Strange Frame Drops in games

[Swimmryan]

Alright So here's my Rig:
Asus maximus Vii Hero
Core i7 4770k @ Stock
Gtx 660
8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM@1600
CoolerMaster G650M
Seagate 1TB 7200

I've warrantied the Mobo because the original died and got a replacement.

Recently, i've been playing Skyrim(Normal Edition) and i've noticed odd bumps or actual drops in framerate.
Using MSI Afterburner confirmed these drops.
These didn't exist earlier and the drops were odd, as in they went from a constant 60 to 58-55 and then they back up to 61.
At certain areas like Windhelm i'm getting around mid 40's.

The GPU temps @ these drops were around 40-50 degrees and usage never went above 50%(I'm playing on high settings)
RAM usage was 728-800MB Steady.

CPU temps were around 60 degrees and usage was around early to mid 30's.
RAM usage was around 1.2-1.8GBs.

I've tested other games like CK2 ,Oblivion and Dragon's Dogma and in CK2 saw some similar Drops and tiny Drops in Oblivion while almost none in DD.
I've also run some virus scans and defragmentations.

I think either my HD or GPU is on their way out and any help on clearing this would be appreciated.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Swimmryan,

If you think that there's something wrong with your HDD, it would be nice to back up the data stored on it.
After that, you can test it and see if there's something wrong with it: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
FPS could be affected by the drive's performance in some open world games. (loading textures let's say)

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD

 

[Swimmryan]

Hello D_Know_WD .

I tested the Drive using HDtools and Seatools.
Seatools gave me green across the board.
Almost same with HDtune except the Read benchmarks which kept getting progressively worse until i restarted the program.No drive errors were detected and Drive Health was 'OK'.

 

[D_Know_WD]

You can attach the drive with different power and SATA cables to another SATA port as well.
I believe your GPU drivers are up to date right?

D_Know_WD

 

[Swimmryan]

You can attach the drive with different power and SATA cables to another SATA port as well.
I believe your GPU drivers are up to date right?

D_Know_WD

I have several ports unoccupied .
Would you like me to test the drive on each of them?

Yes my graphics drivers are upto date. Geforce Driver version 376.19.

Question:
As i said above, i had to recently warranty my Board.
I installed the board without a fresh install of Windows+Drivers.
Can that cause the aforementioned issues?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Just try the drive on another port (just a single one - no need to test on all of them) with different cable. That way you will make sure the connection is fine.

Well, as for the MOBO, I would say that this could be the case. It is always a good idea to perform clean OS install after some major hardware changes.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[Swimmryan]

Thank you for your response.
I tried it on a different port and ran the tests again with similar results.
I shall let you know once i've done a fresh install.

UPDATE: I've managed to get the fresh install done(yes, it's very very late) and so far i've not noticed significant changes.
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