[SOLVED] Performance decrease

[Sniqer]

Hello everyone, I'm having issues with my PC and I can't pinpoint where the issue is exactly.
Basically, the performance of my PC has decreased all of the sudden and the games that I normally play at a stable framerate
have to be lowered in graphics to have the same framerate as before. I've tried finding a solution but none of them worked.
I ran a full virus scan with Norton 360 and it detected and removed stuff but that wasn't causing it.
Then I cleaned my PC to its core (literally), applied new thermal paste and so on and even though the temps were cooler, nothing has changed performance-wise.
I looked at Task-Manager from time to time and it appears that when gaming, my CPU is at 100% until I switch to desktop/Task-Manager, then it goes down.
But I suspect that something is wrong with my RAM because whenever I browse on the web or have a game open, it shoots up to 65-90% usage.
What's odd is that when adding up the usage of the RAM all together, it doesn't even exceed 4GB and I have 8GB in total.

Here are my specs
CPU: Intel Core i5-6400
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060-3GB
SSD: Kingston RBU-SNS8152S3256GG5 128GB
HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2.5" 1TB
RAM: Kingston MSI24D4S7S8MB-8 1x8GB
MBD: MSI MS-B9061

I also ran Userbenchmark on it, but I don't know if that's any helpful.

 

[--SID--]

What games and what resolution?

CPU is a low clocked quadcore without hyperthreading. RAM is single channel and only 8GB. What does MSI Afterburner say about the CPU usage per core, RAM usage, GPU usage and temperatures of CPU and GPU?

 

[geofelt]

What might have changed since all was well?
Perhaps windows pushed out a less than optimal graphics update?
Can you use system restore to go back in time?

How full is your 128gb ssd? I presume it is your C drive.
If it is 90% full, it will start to slow down and lose endurance.
128gb is just too small for a C drive.

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Type mem test into your search box and run the program to see if its faulty but having looked at your bench test i dont think thats your problem.
I rather suspect that your problem is that you only have 8gb of ram even if graph shows it only using 4.
Problems can occour also if your virtual memory is not big enough so find your virtual memory tab in advanced settings , it will show minimum and reccomended settings so change it manually if you need to.

You have to remember ram does a lot of work and google posts say windows 10 needs 4gb just to run it so thats not much left for everything else.

This is what i would do , increase virtual ram setting and get some more ram sticks , look at your manual for the maximum the mobo can use.
Always double ram never go from say 8 to 12 , so you need either 8,16,32,64.
Never mix brands or MHz figures because the lower figure MHz will pull down the performance of the faster one.

 

[Sniqer]

What games and what resolution?

CPU is a low clocked quadcore without hyperthreading. RAM is single channel and only 8GB. What does MSI Afterburner say about the CPU usage per core, RAM usage, GPU usage and temperatures of CPU and GPU?

I'll run some games and give you more info on that soon

 

[Sniqer]

What might have changed since all was well?
Perhaps windows pushed out a less than optimal graphics update?
Can you use system restore to go back in time?

How full is your 128gb ssd? I presume it is your C drive.
If it is 90% full, it will start to slow down and lose endurance.
128gb is just too small for a C drive.

Yeah, my C: drive has only 12GB left (of 118GB)
Though it's worth mentioning that when both of my drives (C and D) were completely out of space, the performance decrease wasn't as severe as it's right now.
I remember downloading Windows updates when shutting down the PC but I don't know how to restore to go back in time.

 

[Sniqer]

What games and what resolution?

CPU is a low clocked quadcore without hyperthreading. RAM is single channel and only 8GB. What does MSI Afterburner say about the CPU usage per core, RAM usage, GPU usage and temperatures of CPU and GPU?

As for the games, I mainly play:

• CS:GO | 1600x900@+144fps - now around 120-150
• Back 4 Blood | 1080p FidelityFX Performance mode - now borderline unplayable
• Age of Empires IV | 1080p High settings - now at medium settings

 

[Sniqer]

Age of Empires IV

My observation

• CPU 3114MHz, around 65°C and 55% used
• GPU at 90% usage
• RAM 6000 - 16060
• AFPS 50-70

 

[Sniqer]

Yeah, my C: drive's got only 12GB of free space left (of 118GB)
Though it's worth mentioning that when both of my drives (C and D) were completely out of space, the performance decrease wasn't as severe as it's right now.
I remember downloading Windows updates when shutting down the PC recently but I don't know how to restore to go back in time.

 

[mdd1963]

an i5-6400 with only 4 threads can pretty much expect to routinely have 100% CPU usage in pretty much all games, so that in itself is not a symptom you are going to remedy, but, will simply have to have adequate RAM, and zero additional apps/processes running that would hog system resources.

 

[Bob.B]

Hello everyone, I'm having issues with my PC and I can't pinpoint where the issue is exactly.
Basically, the performance of my PC has decreased all of the sudden and the games that I normally play at a stable framerate
have to be lowered in graphics to have the same framerate as before. I've tried finding a solution but none of them worked.
I ran a full virus scan with Norton 360 and it detected and removed stuff but that wasn't causing it.
Then I cleaned my PC to its core (literally), applied new thermal paste and so on and even though the temps were cooler, nothing has changed performance-wise.
I looked at Task-Manager from time to time and it appears that when gaming, my CPU is at 100% until I switch to desktop/Task-Manager, then it goes down.
But I suspect that something is wrong with my RAM because whenever I browse on the web or have a game open, it shoots up to 65-90% usage.
What's odd is that when adding up the usage of the RAM all together, it doesn't even exceed 4GB and I have 8GB in total.

Here are my specs
CPU: Intel Core i5-6400
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060-3GB
SSD: Kingston RBU-SNS8152S3256GG5 128GB
HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2.5" 1TB
RAM: Kingston MSI24D4S7S8MB-8 1x8GB
MBD: MSI MS-B9061

I also ran Userbenchmark on it, but I don't know if that's any helpful.

Try UBM again but this time.
Reboot and wait 3 mins then run UBM with the browser closed.
Post a link to the results.

 

[Sniqer]

Try UBM again but this time.
Reboot and wait 3 mins then run UBM with the browser closed.
Post a link to the results.

Sorry for the wait, here are the results
UserBenchmark

 

[Sniqer]

an i5-6400 with only 4 threads can pretty much expect to routinely have 100% CPU usage in pretty much all games, so that in itself is not a symptom you are going to remedy, but, will simply have to have adequate RAM, and zero additional apps/processes running that would hog system resources.

I don't expect to be playing on good graphics settings anyway, and everything was fine (had a high and stable frame rate) until my PC just slowed down out of nowhere and the performance dropped. I'm trying to find out why that is and hopefully find a solution for it.

 

[mdd1963]

Is it more than one game's performance that tanked?

I'd consider removing one sample game affected, try reinstalling chipset drivers, then Nvidia GPU driver package, then installing game fresh....

Does the processsor maintain about 2.7 - 3.0 GHz under load? Try HWMonitor and CPU-Z/bench/stress CPU and observe for 5-10 minutes, looking to see if there are any signs of overheating/throttling, which would be evidenced by high temps of 100C and subsequently drastically lower clock speeds... (certainly clock speeds plummeting to 800 MHz will tank frame rates quite quickly, but, I've seen botched chipset drivers cause the same clock speed limits...)

 

[Bob.B]

Sorry for the wait, here are the results
UserBenchmark

Picking around the edges.
Your ssd is too full.
Run a pass of disk cleanup and use the system files button.

I doubt it will clean enough but it's a start.

Make sure the optimize app is enabled for the ssd and the hdd.

Consider a 2x8GB kit of ram to help things along.

 

[Sniqer]

Is it more than one game's performance that tanked?

I'd consider removing one sample game affected, try reinstalling chipset drivers, then Nvidia GPU driver package, then installing game fresh....

Does the processsor maintain about 2.7 - 3.0 GHz under load? Try HWMonitor and CPU-Z/bench/stress CPU and observe for 5-10 minutes, looking to see if there are any signs of overheating/throttling, which would be evidenced by high temps of 100C and subsequently drastically lower clock speeds... (certainly clock speeds plummeting to 800 MHz will tank frame rates quite quickly, but, I've seen botched chipset drivers cause the same clock speed limits...)

All the games that I've played are effected by it

As far as I can see my CPU's clockrate is not fluctuating and is at a constant ~3GHz. No signs of overheating either, highest it goes is 65°C.
I've reinstalled games but that didn't work, hopefully it's just a software issue and this can be resolved by reinstalling the drivers.

 

[Sniqer]

Picking around the edges.
Your ssd is too full.
Run a pass of disk cleanup and use the system files button.

I doubt it will clean enough but it's a start.

Make sure the optimize app is enabled for the ssd and the hdd.

Consider a 2x8GB kit of ram to help things along.

Will do, thanks.
Also, what's a system files button and where do I find the option to optimize apps for hard drives?

 

[mdd1963]

alas, only a 120 GB SSD is really too small these days....

 

[Bob.B]

Will do, thanks.
Also, what's a system files button and where do I find the option to optimize apps for hard drives?

When you run disk cleanup there is a button for system files.....click it.

You want to get at least 20GB of free space on the ssd.

Type optimize in the search box.
Click on the optimize app.