Question My FX 8350 is underperforming..

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TheRisingTide

Mar 23, 2019
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Rig:
CPU: FX 8350
GPU: GTX 970 4GB
Motherboard: 990FXA UD3 R5 rev 1.0
Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120v
RAM: 16GB 1334 mhz (8x2)
Storage: 2 TB HDD, 128 GB SSD Boot Drive

So I've had an issue where my CPU (or motherboard I think) isn't performing as well as it should be performing. So sometimes when I play apex legends or the witcher 3 I get a stable 60 fps and after restarting the PC it fluctuates from 40 to 60. This is consistent across all games but what's interesting is that if I hadn't turned my PC off, it would've worked just fine. Around 5% of the time, when I switch it on it works well (60 FPS) and the vast majority of the time it doesn't. I've tried identifying what caused my PC to work better at times to no avail; I've tried overclocking, increasing the VCORE voltage, undervolting my CPU, OC'ing my ram, disabling/enabling cool and quiet,messing with all the C states in the bios and increasing my CPU fan speed. Over the last week it's worked well after booting twice. Once was after I reset the CMOS on my Motherboard so all the settings were the optimized defaults(note that resetting my CMOS hasn't caused my PC to work properly since then). The second time was when I had altered some settings in the BIOS (pictures below), note that after restarting it went back to performing poorly without me changing the settings. After I reset he CMOS and it worked, I took a picture of the HWmonitor data and that's also attached below. I also took a picture of the HWMonitor data after about an hour of game time when my PC was performing poorly, for reference (this is the blurrier picture with the smaller window)

Thanks in Advance!

Link to pictures:
https://imgur.com/a/FGv7unF
View: https://imgur.com/a/FGv7unF


I forgot to add that when I bench my CPU (while its performing poorly) in CPU-Z my scores are on par with an fx 8350. I haven't run a benchmark test while it was performing well and it hasn't ran well in 3 days or so despite me restarting it multiple times.

Rig:
CPU: FX 8350
GPU: GTX 970 4GB
Motherboard: 990FXA UD3 R5 rev 1.0
Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120v
RAM: 16GB 1334 mhz (8x2)
Storage: 2 TB HDD, 128 GB SSD Boot Drive

So I've had an issue where my CPU (or motherboard I think) isn't performing as well as it should be performing. So sometimes when I play apex legends or the witcher 3 I get a stable 60 fps and after restarting the PC it fluctuates from 40 to 60. This is consistent across all games but what's interesting is that if I hadn't turned my PC off, it would've worked just fine. Around 5% of the time, when I switch it on it works well (60 FPS) and the vast majority of the time it doesn't. I've tried identifying what caused my PC to work better at times to no avail; I've tried overclocking, increasing the VCORE voltage, undervolting my CPU, OC'ing my ram, disabling/enabling cool and quiet,messing with all the C states in the bios and increasing my CPU fan speed. Over the last week it's worked well after booting twice. Once was after I reset the CMOS on my Motherboard so all the settings were the optimized defaults(note that resetting my CMOS hasn't caused my PC to work properly since then). The second time was when I had altered some settings in the BIOS (pictures below), note that after restarting it went back to performing poorly without me changing the settings. After I reset he CMOS and it worked, I took a picture of the HWmonitor data and that's also attached below. I also took a picture of the HWMonitor data after about an hour of game time when my PC was performing poorly, for reference (this is the blurrier picture with the smaller window)

Thanks in Advance!

Link to pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/FGv7unF
View: https://imgur.com/a/FGv7unF



I forgot to add that when I bench my CPU (while its performing poorly) in CPU-Z my scores are on par with an fx 8350. I haven't run a benchmark test while it was performing well and it hasn't ran well in 3 days or so despite me restarting it multiple times.
 
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RobCrezz

RobCrezz

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Mar 14, 2013
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TheRisingTide said:
Firstly, I appreciate all the responses regarding overheating.
I know my CPU is overheating and throttling on occasion and to fix this, I've ordered a new fan. However, this clearly isn't the problem as , on the rare occasion that it works, I've monitored my cpu temp data and clock speed. When it worked saturday, my max temps went up to 79 degrees C and it did throttle (a few of my cores went down to 1406 Mhz). Despite this, all my games ran at 60 fps for a few hours. So while my CPU is overheating and that should be fixed when my H60 gets delivered, I don't think that's the problem. More evidence is that I'd left the case open and air conditioner on for a few hours bringing the load temps down to 55-60 degrees C and it still didn't work properly. This still feels completely random to me and I don't see a correlation with temperature. Do you guys think it could be a MOBO or Power Supply problem? (It may be worth noting that I reset my CMOS and my BIOS is up to date)
Click to expand...

Tell me its not the cpu overheating, when its not actually overheating. It can manifest in seemingly odd ways depending on whats running, if somethings updating etc.

Could potentially be the motherboard VRMs overheating, which even though your board has decent vrm cooling is not unheard of. Worth checking with something like hwmonitor.

Faulty PSUs dont tend to cause low performance just shutdowns or crashes under load, generally.
 
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ragnar-gd

ragnar-gd

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Sep 30, 2014
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Late at the show, but whatever...
I have the same CPU, also combined with an GTX 970, and when the CPU hits 65°C, the system throttles.
BUT IT'S NOT THE CPU!
(yeah, i was yellin')
On all of my boards, my chipsets, and, in that case, the Voltage Regulator Modules (VRMs) ran close to 90°C when my CPU hit 65°C.
Possibly it's the voltage regulators that run too hot (to get the CPU to 4GHz and above), and THEY might throttle your CPU. A hint that this is the case is your seemingly random FPS happening after some runtime, while not happening directly after reboot (the VRMs still being cool). Duh. Also makes FX-MoBos last not that long, so that's why this happens after i.e. two years, and not rigth away. Dying a slow death.
My systems went stable once i directed fans at the VRMs. My best board, with a 890FX chipset, has a small whirl on it, because ASRock knew...
Except for one special and very unique system, that runs W98SE, XP and W10 in triple-boot, only used one in a while, i retired all my FX systems. Buy Intel, if you are in a hurry, but perhaps wait until Ryzen 2nd. Gen is out. Even if you are an Intel-fanboy, the pricewar may benefit you in any case.
 
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TheRisingTide

Mar 23, 2019
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ragnar-gd said:
Late at the show, but whatever...
I have the same CPU, also combined with an GTX 970, and when the CPU hits 65°C, the system throttles.
BUT IT'S NOT THE CPU!
(yeah, i was yellin')
On all of my boards, my chipsets, and, in that case, the Voltage Regulator Modules (VRMs) ran close to 90°C when my CPU hit 65°C.
Possibly it's the voltage regulators that run too hot (to get the CPU to 4GHz and above), and THEY might throttle your CPU. A hint that this is the case is your seemingly random FPS happening after some runtime, while not happening directly after reboot (the VRMs still being cool). Duh. Also makes FX-MoBos last not that long, so that's why this happens after i.e. two years, and not rigth away. Dying a slow death.
My systems went stable once i directed fans at the VRMs. My best board, with a 890FX chipset, has a small whirl on it, because ASRock knew...
Except for one special and very unique system, that runs W98SE, XP and W10 in triple-boot, only used one in a while, i retired all my FX systems. Buy Intel, if you are in a hurry, but perhaps wait until Ryzen 2nd. Gen is out. Even if you are an Intel-fanboy, the pricewar may benefit you in any case.
Click to expand...

That would make sense but...
In my case, performance and time have no link. For me it solely depends on the boot. If it decides to perform well after booting, the performance stays consistent till I shutdown (I've gamed for 6 hours and seen no strange fps). However, if the computer decides to perform poorly after booting, regardless of how cool or how long the system is on for, It will never give me good frames. Quite strange, I know. My point is, essentially, that run time doesn't affect performance. But it may be worth noting that time does play a big role in performance while my PC is off. What I mean is that if i spam restart my PC it never boots and performs well. Generally, when it boots and performs well It's been turned off for a couple hours at least.

I'll probably look into VRM temps anyway and thanks for all the help!
 
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TheRisingTide

Mar 23, 2019
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I did use overdrive and I was going negative while my PC was working well..So I know that my CPU is throttling and I've ordered an H60 to fix it but that's not the problem here as it throttles when it works and when it doesn't!
 
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TheRisingTide

Mar 23, 2019
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RobCrezz said:
You keep saying that, but I bet you that if you can get your cpu to run under 60'c at full load, you wont have the problem.
Click to expand...
While I hope my new fan fixes it , the reason I find that hard to believe is that I've kept my PC on the last two days as I don't wanna switch it off and risk it not working. Everytime I've gamed in the last two days my temps hover between 70-80. It's been on for over 30 hours at high temps with no performance hiccups and if I restart it. my performance is likely to get significantly worse..It just doesn't make sense
 
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TheRisingTide

Mar 23, 2019
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Guys, I have a problem with my current cooler, the seidon 120v. I've plugged my fan into the CPU_FAN header and the heatsink/pump in the SYS_FAN header. My idle temps are pretty good , between 30 and 40 degrees generally. But when its under any kind of load, the CPU jumps to like 80 degrees C almost immediately. I've reapplied the thermal paste many times. Also regardless of which direction the fan faces, I always feel air being pushed out of the cabinet rather than in. Ideally, I'd like the fan to be an intake fan, pushing cool air through the radiator into the cabinet. Which part of the cooler do you think is faulty and are there any bios settings I can change?
 
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izoli

izoli

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Apr 29, 2011
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Could I get some additional details,

Screen resolution? Assuming 1080p
Graphic settings? Assuming High

The GTX970 will be your bottleneck on Witcher 3 as it will not maintain 60fps on high settings, this will vary depending on where you are at in the game so you may get 60FPS in one area then get 45FPS somewhere else.

Also to keep in mind FX chips in general do not perform exceptionally on applications that perform better with faster individual core speeds. It will also struggle a bit to maintain 60FPS on high settings in regards to Witcher 3 and it could certainly be getting stressed too much in certain areas of the game which cause it to get a little bit too warm and underclock itself.
 
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