Question Why am I getting a sudden FPS drop in every game after 10-15 mins of gameplay?

[Trainenthusiast]

Seriously need help with this as I want to pull my hair out at this point. I have an HP omen RTX 2070 Max Q. I've had this laptop for over a year and I've not had any problems with it. However, I've been experiencing a sudden FPS drop in every game for about 3 days now.

So I'll be getting 70-80 FPS or whatever based on the game I'm playing and then after about 10 mins, boom, instant drop to like 30 fps. It only gets fixed when I restart the game (for 10 mins and then it happens again). My drivers are updated, I used malwarebytes to get rid of malware (3 problematic files were found after the scan that have since been quarantined).

No clue what to do. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

My own theory is that it has something to do with the external SSD. I only have Tekken 7 installed on my C drive and I played that for a good 20 mins to see if it drops in FPS all of a sudden like all the games in my external SSD; it did not. So I optimized my external SSD and scanned it for threats and apparently it's working fine. Don't know where to go from here.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I haven't noticed that personally with external drives. I would expect the game to go splat if the drive disconnects. To rule it out the simple thing would be to move the game and try it on the internal drive.

I would run something like MSI Afterburner while your playing the game and monitor CPU temperatures and clock speeds. It could be that the CPU is thermal throttling after certain amount of time causing the FPS drops. I would also check your GPU temps too.

 

[Trainenthusiast]

I haven't noticed that personally with external drives. I would expect the game to go splat if the drive disconnects. To rule it out the simple thing would be to move the game and try it on the internal drive.

I would run something like MSI Afterburner while your playing the game and monitor CPU temperatures and clock speeds. It could be that the CPU is thermal throttling after certain amount of time causing the FPS drops. I would also check your GPU temps too.

Thank you for the response, mate. The hottest I've seen my GPU get is 86 degrees. I checked it's temp immediately when the FPS dropped and it was only 70 degrees. I will take your advice and check the CPU performance as well.

 

[Nighthawk117]

It's normally the CPU that's responsible, is this an i7 10750H you have paired with your 2070 Max Q? I'd also monitor CPU usage as well.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Agree with @Nighthawk117 , you may have some throttling going on. 86c for the GPU is high. That's kinda max temp before it will throttle.

The CPU on the other hand could also be throttling. Have you cleaned the laptop, or changed thermal paste recently? If not, that could also help with heat. You may have to disassemble the laptop to clean out fans, and re-apply thermal paste as that would help too.

Which exact model do you have? I've an Omen 15, and they are actually pretty handy to get into and do cleaning and repasting. There my be a guide/teardown online for it.

 

[Trainenthusiast]

Thank you for your help guys. You're right, it's CPU throttling. I downloaded afterburner and turned on a game to check what happens to the temps when the FPS drops. Never even got to that because whilst the game was loading the CPU just shot up to 97 degrees Celsius. Laptop froze. Not going to even boot up a game now until I get this fixed.

What should I do? Clean the fans, re-apply thermal paste?

 

[Nighthawk117]

Thank you for your help guys. You're right, it's CPU throttling. I downloaded afterburner and turned on a game to check what happens to the temps when the FPS drops. Never even got to that because whilst the game was loading the CPU just shot up to 97 degrees Celsius. Laptop froze. Not going to even boot up a game now until I get this fixed.

What should I do? Clean the fans, re-apply thermal paste?

Not too surprised, are both fans spinning?

If your feeling confident I would take the back off and give it a good clean, I would hold the fans still while using compressed air. Repaste both the CPU and GPU, I use Noctua NT-H1 on my laptop. Doesn't really matter what paste it is as long as it's a decent branded one, avoid anything liquid metal though. You can use IPA Alcohol on a piece of kitchen towel to remove the current paste from the heatsink and the CPU/GPU.

Should you not have the tools to open your laptop, I've used this for several years on a number of laptops and find it very good:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/iFixit-EU1...-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

Should you not already have one I would look at getting a cooling pad for your laptop. It stops hot air from accumulating under the laptop under intense loads. Something like this or a Cooler Master one would be my recomendation:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Targus-Coo...t=&hvlocphy=9046681&hvtargid=pla-813210189542

I would be cautious about buying generic ones, the quality can be very poor.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Repaste both the CPU and GPU, I use Noctua NT-H1 on my laptop

Totally agree with you, and I even had NT-H1 on my lappie too. However, this is not actually a good paste for laptops. It pumps out after about 2-3 months (depending on usage can be quicker). NT-H2 is actually much better, and is the one I'm currently running. No pump out affect.

⛔ DO NOT use NOCTUA NT-H1 in your laptop ⛔ (*pump out effect) - YouTube

 

[Trainenthusiast]

Thank you for being so helpful and providing the links for the products as well. I sincerely appreciate both of you. :')

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Thank you for being so helpful and providing the links for the products as well. I sincerely appreciate both of you. :')

No probs, glad to offer advice.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Totally agree with you, and I even had NT-H1 on my lappie too. However, this is not actually a good paste for laptops. It pumps out after about 2-3 months (depending on usage can be quicker). NT-H2 is actually much better, and is the one I'm currently running. No pump out affect.

⛔ DO NOT use NOCTUA NT-H1 in your laptop ⛔ (*pump out effect) - YouTube

That's interesting I didn't know that. I repasted mine a couple of years ago with NT-H1, I haven't noticed any problems in terms of temps but I'll get NT-H2 next time.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

That's interesting I didn't know that. I repasted mine a couple of years ago with NT-H1, I haven't noticed any problems in terms of temps but I'll get NT-H2 next time.

Worth a look. Similarly, I thought NT H1 was excellent. The immediate results were above expectation. Sure enough temps increased a bit after about 3 months. Checked and it was pumped out. UncleWebb was posting here a while ago, and recommended H2 instead. And it's similar performance but doesn't pump out. Defo a difference. I've taken it off after 3 months to test, and sure enough the H2 is still nicely spread whereas the H1 looks like the vid above.

 

[Trainenthusiast]

Hey guys. So I just got my laptop serviced today. Took about an hour. According to the technician one of the fans was straight up not working . The games are running perfectly now and I am not facing the FPS drop issue anymore. However the CPU temp is still around 95-98 degrees Celsius. GPU temp is good now tho, stayed at 74-75 degrees for about 30 mins of GTA V at the highest settings at 1080p. Just concerned about the CPU temp now. I should also mention that it is in fact an i7 10750H.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Hey guys. So I just got my laptop serviced today. Took about an hour. According to the technician one of the fans was straight up not working . The games are running perfectly now and I am not facing the FPS drop issue anymore. However the CPU temp is still around 95-98 degrees Celsius. GPU temp is good now tho, stayed at 74-75 degrees for about 30 mins of GTA V at the highest settings at 1080p. Just concerned about the CPU temp now. I should also mention that it is in fact an i7 10750H.

Gaming laptops do run hot but in my mind that's too hot for a 10750H. Did they replace the thermal paste?

Do you use a cooling pad?

 

[geofelt]

I see many complaints about gaming laptops not performing well.
Usually gaming while plugged in.
One common cause is thermal throttling.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
The coolers are also relatively underpowered.
If you run an app such as HWMonitor or HWinfo, you will get the current, minimum, and maximum cpu temperatures.
For intel processors, if you see a max of 100c. it means you have throttled.
The cpu will lower it's multiplier and power draw to protect itself
until the situation reverses.
At a lower multiplier, your cpu usage may well be at 100%
What can you do?
First, see that your cooler airways are clear and that the cooler fan is spinning.
Use a windows balanced power profile, not the performance profile.
Set a minimum cpu performance to something like 20%

It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows balanced power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.

 

[Trainenthusiast]

Gaming laptops do run hot but in my mind that's too hot for a 10750H. Did they replace the thermal paste?

Do you use a cooling pad?

Yes they did and yeah I do. I think the temperature it was showing was incorrect. I had just turned on Horizon Zero Dawn (hadn't been playing before that or doing anything CPU-intensive) and according the MSI afterburner, I was at 97-100 degrees while the game was still loading. The laptop itself was BARELY even warm. Once the game started, the readings fell to 92-97 and stayed there for the most part. The laptop only got warm and was only - what I'd say - borderline hot. Things seem to be in order to my layman eyes.

 

[Trainenthusiast]

I see many complaints about gaming laptops not performing well.
Usually gaming while plugged in.
One common cause is thermal throttling.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
The coolers are also relatively underpowered.
If you run an app such as HWMonitor or HWinfo, you will get the current, minimum, and maximum cpu temperatures.
For intel processors, if you see a max of 100c. it means you have throttled.
The cpu will lower it's multiplier and power draw to protect itself
until the situation reverses.
At a lower multiplier, your cpu usage may well be at 100%
What can you do?
First, see that your cooler airways are clear and that the cooler fan is spinning.
Use a windows balanced power profile, not the performance profile.
Set a minimum cpu performance to something like 20%

It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows balanced power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.

Oo, I didn't think of changing the profile. I've been using the performance mode for a long time; I'll revert it to balanced mode and hopefully the temperature won't get so high. Thanks!