Sometimes after I boot my computer and until I restart it, I notice that things can sometimes be sluggish and stutter (like the taskbar, start menu, system settings, clicking and dragging windows, booting programs, etc.) and while gaming, it overheats and my FPS will cut to near zero for 5-10 seconds every 3-4 minutes or so. Additionally, the Performance tab in the Task Manager grinds my computer down to ~.2 FPS, as does GPU-Z (Open Hardware Monitor is even worse). Lastly, when the screen turns off due to idle time (not put to sleep, just the screen turning off), I can't seem to get it to turn back on until I hit the power button, at which point it will flash the screen before powering off.
I used to be able to shut down and restart my computer a couple of times until it booted up "correctly" and this wouldn't occur and it would run perfectly until I turned it off, but this has been getting harder and I can't seem to get it to do so now, after it randomly restarted on me two days ago. Over the course of many reboots, I learned that if it booted up "correctly", the monitor would display scrambled colors on part of the screen for about a second before loading the lock screen, and this lock screen would have the Windows Spotlight toasts (to learn more about or "like" the background displayed, etc.); if these two things did not appear, that was a sign that I would encounter these issues.
Core Temp runs fine and seems to show my CPU using low power with a temperature between 20-40°C: View: https://i.imgur.com/i5WeCby.png
CPU-Z is a little slow but runs (and looks) more or less fine to me (although I just learned that my RAM is running slowly because I have XMP disabled; I'll fix that): https://valid.x86.fr/uizmdy
GPU-Z, as I mentioned, slows my computer down to a crawl, but when I hide specific sensor readouts, it runs normally (after an admittedly slow load). I haven't isolated which exact sensors cause this slowdown as it's a slow and tedious process, but they seem to be GPU-related: I know CPU Temperature (26°C), GPU Temperature (50°C), and Memory Used (976MB) work fine. I left it running to monitor the temperatures while gaming in Classic WoW (not a particularly intensive game), and while it ran at a solid 120 FPS, the temperature rose to 95°C, at which point the GPU fans turned on (which they don't do when it boots "correctly") and it fell to 40°C, though I was still getting FPS hitches for a few seconds every few minutes. I suspect that this GPU overheating is a symptom rather than a cause, as I was experiencing slowdown issues even before this, while it was at low temperatures. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/details/cyc3b
This made me suspect that my GPU driver wasn't reading the GPU sensors correctly, but my driver is up to date. I used Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to wipe my GPU drivers in Safe Mode and then reinstalled them, to no effect. Unfortunately I don't have another GPU to swap in to test, and I'd prefer to figure out what the issue is before buying a new one as for all I know, the problem could easily be something else like my mobo. I flashed my BIOS with the latest update as well, and saw no change.
Specs:
OS: Windows 11 Home (64-bit) (up to date)
CPU: Intel Core i5-12600k (3.69 GHz)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 FTW
Mobo: Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4
PSU: Corsair RM850x
Memory: G.Skill 32GB DDR4 4000 (2x16GB)
SSD: WD Black SN750 2TB (OS installed on)
HDD: WD Black WD4005FZBX 4TB, WD WD7502AAEX-00Y9A0 750GB (not really used)
Monitor: ASUS VW246, ASUS VZ27A
Mouse: Razer Deathadder V2
Any ideas? Thanks so much for your help; I've looked online and spent days trying to narrow down what's happening but haven't really been able to find much.
I used to be able to shut down and restart my computer a couple of times until it booted up "correctly" and this wouldn't occur and it would run perfectly until I turned it off, but this has been getting harder and I can't seem to get it to do so now, after it randomly restarted on me two days ago. Over the course of many reboots, I learned that if it booted up "correctly", the monitor would display scrambled colors on part of the screen for about a second before loading the lock screen, and this lock screen would have the Windows Spotlight toasts (to learn more about or "like" the background displayed, etc.); if these two things did not appear, that was a sign that I would encounter these issues.
Core Temp runs fine and seems to show my CPU using low power with a temperature between 20-40°C: View: https://i.imgur.com/i5WeCby.png
CPU-Z is a little slow but runs (and looks) more or less fine to me (although I just learned that my RAM is running slowly because I have XMP disabled; I'll fix that): https://valid.x86.fr/uizmdy
GPU-Z, as I mentioned, slows my computer down to a crawl, but when I hide specific sensor readouts, it runs normally (after an admittedly slow load). I haven't isolated which exact sensors cause this slowdown as it's a slow and tedious process, but they seem to be GPU-related: I know CPU Temperature (26°C), GPU Temperature (50°C), and Memory Used (976MB) work fine. I left it running to monitor the temperatures while gaming in Classic WoW (not a particularly intensive game), and while it ran at a solid 120 FPS, the temperature rose to 95°C, at which point the GPU fans turned on (which they don't do when it boots "correctly") and it fell to 40°C, though I was still getting FPS hitches for a few seconds every few minutes. I suspect that this GPU overheating is a symptom rather than a cause, as I was experiencing slowdown issues even before this, while it was at low temperatures. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/details/cyc3b
This made me suspect that my GPU driver wasn't reading the GPU sensors correctly, but my driver is up to date. I used Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to wipe my GPU drivers in Safe Mode and then reinstalled them, to no effect. Unfortunately I don't have another GPU to swap in to test, and I'd prefer to figure out what the issue is before buying a new one as for all I know, the problem could easily be something else like my mobo. I flashed my BIOS with the latest update as well, and saw no change.
Specs:
OS: Windows 11 Home (64-bit) (up to date)
CPU: Intel Core i5-12600k (3.69 GHz)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 FTW
Mobo: Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4
PSU: Corsair RM850x
Memory: G.Skill 32GB DDR4 4000 (2x16GB)
SSD: WD Black SN750 2TB (OS installed on)
HDD: WD Black WD4005FZBX 4TB, WD WD7502AAEX-00Y9A0 750GB (not really used)
Monitor: ASUS VW246, ASUS VZ27A
Mouse: Razer Deathadder V2
Any ideas? Thanks so much for your help; I've looked online and spent days trying to narrow down what's happening but haven't really been able to find much.
Last edited:
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