SOLVED: Low FPS, Nvidia GPU underutilized. CPU overutilized

[AtomSphere]

Hi as per above,

My gaming laptop has no problems playing starcraft2 at max settings as well as world of warships.
However now when I set world of warship to lowest setting, I get average of 40 fps instead of 60 fps. Starcraft2 there is some noticeable stuttering.

I just bought a new Logitech mouse G300s and notice that the polling rates from 1000 to 500 changes the smoothness in the port screen in world of warships (lower is smoother) but when gaming it there is un-noticeable difference in the polling rates relation to FPS (still stuttering a bit)

I opened up GPU-z and noted GPU usage is now around 60% instead of 95+% and CPU usage went up by around 15% - 20% in world of warships. GPU and Vram speeds are max factory. GPU Temperature takes longer to reach its usual 83c.


Nvidia Driver reinstalled, reinstalled my sound driver, disabled Nvidia Shadow play.
Scanned for malware using Malwarebytes, scanned for virus with AVAST. Checked power plan options. (performance)

Whats wrong?

Specs:
ASUS ROG GL752VW
i7 6700HQ
16GB DDR4 2133mhz
Nvidia GTX960m 2GB


Update1: Ran 3D Mark and Graphics test revealed 4-5 fps higher, however Physics test (cpu dependant) 48 threads dropped by 6FPS. very peculiar indeed. I looked through task manager but couldn't see anything that caught my attention for CPU or MEM usage. Cpu at idle is 1-3%. Revert display driver to previous version yield same results

Update2 SOLUTION: Reinstall windows10, for details read last post. Something to do with CPU clock and utilization management software

 

[weberdarren97]

CPU usage went up by 15%? I don't know what the total new usage is because you didn't provide a previous number... What is the CPU usage while this problem occurs.

CPU temperature while idle? While gaming?

You said you checked the power plan... When you did so, you made sure that it's set to High Performance?

 

[TerryLaze]

Maybe something made the game use the igpu?
Or maybe your 960m runs at lower clocks because it has lower usage.

 

[AtomSphere]

weberdarren97, so usually world of warship is 40% utilization max, but now its 55 - 60% during gaming. Power plan is performance. At idle CPu is 1-3%

TerryLaze the 960m runs at max clockspeed, the GPU load however is around 50% now.

UPDATE, Ran 3D Mark and Graphics test revealed 4-5 fps higher, however Physics test (cpu dependant) 48 threads dropped by 6FPS. very peculiar indeed. I looked through task manager but couldn't see anything that caught my attention for CPU or MEM usage. Revert display driver to previous version yield same results

 

[weberdarren97]

Please download AIDA64 Extreme, drop down the Tools menu across the top, select System Stability Test, test the CPU, FPU, Cache, System Memory and GPU for ten minutes. No need to test the hard drive, we know it's not the problem.

Please take a screenshot of the Clocks tab every thirty seconds for the duration of the ten minute test. At the end of the test, please take a screenshot of the Statistics tab. Please save these screenshots as soon as you take them.

You see, if there's something physically wrong with your machine, this test will show what it is. However, if something goes really wrong, it may crash. Don't worry, it'll turn back on. The point of saving the screenshots right away is so that we can see if there's a breakdown of the clock speeds as the system heats up. If this happens and the system crashes, the screenshot will tell us what component caused the crash.

 

[AtomSphere]

computer is stable. quite a bit of thermal throttling which is normal from this laptop according to all the reviews. during most reviews it has reached 90c and through that test you suggested it reached that as well. Did Prime95 without errors.

I am leaning towards the software side of things. Seems like my CPU is working harder for games than usual.

1 unusual thing I noticed is although my 3Dmark for skydiver results in lower Physics score, my graphics score did went up by about 4 fps.

Then when I do the Firestrike 3Dmark, score is exactly the same. (both have different directx versions) I was guessing it has something to do with corrupt directx. I'll try and find a way to reinstall directx. (windows 10 comes with it, no idea how to reinstall it)

 

[AtomSphere]

SOLVED (hello buttery smooth gameplay! We meet again!),

Short Story: Reinstalled Windows10. Solved.

Probable causes: Some sort of intel driver for managing CPU clock and utilization issue after installing MSI burner or EVGA PrecisionOC. CPU clock after reinstall can idle below (1Ghz) whereas previously when this issue was happening, CPU cannot idle below 2Ghz. (I did shut down all background processes)
Other probable causes are DirectX issue which cannot be fixed by reinstalling whatever latest version available online (its built into windows). After fix noted 3Dmark results for physics has increased to norminal results.

Before reinstalling Windows10, I tried reinstalling all intel drivers available for my laptop as well as any audio, mouse, display driver for integrated and DGPU. Full virus and malware scans with 4 different virus scan engines. After reinstall, noted some new Intel programs installed such as intel Watchdog timer driver, but after windows updated a few times that program disappeared.

There is quite a few Intel drivers and services that occurs during startup, CPU can be affected if something went wrong with them (maybe). Intel programs that might affect clockspeeds and throttling are Intel Dynamics Thermal, ZTU, ESIF, upper framewok, intel dynamic application loader, Intel integrated clock controller, etc.