Question PC is suddenly experiencing huge performance drops.

May 6, 2023
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Earlier today while I was playing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, the game started to stutter and eventually crashed. I have 80+ hours in the game and have never had any issues with it. Since the game crashed, my performance in other games has tanked. Sea of thieves went from a consistent 70-80 fps (I cant remember the exact number) to 5 fps while in game. In addition to that, sometimes even when I'm not playing a game, my monitor seems to drop to a very low fps. When that has happened I've seen video artifacts on YouTube, discord voice calls stop working, and my mouse seemingly lags behind my movements or will just eat them entirely. Also, when I record my screen using Geforce Experience, I can consistently get video artifacts on YouTube and get my system audio to stutter.

This isn't a problem with thermals, as I have more than adequate cooling and clean my pc regularly (about once a month). Additionally, from what Hardware Info is showing, my cpu and gpu seem to be running at their proper clock speeds.

What I have tried:
Enabling/disabling game mode
Updated my graphics drivers
Restarted my PC
Removed and reseated my gpu
Reinstalled windows

Any help would be appriciated and I'll gladly provide any more information if need be.

Edit:
System Spec:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3700x
Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming x570-plus (wi-fi)
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO 1TB
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060 MSI Vectus 2X 12G OC
RAM: 2x Corsair Vengance 3200 16gb sticks
PSU: EVGA 750 GQ 80 PLUS Gold

Edit 2: SOLVED!
I figured it out. Somehow I broke the to PCIe slot on my motherboard. After swapping my GPU to the lower one I stop having any issues.
 
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May 6, 2023
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full system spec? include brand and model of the psu?
how full is the ssd?
I new I was forgetting something.

System Spec:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3700x
Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming x570-plus (wi-fi)
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO 1TB
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060 MSI Vectus 2X 12G OC
RAM: 2x Corsair Vengance 3200 16gb sticks
PSU: EVGA 750 GQ 80 PLUS Gold

When the crash first happened the SSD was probably ~80% full. However, after reinstalling windows and some games, it is still happening at ~50% full.
 
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I just got home from work and figured out the problem. Turns out the top pcie slot on my mother board is broken in some way. I moved my gpu to the lower one and everything is working perfectly again. Thanks any for the help

How could you break a Pci-E slot without knowing it? I mean that GPU isn't really big and heavy enough for sag to damage it.

That said, if you ever build a rig with one of the new large, heavy GPUs, make sure you get a MB that has a steel reinforced Pci-E slot. Most of the MBs made for gaming now do have at least one such slot with reinforcing.

With the really heavy GPUs that get up to 4 lbs or more though, it's good to use an adequate anti sag device as well though.
 
May 6, 2023
4
0
10
How could you break a Pci-E slot without knowing it? I mean that GPU isn't really big and heavy enough for sag to damage it.

That said, if you ever build a rig with one of the new large, heavy GPUs, make sure you get a MB that has a steel reinforced Pci-E slot. Most of the MBs made for gaming now do have at least one such slot with reinforcing.

With the really heavy GPUs that get up to 4 lbs or more though, it's good to use an adequate anti sag device as well though.
I'm not really sure how it is broken, and for all I know the slot is fine and its just something up the chain that broke. What I do know is that once I switched my GPU to my lower slot all of the issues I was having stopped.