Second Monitor Causes Extreme FPS Drop

[Kunarick]

I recently bought a new 28" 4k monitor (Crossover 289k) to replace an older 1080p BenQ monitor. When I first set it up, I noticed no performance issues. Now, it is causing extreme FPS drops in video games and videos that are **NOT** running on that monitor at all. For instance, I'll start up a game that I can usually run at 60+ FPS, and now find it running at ~4-10 FPS. I would understand this happening if I were trying to run this rendered in 4k on that monitor, but this is still outputting to my laptop's main screen. Even with nothing displayed on the 4k monitor, I run into this issue. As soon as I unplug the monitor, everything goes back to normal. If I plug in my old BenQ, there are no noticeable issues. It is also worth noting that if I reduce the Crossover 289k to run in 1080p, I still notice the performance drop.

The 4k secondary monitor is plugged in via HDMI, and I do have a Mini DisplayPort, but no adapter to try this yet. Could using the HDMI port really be the issue here, or is there something larger at play? I do not have CPU, Memory, I/O metrics at this time (will upload when home if needed), but last I checked they were not significantly different than usual.

DISPLAYS:
Attached 18.4" 1080 laptop monitor and 28" Crossover 289k 4k secondary monitor
DISPLAY MODE: Extended

Secondary Monitor attached via HDMI (have not been able to try Mini DisplayPort yet - no adapter)

SYSTEM: MSI GT80 TITAN SLI-009:
CHIPSET: Intel HM87
OS: Windows 10
CPU: Intel Core i7-4980HQ 2.8 GHz
L3 CACHE: 6 MB
MEMORY: 24GB DDR3L
STORAGE: 1 TB HDD (approx. 50% free) + 256 GB M.2 SSD (approx. 70% free)
GRAPHICS CARD: Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M SLI
VIDEO MEMORY: 16 GB GDDR5

 

[Kunarick]

Bump - was moved to the PC Gaming forum.

 

[James Mason]

Do you have a tv or another monitor with HDMI that you could test?
Also a MinDP-to-DP cable isn't too expensive: http://www.startech.com/Cables/Audio-Video/DisplayPort/6-ft-Mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort-Adapter-Cable-Male-to-Male~MDP2DPMM6
Are you sure you're using an HDMI 2.0 cable?

The EBAY page for it says it's not compatible with laptops oddly enough... (right above specifications) But your laptops GPUs are technically capable of running 4k just fine.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-CROSSOVER-289K-LED-UHD-28-HDMI-2-0-4K-3840x2160-60Hz-Monitor-Remote/121807192234?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D35852%26meid%3D1790eeee77984a688bd8bba26b398797%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D401022761692&rt=nc

(Also, side note, you actually only have 8GBs of video memory, SLI duplicates the data, so you don't get double the memory, as both cards will hold the same data in their memory and decide how to process it from there)

 

[Kunarick]

Thanks for the response. As I had mentioned, when I plug in the old BenQ 1080, it works fine. It also works fine on my 65" 4k TV using the same cable. Even works fine under load on the TV (MGS V max settings 4k).

As for the SLI, I knew how it works, but was going off the manufacturer specs. You're right though, I see that they are 8GB each now that I went and checked them, and I assume MSI is just trying to market unfairly.