Intermittent lag spikes (Nvidia GTX 970)MSI

[Richard Dear]

Good Evening, a few days ago I had purchased a MSI GTX 970. now it can run pretty much anygame I throw at it with a solid FPS. E.G Running Skyrim with an ENB and graphical mods at 50 fps. However no matter what game I play, at some point I will run into a lag spike, lasting about 10 seconds and cutting the fps down by half or more. These spikes are intermittent and continue to plague me until i close the game.

I have noticed that my Cpu usage would sky rocket to 100 % when these spikes occur, for no apparent reason.

Specs: Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
AMD FX-8350

RAM
8.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 669MHz

Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. M5A78L LE (AM3R2)

Graphics
G246HL (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (MSI)

 

[sla70r]

I am going to guess it is a software issue. What other applications are running while you game ?

 

[Richard Dear]

bare minimum. Also as it happens with every single game, i'm starting to believe it is a hardware issue..

 

[sla70r]

What are the temps during the lag spikes ?

 

[Richard Dear]

around 45 degrees Celsius cpu and 50 odd for the gpu.

 

[Richard Dear]

i think i have found the problem, or at least a symptom. The MSI 970 is supposed to have its fans off til 65 degrees. Now, my pc lagged, alt-tabbed, turned out my gpu was a t 65 degrees. It's either the act of the fans turning on, or too much power draw that is causing my pc to lag under stress?

 

[Richard Dear]

Turns out that was not the issue, Even with my GPU running at 30 degrees, the lag spikes still come forth

 

[ZeusGamer]

It could be due to bottleneck.

Try overclocking the CPU a little more.

Also, I've read a lot of articles stating that Skyrim would be smoother on an intel based platform.

This could be why.

 

[Richard Dear]

as of late, the CPU usage stays around 60% when these spikes occur, and the CPU is already running at 4.2Ghz. Therefore I don't think the CPU is bottlenecking. I just do not understand why this is happening, the fps is solid immediately before and after the spikes.

Also,this issue arises with every single graphically demanding application (games, 3D mark. etc) , so I do not think Skyrim is to blame/ the instigator

 

[itsDolan]

The same thing is happening to me. Glad I'm not alone.

 

[Breadbin00]

The same thing is happening to me. Glad I'm not alone.

Definitely not alone. These symptoms match mine exactly (NVidia GTX 260).

These spikes come every few minutes when running 3D applications. The CPU maxes out, it lasts for about 10 seconds and then it's back to normal for a couple of minutes.

If the 3D application is paused then the spikes and the increased CPU usage stops. It definitely seems related to the gfx card, rather than the fault of other background applications (I've certainly killed all the background tasks I can).

I've tried lower settings in the applications and it doesn't seem to help. Neither does running 3D applications in full screen or windowed.

My specs aren't flash, but I can usually run these applications with a reasonable frame rate. It's hard to pinpoint when the lag spikes started, but it was only a couple of months ago for me.

Specs:
OS: Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ (2.8GHz)
RAM: 4Gb (3Gb used) DDR2
MB: Asus M2N-X Plus
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 260

 

[itsDolan]

I actually found a fix for my problem. I just overclocked my cpu and then the lag spikes were pretty much non - existent. Try this out for the people who are having trouble.

 

[Acesii]

I had the same problem for awhile and was going crazy trying to fix it. I disabled Nvidia Streamer Services through Task Manager's "Services" tab and the spikes were gone. My theory for this is that since the streamer service in connected to the internet (I believe) and Windows Defender has real-time protection, Windows Defender would start up every 5 seconds scanning and monitoring the streamer service which I never use and causing the lag spikes.

Hopefully it helped anyone looking for a fix.

 

[Deniz_]

Download driver booster 3, it will detect tons of outdated drivers. My fps drops went away after updating the intel chipset controller.