High GPU usage but very low temperatures

[jasonkang93]

CPU: 3570k @ 4.4 ghz 1.25v
MB: Z77x UD5H
8gb ram @ 1600mhz
EVGA 670 GTX 2gb in sli
W8.1 Pro x64
I have been having trouble lately and in BF4 sometimes after 30~60 min of gaming all of a sudden my frames will drop to 10~20 fps and my gpu temperatures will drop greatly while my cpu is normal. During this my gpus usages are all still at 90~99% usage. Do i have a faulty gpu? I did overclock my memory clock like crazy couple weeks ago and experienced couple BSODS and i just unoverclocked it. Could it possibly mean that my cpu OC needs a bit more voltage? Thanks for any input!

 

[Guest]

As long as you didn't mess around with GPU voltages, it is highly improbable that you damaged your GPUs. Most likely reinstalling the graphics drivers would solve your problem. On a side-note, how are you checking GPU usage?

 

[jasonkang93]

Hi thanks for the reply! I tried a clean reinstall of windows as i noticed more stuttering (using DDU to clean reinstall garbage auto install of drivers) I have been using msi afterburner and rivatuner to cap my fps at 60 while checking the on screen display.

 

[volcanoscout]

What are your actual GPU temps before and after the drop? What target temp is set? It's possible that your GPU is simply automatically downclocking because it's hit or exceeded it's target temperature. You'd still get high usage numbers, but those numbers would apply to the lower clock speed. If that's the case, you'll need to either raise the target temp, improve the cooling (make sure that your case fans are providing enough cool air to the GPU), or both.

 

[jasonkang93]

The highest ever is 73 and for 1.5 years ive never had problems with max 73 C. After the drop they go from 73 to low as 57
Oh and I have very good airflow for all my parts (intake from front and side, then out to back and top h100i)
Honestly if i let it run for couple more minutes i think it would drop to 33 idle temps. Trying to replicate the problem now to see how low it drops.

 

[Guest]

Okay, so I'm assuming that the system malfunctions even at all stock settings for CPU, GPU and RAM.

Alright so first download GPU-Z from the following link:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2360/techpowerup-gpu-z-v0-7-8/

It is a very handy (and free) app that can give some useful info about your GPU, not to mention allowing you to capture GPU sensor data to a simple text file (see the picture below).

Once you've downloaded it, run it and as in the picture above, go to the sensors tab. There, activate the "Log to file" option at the lower left corner. Give it your desktop as the save location. Then, while it is running, without using Afterburner or Rivatuner (you can force v-sync for BF4, for locking frame-rate, from the Nvidia control panel) run BF4. Then after a few seconds of the drop in frame-rates, exit the game, and copy/paste the last quarter or so of the log file here from your desktop. If there is a problem with your GPU hardware, I'm sure there would be some clues to it in the log.

 

[jasonkang93]

Thanks! I have been trying to replicate it for the last 30 minutes but no luck (i did change memory setting from default turbo to normal in BIOS) Ill do this and report back!
quick question, without afterburner gpu will go crazy without the fan profile. Any workarounds for this?

 

[jasonkang93]

Alright guys so i did some digging around the webs and decided to revert back to 335.xx drivers and everything is fixed! Whatever nvidia did to push that extra 5-10% performance in340.52 wasnt gelling to well with my aging cards. Also noticed under 340.52 drivers the core clock speed was running at a whopping 1100mhz in gpu-z and my cards were running on ref speeds.

 

[Guest]

I'm glad that your problem got fixed jasonkang93. Although I must say that the GTX 670 (especially 2x in SLI) is hardly an "aging GPU", and that most probably the problem wasn't with a particular driver version but rather with the installed drivers getting corrupted because of your earlier tinkering.

Also, for an Nvidia card, you should use "EVGA Precision", instead of "MSI Afterburner" which is more AMD-centric, and to my knowledge, RivaTuner has been obsolete for quite some time now. I think they stopped developing it 7-8 years ago after the Nvidia 7xxx series. Check the following quote from their download location:

RivaTuner supports all NVIDIA display adapters starting from Riva TNT family up to the latest GeForce 7 series and widest range of NVIDIA drivers starting from the oldest Detonator 2.08 up to the newest ForceWare drivers family.

As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be very much surprised if RivaTuner was actually the source of your drivers getting damaged.

Note: Your GPU is from the GeForce 600 series. The GeForce series progressed as so: ...7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800.

 

[jasonkang93]

Wow i really did not know that. Thanks, I will get rid of afterburner right away. The only reason i said aging is because I literally did nothing in my life for the past year other than sitting infront of my computer and game haha.