping back and forth between 18 and 16.5.

This is with Turbo Core, C6 and Cool 'n' Quiet disabled in the BIOS and power settings in Windows set to High Performance settings. It is not possible to disable C1E or APM in the BIOS of this motherboard, however. I have flashed my ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 motherboard to the latest BIOS version 1503 (2012-12-04). I have also tried undervolting down from 1.41 V to 1.35 V and even 1.25 V respectively.

I have verified the throttling issue not to be attributable to high system temperatures during full load as they were only hitting around 25°C max on the CPU and 35°C max elsewhere on the motherboard. My AMD FX-4100 idles at a very cool 5°C thanks to the Arctic Freezer 13 Pro cooler.

Evidently, APM keeps kicking in and throttling down my CPU to prevent overheating and damage to on-board components such as the VRMs.Touching the VRMs beside the CPU socket, they get very toasty indeed during 100% load. This has been widely experienced and reported by many other owners of the same motherboard series, both at stock and overclocked speeds.

To confirm whether this is the case, since it's not possible to disable APM in the BIOS, I used the AMD Overdrive program to disable AMD Turbo Core, which as documented in AMD's official 'AMD FX Performance Tuning Guide' on p10, also disables APM. With APM disabled I ran another stress test with IBT and also OCCT, and at 100% load the multiplier remains at 18 and core speed at 3.6 GHz, thus indicating that APM and overworked VRMs to be the culprit.

This means that, in order for me to be able to run my AMD FX-4100 even at 3.6 GHz stock speed on this motherboard during 100% load, I have to circumvent APM using AMD Overdrive. Of course, circumventing APM and the throttling is not a good thing since it's throttling for a reason!

The ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 specifications states CPU support for up to 140W - yes in the sense that the processor will work, but for the majority, not as you'd expect.

possible solution

Mmn. In AMD OverDrive you need to click 'Core/Voltage' under Performance Control, then click the 'Turbo Core Control...' button in the Clock section. When the Turbo Core Control options appears, uncheck the 'Enable Turbo Core' checkbox at the top to disable AMD Turbo Core feature (which consequently will also disable the AMD APM feature).

Since my original post I've found a better way of disabling the AMD APM feature on this motherboard at system boot using a command line program called AmdMsrTweaker.

See my post in the following thread for more info: http://www.overclock.net/t/1202751/amd-fx-cpu-throttling-fixes-please-sticky/70#post_21417413

also, check last pages on this thread

I'm sorry to bring this back up, but I finally decided to buy a new PSU. It's a 750W, but it hasn't seemed to alleviate my problem. Is it worth it to buy a new mobo, and if so could you recommend one?

 

[SmotheryZORF]

No joke, I started having this problem, and it was driving me nuts, I tried everything. Then I saw one thread that said disable Global Vsync. I did that, and BOOM back in business