[SOLVED] GPU Utilization Issue

[brettlafemin]

[Specs: Windows 10 Home OS, Intel Core i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz, 16.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, 2.72 TB HDD, 464 GB SSD] Hello everyone! So recently, I've had some worrying issues caused by a controller that I've been using on my computer for ages. It's this old, cheap USB Xbox 360 controller that has this red glowing setting. Anyways, I'd say about a week ago, I plugged the controller into my computer and heard a pop through the headphones I was wearing and noticed that the controller had not powered on. In fact, I noticed that my headphones as well powered off, and the front 4 USB ports were no longer working. I then was notified at the bottom right of my monitor that there was a power surge and that I should restart my computer. Well I continued down this path of restarting the computer and deleting and reinstalling the USB drivers, plugging in the controller again, power surge in USB port, everything shuts off, repeat. This went on for about 8 or 9 times before I finally realized that the problem is probably the controller. So I went out and bought a much better controller and the surging issue went away. However, I have a new problem now. Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of my favorite games of all time and I have been recently trying to 100% it, which is taking forever. So I started that up, loaded in, and realized that everything is way laggier than they ever were before. I got through the entire story with a smooth 60 FPS, with only a few dips down into the mid 50's. However, now when I go into towns or forests in particular, the game tends to drop down to 40's and 30's, sometimes with intense stuttering and a lot of visible popping in and spawning. So I opened up the task manager to see what was going on and I noticed that the CPU was at about 80% usage and the GPU was at about 4% usage. Now I know this may sound like a bottleneck, but keep in mind, I did not have any of these problems at all before the surge. I've tried reinstalling the GPU drivers, playing around with the NVIDIA Control Panel, verifying the integrity of the game files, you name it, and there's still no solution to the issue. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

have you tried playing without the gamepad connected to see if it may be causing odd issues within Windows?

and when you are reinstalling graphics drivers,
did you use DDU to wipe all of the previous settings, files, and drivers before reinstalling the latest Nvidia package?

i would also try clearing CMOS,
making sure you have the latest available BIOS,
and making sure you are using all of the latest motherboard drivers.

if none of these have made any impact
try installing a fresh version of Windows and all latest drivers again.

if the issue still persists after a fresh OS install,
you know you have a hardware issue with one of your main components(GPU, motherboard, RAM, etc).
there's a chance the initial power surge, or the constant surges after, damaged your motherboard and\or other connected components.

 

[brettlafemin]

have you tried playing without the gamepad connected to see if it may be causing odd issues within Windows?

and when you are reinstalling graphics drivers,
did you use DDU to wipe all of the previous settings, files, and drivers before reinstalling the latest Nvidia package?

i would also try clearing CMOS,
making sure you have the latest available BIOS,
and making sure you are using all of the latest motherboard drivers.

if none of these have made any impact
try installing a fresh version of Windows and all latest drivers again.

if the issue still persists after a fresh OS install,
you know you have a hardware issue with one of your main components(GPU, motherboard, RAM, etc).
there's a chance the initial power surge, or the constant surges after, damaged your motherboard and\or other connected components.

Hello there! Thank you for the quick response, I appreciate it! And I had previously tired all of that up to the fresh installation of Windows, the redownloading of all of the drivers and the complete reset of the computer, which I did a few days ago. Unfortunately however, the problems are still persisting. So at this point I completely agree with you, I think it's most likely a hardware issue that we're looking at here. The stressful thing though is that I don't exactly know which component to replace first. I'm really worried about going out and buying a new power supply without knowing for sure if buying a new one solve the issue. Do you have any thoughts as to what the most likely component to be damaged would be? I also don't know if this is valuable information to add in, but I've also noticed that every game now, despite being at the highest settings, render graphically as they would on the lowest possible settings.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

I've also noticed that every game now, despite being at the highest settings, render graphically as they would on the lowest possible settings.

if you can get your hands on another GPU to test in your system, it would prove if the 2080 is damaged.

finding someone(friend, family member, etc) with a relatively similar build will make troubleshooting much easier.
swapping out GPU, RAM, and PSU between the systems can easily show if either of those were affected.

there's a slight chance the PCIe port could have been affected by the surges and can't function properly.
if you have a second 16x port or even an 8x port, you can try the GPU there and see if there's any improvement.
if so, than it more than likely is the motherboard itself.

 

[brettlafemin]

if you can get your hands on another GPU to test in your system, it would prove if the 2080 is damaged.

finding someone(friend, family member, etc) with a relatively similar build will make troubleshooting much easier.
swapping out GPU, RAM, and PSU between the systems can easily show if either of those were affected.

there's a slight chance the PCIe port could have been affected by the surges and can't function properly.
if you have a second 16x port or even an 8x port, you can try the GPU there and see if there's any improvement.
if so, than it more than likely is the motherboard itself.

That’s actually a really good idea! I could go through the process of elimination with all of the different parts. My brother has a somewhat similar build. He’s got my old 1060 that I’m sure he would lend me for a little bit to troubleshoot. And I think my motherboard does have a second GPU slot, but I think I’m gonna have to take out the sound card first, I think it’s a little bit in the way of the 2nd slot, so I think I’ll get working on that tomorrow. I have a sneaking suspicion though that it’s the motherboard that’s fried, which I really hope it isn’t. Recently I noticed that the USB I used for the game pad is kind of on and off now and really inconsistent, no matter how many times the drivers are redownloaded. So subsequently, I think some part of the motherboard is shot, so that may need replacing as is.