Suddenly started getting low fps in every game (Nvidia graphic Card)

harshit05081997

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Oct 18, 2017
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I have been gaming for almost 2 years on my laptop. Since last few days, fps in every game have dropped by an avg of 10fps.

Games i have tried:
Witcher 3(earlier 20fps now 10fps)
Gta 5(earlier 35fps now 20fps)
ECHO(earlier 23fps now 10fps)
Fortnite(earlier 25-30fps now 15fps)

My laptop spec:
Windows 8.1 64 bit
i7 5500u
nvidia 940m
8gb ram

(I know my laptop is not a good gaming laptop but this is what i got and have been using for 2 years so please refrain from criticising my gpu,laptop or me. Before you ask I got that fps at 1366x768 resolution.)

I used msi afterburner to get OSD of my gpu and cpu details:
During gameplay (now):

GPU :
usage 100%
clock 1176mhz
memory used (depends never at max)
memory clock 900mhz
temp around 60C

CPU
usage 30-40%
temp 75-85C
RAM (depends but never full)

All these details is more or less similar to what i used to get a month back.
GPU clock speed and memory clock speed are running at max possible.
In short, everything is running at the same speed it used to before only difference is that I am getting 10 FPS lower than usual.

There is one thing that is bugging me that "System" and "windows host process" in task manager is almost always keeping my drives at 100% . Don't know why.

Things I tried:
Reinstalling both nvidia and intel graphic driver.
Changing power consumption to max performance in nvidia control panel.
Installing windows latest updates.

Changes since last week:
I once removed drivers using "usbdeview" because my new phone was not connecting with usb debugging. But i made sure that i removed only drivers containing "android" ,"adb" or "HTC" in their name.
disabled secure boot to disable driver signature reinforcement. (Enabled it back later)

I think thats all the details you will need.
Pls help me understand fix the issue. I really want to play shadow of war!


EDIT:
I Tried using portable windows in my external HDD to run game. If malware or driver had been the issue then I would have got good fps from portable hdd but I got low fps even then. I guess some hardware is messed up.

 
Solution
I cannot say what you are thinking is impossible but if it is really happening in that case you will see some extra drive usage and heavy CPU usage while playing. But by mistake have you enabled screen recording in windows game mode. Like windows always recording your game play. I don't know if this option can be turned on or not but just to check.


I think some kind of virus is messing up. Which anti-virus are you using?Is it paid one?
 


Well... actually......none 🙁 ..... I was actually pretty confident that i won't get a virus in my laptop because of my experience. However my father installed a few software in my laptop recently and he might have installed something bad. I do have windows defender(with regular updates) and did completed a quick scan without any issues. I can do full scan but it seems like it will take a full day.
 


You should have just started with a paid antivirus.
 
If anything else is messy except the low FPS? Like your fan is spinning very fast, heat, app crash or something or only low fps and everything else is normal?
There was a bug in windows that causes full drive utilization all the time. Is there any type of RAM leak you are observing? I mean it is consuming more than normal ram when idle? Check windows event viewer for some clues.
 


Antivirus +windows updates removes all bugs and viruses
 

Lets say your system is clean and free from virus in that case please install msi afterburner and riva tuner SS to display on screen your cpu and gpu utilization during game play and check if anything is bottle-necking. What may happen is for some reason the game is unable to utilize all the power of your pc. just to check. Same thing I have experienced with COD IW.
And 100% drive utilization is not normal. Check if it is solved or not.
 

None only fps drop. Except that android emulator(that comes with android studio) sometimes hang, like dead hang (I have to restart it) . It was running smooth before.
 


The CPU and GPU usage i wrote in my question are from OSD of MSI AfterBurner. Both Usage is same to what I used to get before.
 
OK in this situation do your system has any restore point to the point where it was working fine since you have done driver update, virus check, windows update etc.. Otherwise it will be easier for you to clean install the OS. And create a system image to avoid similar situation. I know it is not a solution but what I have found in last 7 years that once windows started to create problem it is almost impossible to get back to older state by tweaking something. Rather it is much easier and actually time saving to clean install the os. I am using HDD snapshot to create restore points in every few weeks and I do restore my system if something gets screwed.
 


I do not have a restore point and nor can I make one. It is because I fucked up when installing windows a year back.
Also, clean install won't work. Look at my edit for reason.

 

Hmm! you can stress test your GPU first followed by the CPU to find out if it is stable or not. But stress testing a laptop which is very old might be dangerous so keep monitoring temperature. Also do not stress test both simultaneously before you are confident with individual temp values. If there is any hw issue then the system will crash.
But if you have a dying hardware on your pc then it supposed to show some symptoms like GPU: game freeze, artifact, driver crash etc; CPU: very unlikely though; RAM: BSOD, display freeze etc.
However I am just asking, does your PC switches gpu as per requirement? Could you confirm that it is set to use dgpu not igpu and it is not messing with switchable graphics?
 

Yes, my GPU automatically switches. While in gaming it uses NVIDIA and for everything else is INTEL. I was thinking of doing a stress test but the software are very big. I have used HP System Diagnostics to check my CPU RAM HDD and GPU memory (I don't know which GPU memory it checked though). Besides this my brother is still playing GTA 5 (25 fps is playable) and had not faced any game freezes or artifacts or crashes. Also, My laptop is not very old its like 2.5 years old.
If you think I still need to do that stress check then I will. Let me know!
 

No not required right now. I had a hp switchable gpu laptop. There is a option in the bios to switch to dgpu and disable igpu. I mean "always use dgpu for any task". Try to find this option and google it for help. Once done check your fps performance. make sure your gpu is fixed and not switching.
however how your Bro is managing that fps on GTA where you can not? As per my knowledge you can not even touch that fps with igpu. I think there is a option in nvidia control panel to select application specific 3d profile. Select the game you are facing the issue and switch it to use high performance mode.
OMG how could I even forget: In windows power plan there is a option called PCIe>link state power management: set it to off. I have heard that setting it to moderate might result sudden fps drops but it is also a bug and not applicable to all. Give it a try....
 

I have mentioned in my question that I am getting 20fps in GTA 5 (before it was 35fps) . I mistakenly wrote 25fps in reply. 20fps makes it the only playable game right now.
About that PCIe from power plan, It is already set to off.
And that Hp setting you mentioned, I could not find any such option in my BIOS (option to set PCI-e as primary). Seems like the only possible way for that is by Nvidia Control Panel. But my game is already using Nvidia GPU. Have a look :https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-7lvvXNDvsFSThiclExSTduUjA
GPU 1 is nvidia and GPU 2 is intel.

 
Look man a dying gpu or cpu or any important hardware will give you more clues other than low fps. So 99% possibility is it is ok. Now the remaining part is driver and windows related. You have tested with a portable windows version so it can be removed. In this portable version of windows you have a clean driver so again removed. So the last thing is 1% hardware issue but for some reason I think it is ok and not causing this issue. Can you save the current windows image and do a clean install of latest windoows (activation is not required) and check with only updated gpu driver only just to check. If not works restore your old image. Is this driver is from Nvidia or HP? becs to save money hp not regularly updates their driver.

Download HWinfo and under stress test check the figures of CPU, GPU, Power draw. Just to check whether anything is throttling or something. Take pics of different figures under stress. If some HW issue is there you might get some clues.
 


Sorry for late reply.
The driver is latest from Nvidia's website. I tried the one from HP but it gave me another 1-2 fps drop, so I returned back to Nvidia's latest driver.
I downloaded HWinfo and couldn't find anything suspicious. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to check GPU power usage on laptop. I have attached a screenshot of afterburner, hwinfo and GPU-z(shows current value) under load.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-7lvvXNDvsFVVJVM3FYYUItd3M
I can do that clean install after saving an image, but not now because I won't have access to my laptop for a few days. I will do it and post the result after about 1-2 weeks.
Thanks for all the help. Do let me know if any other solution comes to your mind.
 

Hey, I can't help stop thinking that someone is recoding my screen by some malware. Because the only reason I have seen, so far, for ~10fps drop is when I record while playing using 3rd party software. Yes, I know using portable windows shows that it's not malware issue. But Is their any way I can check if something like that is running. I don't see any suspicious program running in task manager or in "add or remove program" though.
 
I cannot say what you are thinking is impossible but if it is really happening in that case you will see some extra drive usage and heavy CPU usage while playing. But by mistake have you enabled screen recording in windows game mode. Like windows always recording your game play. I don't know if this option can be turned on or not but just to check.
 
Solution


I don't know how but I am getting my good old fps again. I seriously have no idea how this happened. I was playing game and suddenly felt smoother gameplay and then I checked fps and voila GPU is working fine again lol.
 


Just wanted to post an update. My laptop is again stuck at low FPS like before. I did not change anything. Yesterday I woke up to play a game and I was getting low FPS. Same issue as before.