Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU Usage 100%

[mb666]

Hi to everyone,

I really hope someone is able to help me out with this.

I purchased a quite high end laptop from PC Specialist last October. It is a Proteus Series with i7 Quad Core Processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM and Nvidia GTX 1070 8GB Graphics Card as a brief overview.

Everything was perfect until about the end of March. I noticed that the GPU Usage, monitored through the pre-installed Control Center and CPUID HWMonitor, was spiking and staying at 99/100% after about 10 minutes use and fans seemed to be going into overdrive.

After much investigation I seem to have located the potential issue. If the laptop is running off the battery there is no problem at all running everything with an internet connection. Likewise, if running off the AC power there is no problem, as long as I am NOT on Wi-Fi or ethernet internet connection. The problem ONLY seems to occur when plugged in to the mains AND connected to the internet (either by Wi-Fi or hard wired). And this only happens at home and not at work.

I have tried different sockets in the house and even a slightly older BT Hub5 router, but with the same outcome.

I have spoken with the HelpDesk at PC Specialist on a near daily basis and they have suggested there could be an issue with the BIOS, which was updated and made no difference. They have also looked at drivers, again with no change. It has been suggested that a Windows re-install might solve this, however I cannot see this being necessary due to the fact that the laptop runs perfectly at work. And I have run the same applications at work and home to get a true comparison.

Sorry for the long post and I hope someone can give me some much needed assistance, and I send my sincere thanks.

Regards.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

If it were stressing any other part than just the GPU it'd be less suspicious, but you might have picked up a virus or malware of a very specific kind. Floating around the internet lately have been scripts and such that use unsuspecting people's hardware to mine crypto currency for them. Now, these can't mine without being online, which would explain why it only happens when you are online.

I think you need to find yourself a good malware and virus scanner. Failing that you should probably reinstall Windows.

That said, I don't know for sure that this is the problem you have, it is only a theory which happens to fit the facts.

 

[Greeko85]

Have you installed any questionable software lately? Have you tried running a virus/ malware/ rootkit scan? Kind of sounds a bit like your gpu starts mining when you have an internet connection

 

[iamacow]

I bet you have malware running a miner in the background.

 

[mb666]

Thank you Justin, Greeko85 and iamacow!

I will try and find a decent malware/rootkit.

Forgive my misunderstanding, but is is possible for this to just to affect my home internet and cause the GPU 100% usage? As I said the machine works perfect as work with zero issues when online.

 

[iamacow]

I'm confused. Didn't you say it jumps to 100% when you are online?

 

[mb666]

I'm confused. Didn't you say it jumps to 100% when you are online?

It only jumps to 100% usage when online AND plugged in to mains. When not using mains power I can be online with no problem.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Generally a mining malware will only use network and GPU resources. It will download massive file chunks and use the GPU to process on. Other system resources aren't used. You can still use your system as it wouldn't use much CPU, RAM, or the integrated GPU.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

As for it only using the GPU when plugged in, that makes sense. Your power settings might have the discrete card disabled when on battery.

 

[mb666]

As for it only using the GPU when plugged in, that makes sense. Your power settings might have the discrete card disabled when on battery.

Ok, worth looking at.

So is it possible for this to only affect the laptop when using my home internet? The machine works with no problems at all on work internet.

 

[DRagor]

Reason why it does not happen when you are at work might be that your work's net has some kind of protections that does not allow malware to execute mining script successfully, why your home network most likely does not have such protection.
Also malware may not be able to run when using battery because how the power plans are set. Often laptops are set to deliver only limited power to GPU when on battery so it may be insufficient for a mining.
Of course those are just guesses, but you should start with checking for malware as first step.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Reason why it does not happen when you are at work might be that your work's net has some kind of protections that does not allow malware to execute mining script successfully, why your home network most likely does not have such protection.
Also malware may not be able to run when using battery because how the power plans are set. Often laptops are set to deliver only limited power to GPU when on battery so it may be insufficient for a mining.
Of course those are just guesses, but you should start with checking for malware as first step.

I second this. Your work network, as with most hotspots will likely have a firewall in place that prevents this malware from reaching the internet at large.

 

[mb666]

Thank you all for your suggestions!

VERY much appreciated and I will try this later on this evening and let you all know how it went.

Once again - thank you!

 

[mb666]

Thank you all for the advice. It appears that Malware was detected and after installing MalwareBytes my system seems to be running perfectly once again. A MASSIVE thank you once again.