Is my computer dying? (Sorry for the long post, I'm desperate)

[j.white32887]

(Specs below post) So recently I've come across an issue and I'm absolutely and utterly stumped.
I've had the computer since last year and it's worked fine to do everything I need it to do until recently. Before my issues I was able to play a game (Like The Crew on High), stream in 720p for a friend or two, play music (also in 720p), AND have a video call on Discord. There were no issues up until recently.

It started a few days ago when I was doing my normal thing, started streaming for a friend, playing a game, listening to music. (No video call) When I noticed the game would freeze for half of a second, but recover and resume for a little while before happening again. It'd do this irregularly and sporadically, but I kind of shrugged it off at first.

It wasn't until I switched to playing WoW that I noticed the load times were SIGNIFICANTLY worst. Atleast 2, if not 3 times slower than normal, which raised a few red flags for me. The first thing I thought was that my HDD was eating dirt, but after trying everything that I can think of, nothing's helped. I did a virus scan to no results whatsoever (Avast, incase that matters much to anyone), and tried to clear up space and defragment the HDD. Nothing helped so I resorted to a reformat in the hopes a clean slate would fix it. Nothing.

I then assumed it was potentially a CPU issue, so I removed the CPU to check and see if I'd maybe applied the thermal paste wrong the last time I did. I found that it was a very, very thing layer from what I remember applying. So I immediately thought, "Heat issue". I'm still not certain it isn't. I noticed one of my fans was installed backwards, which was just a simple mistake on my part, so I switched it around for better airflow through the case. I turned it back on and got a heat monitoring program to run some tests. I also grabbed CCleaner just in case, and went through everything on there.

The program I'd grabbed made me notice something kind of strange that I'd never seen before. The first red flag was that the CPU was running anywhere from 50C-59C, but under a heavy load at a 4.1 clock that doesn't seem too far out there for me. The strange thing, however, was that I noticed the CPU max out at 100% while doing about half of the things I do normally. Simply streaming a game (The Crew, Medium settings, 720p, 2500kb/s) was maxing my load.

The things that confuse me:
Loading up WoW, watching a video on youtube (On chrome) the load times are still significantly slower.
CPU being 100% taxed for something that normally was fine.

I've tried google but it's just too specific of an issue and I'm too impatient to weed through the results.

Specs:
Win 10 pro x64
i5-3570K @ 4.1GHz clock
GTX 760
750W PSU (Don't know the brand, will check if needed)
Unknown Mobo (I didn't make the initial build, a friend gave me the PC)
16gb Corsair RAM (Don't know which specific kind. Nothing fancy, just generic looking RAM.) (Was initially 32gb RAM, removed 16 because I didn't need it.)
If anyone needs anymore information I'll gladly post it. I'm here to get help, after all.

 

[Grobe]

So, your games loads slower than before - nothing more than that?
And if so - how much slower compared to before?

 

[j.white32887]

"When I noticed the game would freeze for half of a second, but recover and resume for a little while before happening again. It'd do this irregularly and sporadically, but I kind of shrugged it off at first."

"It wasn't until I switched to playing WoW that I noticed the load times were SIGNIFICANTLY worst. Atleast 2, if not 3 times slower than normal, which raised a few red flags for me."

Honestly it's hard to say specifically, but instead of a 4-5 second load time, it'd be upwards of 20 seconds. It's not just the loading however. It's the random freezes too. It only happens for maybe a second at most, but it's still irritating.

Also I should mention, I'm almost positive it's something with my processor, or possibly GPU. As stated, it'll get a 100% load if I play a game and listen to music, where as before hand I could stream, listen to music, play a game, AND video call with my friend. I tried last night to play a game with the video call up while streaming, but the video feed would freeze up entirely. Not the application, or the voice chat. ONLY the video.

 

[j.white32887]

Quick update:
I just got hit with a BSOD out of nowhere. I wasn't doing much of anything. I had WoW open, as well as watching a video on youtube. I was idling in the game, and watching the video at 720p, so I wasn't doing anything taxing.

The error I was given was "Driver_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" with the failure being "nvlddmkm.sys"

Edit: I'm doing a clean install of my Nvidia drivers, will make another edit with results.
Edit 2: CPU is at 5-12% usage and is running hot. It was 60c, but the temp has gone down to 55C. Fan is working fine, and airflow is not an issue. Will reapply thermal paste again in the hopes that I just was too tired and rushed it last night.
Edit 3: Drivers were reinstalled and it appears better, however at full load my CPU is running at 72C now at base clock (3.4GHz)

 

[jr9]

- I'd start with updating your graphics card and chipset drivers. BIOS update also recommended. If you have a system restore point, consider trying a system restore.

- Does task manager state a particular application or process is using 100% of the CPU?

- Do you see any recently installed Windows 10 updates in "Installed Updates" that occurred before you started crashing. Some Windows updates have caused system problems recently.

 

[dontlistentome]

I realize you were given this computer, so you should know something. The CPU is overclocked. Overclocking can result in an unstable system. So rather than think your computer is dying, consider that the overclock has caused instability. So step one is to return all settings to normal. Then stress test both CPU and GPU. If your computer then functions normally, you'll know this is overclock related.

Don't assume because an overclock works today that it'll be working tomorrow.

 

[j.white32887]

This happens with and without the overclock. The most recent issue (Running at 72C on full load) was at the base clock of 3.4GHz. I'll go over a few more things as Jr suggested, and return with results.

 

[The Original Ralph]

if all the other suggestions fail, take a look at this thread over in the GeForce forums - https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1035287/nvlddmkm-sys-crashing/?offset=1

the last two drivers Nvidia released were "buggy", and they're recommending going back about 3 gen drivers

yesterday the newest Nvidia driver seemed to clear the issues i was having, so try the newest one first

 

[j.white32887]

- I'd start with updating your graphics card and chipset drivers. BIOS update also recommended. If you have a system restore point, consider trying a system restore.

- Does task manager state a particular application or process is using 100% of the CPU?

- Do you see any recently installed Windows 10 updates in "Installed Updates" that occurred before you started crashing. Some Windows updates have caused system problems recently.

I've updated everything I could, so far it seems nothing is really changed. I'll try a restore point sometime tomorrow. (Actually I just realized I reformatted my hard drive. There's no restore points accessable)

Upon playing a game, I noticed it was topped out at 100%, so after investigating, it seems that the games (On medium settings mind you) are eating up 80-90% of the CPU, which I find a bit odd considering none of the games I ever played did that before.

No windows updates for me anytime recently.

As for drivers, I just did a clean install of the Nvidia drivers earlier today. It hasn't BSOD'd again after messing around for a few hours, but I did notice that now my GPU is running above 70C. Heat and air flow have never been an issue for me up until all this started happening.

 

[jr9]

The game executables themselves alone have CPU 80-100% usage? As in GTA5.exe process is using 90% of the CPU.

Does this happen in all games? Also which games have you tested?

 

[j.white32887]

The game executables themselves alone have CPU 80-100% usage? As in GTA5.exe process is using 90% of the CPU.

Does this happen in all games? Also which games have you tested?

I'll run a couple games right now and take some screenshots.

 

[j.white32887]

https://imgur.com/a/nrlUR

Strangely enough the only game that wasn't acting funny was WoW, and that's the only game that loads insanely slow.

This is all on it's own. No stream. No video call. Just the game with discord and chrome open in the backround.

Edit: Unfortunately It's super late, I'm gonna go get some rest and bump this in the morning if I haven't found a fix.

 

[jr9]

Very good data. Speedfan is not ideal for temps anymore though. Recommend HWInfo or CoreTemp. If Coretemp says you are at ~55C load on the hottest core then overheating is not a problem at all.

Aside from the BSOD (was likely caused by nVIDIA driver), the GPU and driver seem to be working correctly. The games also do not seem to be an issue as you tried multiple games. No way they all have the same issue. The hardware is actually very well balanced.

The Crew and GTA5 are CPU bottlenecked and Rainbow6 is a GPU bottlenecked. These are as predicted. CPU and GPU are actually working as expected. The CPU usage of the game executables is also on target. Recent AAA games (2015-now) will generally max out Sandy and Ivy Bridge i5 processors quite often first unless graphics settings that are GPU heavy are turned up so high the GPU turns into the bottleneck.

What I would consider doing is trying to play with Discord, any applications or background programs you can like Corsair or Blizzard shut down. Try to free up as much CPU as you can. See if you get better performance. Perhaps one of these programs you use has changed or updated and now uses more CPU resources. Even if it's only less than a percent of CPU usage, if it can be closed then close it. If you were in that 90-95% CPU usage, this extra load could push you into a CPU bottleneck.

Also if you could post your actual in game CPU core clock that would be helpful. HWInfo can tell you your speeds in real time. It should be either 3.4GHz or 3.8GHz if Turbo Boost is working properly on the 3570K or close to these numbers.

 

[j.white32887]

It would appear heating is a major issue, though I know the factors as to why. Closing everything down besides The Crew and Core Temp, the temps seem to fluxuate from 75-84C. Though I know it's not an airflow issue, the issue is the stock intel heatsink and fan, added with the fact that even at a base 3.4GHz clock, the turbo boosts it to 4.1GHz. I guess I was just so frantic with everything happening to suddenly I overlooked such basic details. Thank you for all your help jr. Will address the heating issue immediately.

 

[jr9]

A cheap cooler like a Hyper 212 would do better than stock and you would not have the notable fan noise spike every time Turbo Boost is used. Even if it doesn't solve the issue you would have a much better cooler. If you are removing the CPU cooler at all, old paste must be cleaned off of both the cooler and CPU cap and a small vertical line of paste should be used before replacing the cooler. Too much paste will increase temps.