[SOLVED] Strange power usage

[Timberwolf1969]

GPU: ROG Strix 2080 Ti
CPU i9-9900k
Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus XI Code LGA1151 (Intel 8th and 9th Gen) ATX DDR4 HDMI M.2 USB 3.1 Gen2 Z390 Gaming Motherboard
PSU: Asus ROG Thor 1200w
RAM: 32gb G-Skill DDR4 3600mhz

So my issue is this. I play all of my games at max settings and usually my PSU shows that I'm pulling about 250-300 watts during high GPU demanding situations. A few days ago I noticed that when I went into buildings (while playing Elder Scrolls Online) or when I was on menu screens, the wattage would shoot up to 400-450 watts and after about 20 seconds the GPU fans would start going full bore. I tried a few other games, Far Cry 5 and Cyberpunk 2077 and had similar issues except on Cyberpunk the high power use was immediate. I did the usual troubleshooting of checking drivers, reinstalling, etc.. Nothing seems to work. The problem in fact was progressive as it got worse the next day doing the same things and started shooting up to over 500 watts. Anyone have any idea what could cause it to go from a normal range of 250-300 watts to 450-500 watts? Is it the GPU going bad? The PSU? I'm kind of at a loss and every search I've tried to find on the topic just takes me to articles about PSU size needed for GPUs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Update: Some of the trouble shooting steps I took - set everything back to factory settings / did a stress test in 3dMark which passed at 97.1% / I rolled back the Nvidia driver to the previous one / disabled Bitdefender / removed all tweaking software (MSI Afterburner) / cleaned the fans and card / reseated all cables / tried the second Display port / cleaned and replaced the thermal paste about 6 months ago

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

GPU: ROG Strix 2080 Ti
CPU i9-9900k
Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus XI Code LGA1151 (Intel 8th and 9th Gen) ATX DDR4 HDMI M.2 USB 3.1 Gen2 Z390 Gaming Motherboard
PSU: Asus ROG Thor 1200w
RAM: 32gb G-Skill DDR4 3600mhz

So my issue is this. I play all of my games at max settings and usually my PSU shows that I'm pulling about 250-300 watts during high GPU demanding situations. A few days ago I noticed that when I went into buildings (while playing Elder Scrolls Online) or when I was on menu screens, the wattage would shoot up to 400-450 watts and after about 20 seconds the GPU fans would start going full bore. I tried a few other games, Far Cry 5 and Cyberpunk 2077 and had similar issues except on Cyberpunk the high power use was immediate. I did the usual troubleshooting of checking drivers, reinstalling, etc.. Nothing seems to work. The problem in fact was progressive as it got worse the next day doing the same things and started shooting up to over 500 watts. Anyone have any idea what could cause it to go from a normal range of 250-300 watts to 450-500 watts? Is it the GPU going bad? The PSU? I'm kind of at a loss and every search I've tried to find on the topic just takes me to articles about PSU size needed for GPUs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Update: Some of the trouble shooting steps I took - set everything back to factory settings / did a stress test in 3dMark which passed at 97.1% / I rolled back the Nvidia driver to the previous one / disabled Bitdefender / removed all tweaking software (MSI Afterburner) / cleaned the fans and card / reseated all cables / tried the second Display port / cleaned and replaced the thermal paste about 6 months ago

Hey there,

Well, your CPU can draw up to 210w at peak boost (PL2). A RTX2080ti power consumption can get up to the 280w mark too. Both combined, will account for what you're seeing. Cyberpunk would be a good example of that.

Given the things you've done for GPU to ensure best operation, it could be down to the voltage curve of the GPU's default settings. Have you tried reducing that, and seeing if it helps? Are there any performance issues other than fan noise?

 

[Eximo]

Put a frame rate limit in. When you don't see much in games you can be rendering hundreds of frames per second. That will put a lot of load on the CPU and GPU.

 

[Timberwolf1969]

Hey there,

Well, your CPU can draw up to 210w at peak boost (PL2). A RTX2080ti power consumption can get up to the 280w mark too. Both combined, will account for what you're seeing. Cyberpunk would be a good example of that.

Given the things you've done for GPU to ensure best operation, it could be down to the voltage curve of the GPU's default settings. Have you tried reducing that, and seeing if it helps? Are there any performance issues other than fan noise?

I was actually just watching a video about how to undervolt the card. My main concern is that it is something new, I've had this build for about a year and a half with no issues. The fans kick in after it's been above 400 watts for 30 seconds or more. The watts seem to go up the longer I'm on so I'm worried about causing damage somewhere. I literally took the entire system apart today and checked everything. I also put new thermal paste on both the gpu and cpu. I'm fixing to fire it up here and run some tests with GPU-z and HWmonitor to see if there are any indications of where the problem is.

 

[Timberwolf1969]

Put a frame rate limit in. When you don't see much in games you can be rendering hundreds of frames per second. That will put a lot of load on the CPU and GPU.

I was trying to find a breakdown of Nvidia's last driver update to see if there is anything in it that might have caused this. Thing is, I rolled back the driver and still had the issue. I could try limiting it to 60fps, but even if it does stop it, it doesn't explain why it started doing it after all this time. One thing I forgot to mention; I've never had an issue with coil whine before, but now, as soon as I launch a game it starts making a high pitched whine that goes away on it's own after a minute or so or if I turn on Vsync it goes away immediately.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I was actually just watching a video about how to undervolt the card. My main concern is that it is something new, I've had this build for about a year and a half with no issues. The fans kick in after it's been above 400 watts for 30 seconds or more. The watts seem to go up the longer I'm on so I'm worried about causing damage somewhere. I literally took the entire system apart today and checked everything. I also put new thermal paste on both the gpu and cpu. I'm fixing to fire it up here and run some tests with GPU-z and HWmonitor to see if there are any indications of where the problem is.

Yes, it's odd that it has started just recently. How is testing after replacing paste etc? Any better?

Did the fan noise start at the same time as the coil whine?