Unidentifiable Cause of CPU Overload

TheRealAnthym

Reputable
Jan 9, 2015
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Hi all! I have a PC about a year old that has begun throwing tantrums in the past three weeks. I just recently purchased Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is well within my rig's ability to run. For the first couple of weeks that I had it, I could run it with the same number of problems as anyone else (drop-in, etc.) Then, all of a sudden, the computer started powering completely off with no warning. No bluescreen, nothing. After replacing the GPU, checking the RAM, and running some performance checks, I discovered that booting up any game would cause a ridiculous escalation in CPU load. It didn't matter if it was Knights of the Old Republic or DA:I, the memory usage kept climbing and the CPU would climb to 100% usage across all six chips. Then it would shutdown. There are no troublesome background processes that Task Manager can detect. A check on the RAM with the mdsched.exe program did result in a shutdown, but after removing, cleaning, and reinstalling the chips, no issues were detected. Heating does not seem to be a problem. Any help would be appreciated!

I am using:

AMD FX 6300 six core @ 3.50 GHz
EVGA Ge Force GTX 970
16GB RAM
650 Watt Power supply

I am running on Windows 7 64bit.
 
Solution
I'm thinking either temp issues or power supply problems. Even if something is causing your cpu to go to 100%, that shouldn't cause a shutdown unless it's overheating due to inadequate cooling or not getting the stable power it needs. A cpu should be able to run at 100%. Whatever is causing the usage spike is just exposing another issue in the system (the inability to handle 100% load). Maybe try another software program like hwmonitor and see if the temps are the same as you're getting in speedfan just in case there's a software reporting conflict and you're not seeing the correct temperatures.
Checked the CPU temps... They seem ok. The GPU read 53 C from a SpeedFan check, but the CPU temps were well within normal limits. Would a faulty power supply cause all this stress on the CPUs? Again, the primary issue appears to by that running any game overloads all six cores. Is there a program to test output besides speed fan? And finally, if a PSU replacement is needed, how much wattage would be recommended?
 
Hi,

Have you checked to see what other processes are running at the time of these usage increases? Have you scanned for any malware/viruses?

Does this problem persist in safe mode? It could be the psu, but it could be many other things as well. What brand of psu is it in that config?
 
The first thing I did was assume it was a virus; I am scanning again, but I haven't found anything. I don't think the other processes are anything too outrageous, but I will double check. I have to confess, I am not at all a pro at this kind of thing. I know how collect data, but... Anyhow, I will run some more task manager. I haven't tried safe mode because the problem never really hits when I am doing mundane tasks- just gaming. Given that I love to game, this is something of an issue, but hey, it can run all these tests, so I am more curious than upset. The power supply is a LEPA g750 MAS 750W.
 
I'm thinking either temp issues or power supply problems. Even if something is causing your cpu to go to 100%, that shouldn't cause a shutdown unless it's overheating due to inadequate cooling or not getting the stable power it needs. A cpu should be able to run at 100%. Whatever is causing the usage spike is just exposing another issue in the system (the inability to handle 100% load). Maybe try another software program like hwmonitor and see if the temps are the same as you're getting in speedfan just in case there's a software reporting conflict and you're not seeing the correct temperatures.
 
Solution
Ok, I will download that and try it. Should my game be running through that much power? The process consumed >950k mem. Isn't my RAM supposed to lighten that load? I will rum another temp check and boot up the game. It should give me a warning if it goes above 70 c
 
Ram doesn't lighten the load, it just allows more information to be stored closer to the processor. The only thing it would lighten the load off of would be the hard drive (hdd) and reduce the amount of times the system has to access it for information. If I'm not mistaken, da inquisition will use quite a bit of hardware (cpu/gpu) regardless of having 16gb over 8gb of ram.
 

What do you mean by "overload?"

If you mean seeing some load across all cores, that is just Windows scheduling stuff across all available cores. If you have real-time virus detection enabled, the anti-virus may be adding workload - I have seen Microsoft's Defender using over 40% of CPU time behind a program that used only 20-30%.
 
Thanks, Invalid. That puts my mind at ease about the load! I am seeing most of the cores running at around 98-114 degrees F, with the GPU hitting 54 degrees C. I don't know much about what temperatures the computer should be at, but that doesn't seem too extraordinary. It also registers that the front and rear fans are running well, and the heat sink feels like it is functioning normally. That leaves the power supply being unable to fund necessary wattage to everything. I'll take a couple more looks to make sure it isn't a heat issue, and then replace that PSU. Thanks so much for all your help, y'all! I'll post again if the problem gets more complicated.