[SOLVED] would you rma in this situation?

[WebowJo]

Hello,

Ive got a auros 1080ti11g xtreme, its been giving me alot of little quirks but ive mostly ironed out the problems with specific driver etc and optimization. so in ultra settings in most games the game runs as fast as reviews go [tom clancy wildlands for example 80fps at high, mine is giving 60~70], maybe a little bit underperforming as the card never reaches 99% as i know most cards do, it plays from 60% usage to 97% and not sit stable, which i believe is the reason for the small underperforming...

i contacted gigabyte, and they suggested RMA (I must say, their helpdesk is horrible, i waited 2months between their replies!!!)

so in my situation would you bother to RMA?

I value your opinion!

thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

If there are any steps listed here that you have not already done, it would be advisable to do so if for no other reason than to be able to say you've already done it and eliminate that possibility.



First,

make sure your motherboard has the MOST recent BIOS version installed. If it does not, then update. This solves a high number of issues even in cases where the release that is newer than yours makes no mention of improving graphics card or other hardware compatibility. They do not list every change they have made when they post a new BIOS release.


Second,

go to the product page for your motherboard on the manufacturer website. Download and install the latest driver versions for the chipset, storage controllers, audio and network adapters. Do not skip installing a newer driver just because you think it is not relevant to the problem you are having. The drivers for one device can often affect ALL other devices and a questionable driver release can cause instability in the OS itself. They don't release new drivers just for fun. If there is a new driver release for a component, there is a good reason for it. The same goes for BIOS updates.


IF you have other hardware installed or attached to the system that are not a part of the systems covered by the motherboard drivers, then go to the support page for THAT component and check to see if there are newer drivers available for that as well. If there are, install them.


Third,

Make sure your memory is running at the correct advertised speed in the BIOS. This may require that you set the memory to run at the XMP profile settings. Also, make sure you have the memory installed in the correct slots and that they are running in dual channel which you can check by installing CPU-Z and checking the Memory and SPD tabs. For all modern motherboards that are dual channel memory architectures, from the last ten years at least, if you have two sticks installed they should be in the A2 (Called DDR4_1 on some boards) or B2 (Called DDR4_2 on some boards) which are ALWAYS the SECOND and FOURTH slots over from the CPU socket, counting TOWARDS the edge of the motherboard EXCEPT on boards that only have two memory slots total. In that case, if you have two modules it's not rocket science, but if you have only one, then install it in the A1 or DDR4_1 slot.


Fourth,

Make sure the problem is not just a bad cable or the wrong cable IF this is a display issue. If it is NOT related to a lack of display signal, then skip to the next step.

This happens a lot. Try a different cable or a different TYPE of cable. Sometimes there can be issues with the monitor or card not supporting a specific specification such as HDMI 1.4 vs HDMI 2.0, or even an HDMI output stops working but the Displayport or DVI output still works fine on the graphics card. Always worth checking the cable and trying other cables because cables get run over, bent, bent pins or simply were cheap quality to begin with and something as simple as trying a different cable or different monitor might be all that is required to solve your issue.


The last thing we want to look at,

for now anyhow, is the graphics card drivers. Regardless of whether you "already installed the newest drivers" for your graphics card or not, it is OFTEN a good idea to do a CLEAN install of the graphics card drivers. Just installing over the old drivers OR trying to use what Nvidia and AMD consider a clean install is not good enough and does not usually give the same result as using the Display Driver Uninstaller utility. This has a very high success rate and is always worth a shot.


If you have had both Nvidia and AMD cards installed at any point on that operating system then you will want to run the DDU twice. Once for the old card drivers (ie, Nvidia or AMD) and again for the currently installed graphics card drivers (ie, AMD or Nvidia). So if you had an Nvidia card at some point in the past, run it first for Nvidia and then after that is complete, run it again for AMD if you currently have an AMD card installed.

Clean install guide using the DDU​

If after doing all of that you still have issues with the card that you feel are outside the realm of normal behavior, then an RMA isn't the worst idea ever however I'm sure I'd bother with one for a card that is sitting one or two percent outside 100% usage. There could be a number of other reasons for that besides a problem with the card. Check your variable sync settings that could be holding the card back and in game frame limiter settings as well.

 

[WebowJo]

Hi! thank you for the quick reply with suggesion! I appreciate it. Ive tried all the drivers options (old, new, specific from mfg page, etc.] using ddu between each install, with bios its not such an new board so are you sure its worth the bother? I really don't want to mess with bios if no need, with my r9 390x it pegs the card at 99%..

ram is xmp setting, performing fine.

i tried another cable for kicks... no difference

other than that, I tried all of the above.

oh I almost forgot my biggest question, when I lower graphic settings it just lowers gpu usage!! so i get the same fps if i chose ultra or lowest setting... ridiculous right?

many thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's even MORE important on an older board, because often times some aspect of a new driver framework will not work properly on an old BIOS version. Certainly it is worth a try. I've seen a great many older motherboards have problems with newer graphics cards that were easily resolved by a BIOS update. Especially if the board was on a very early BIOS version and had a few newer versions available. Obviously there's no guarantee that it will resolve your issue but it is definitely worth trying.

What are your specs for CPU, motherboard and memory?

 

[tennis2]

Your frame rates are fine, but you're concerned because the GPU doesn't sit pegged at 100% usage? Who cares? Turn off your on-screen monitoring and enjoy playing games.

The only time I enable a HUD is the first hour of a new game to dial in graphics settings. After that, there's no reason for that distraction.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Like I said earlier, there are plenty of other reasons for it that have nothing to do with any sort of problem at all. I agree.

Still doesn't hurt to make sure you cover all the basics first though just to be sure, but after that, unless you're actually having "issues", it's mostly irrelevant unless you're getting terrible frame rates while the GPU card is sitting at 60% usage or some other silliness.

 

[tennis2]

What CPU do you have?
What monitor resolution?

 

[WebowJo]

#8
Hi, my apologies, my board is z87-ds3h and my cpu is i7 4770.. all clock speeds are stock.

32" Samsung 1440p 144hz but also tired on another Samsung 1080p 60hz. Problem persists on both panels.

My biggest issue is that lowering settings does not increase fps but just lower gpu usage... Is that normal in today's cards? Or is it just faulty? Thanks

 

[SkyNetRising]

My biggest issue is that lowering settings does not increase fps but just lower gpu usage... Is that normal in today's cards? Or is it just faulty? Thanks

Yes - normal.
This happens, when cpu is the limiting factor. Overclock your cpu and you should see fps increase.

 

[WebowJo]

Impossible, cpu sits at comfortable 50%.. that's the first thing I've tested. I can't o.c. it.. that's why I've bought the then fastest cpu in it's likeup...

 

[tennis2]

NOT impossible. A game that is only using 4 threads = 50% "utilization".

Your CPU can/ is certainly a limiting factor to your high end GPU. The degree of that limitation is highly variable based on game, game settings, resolution, single/multi player, etc etc.

lowering settings does not increase fps but just lower gpu usage...

This is a perfect example that you're CPU-limited. Lowering settings makes it easier/faster for the GPU to render each frame, but the CPU can only push so many to it, so the GPU has to wait for the CPU to deliver something to work on.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That CPU is locked. He can't overclock it. He CAN try to find a used 4790k that has marginally better single core performance AND is able to be overclocked on that motherboard though. Plus, if the CPU is only sitting at 50% utilization that tells me something else is going on aside from a lack of CPU compute capability, IF you are looking at it correctly and checking on a PER CORE basis in HWinfo. If you are using all possible threads based on which game you are playing, and each of those threads is showing only 50% usage, then that's a problem. If however, as tennis2 indicated you are only using four threads, and your CPU is capable of 8 thread processing then it's only going to show 50% utilization and THAT indicates that the problem is the fact that the CPU is too old and slow. Upgrading to a newer platform or a CPU that can be overclocked or has better single core performance will help to some degree or other to mitigate that.

 

[WebowJo]

It's not the cpu. I wrote 50% as a general figure.. It goes down to 20 and sometimes pass 55 on all cores. Not single core pegged at 100% usage... Not even close. This is high end cpu too.. not a cheapo i5.. Any other suggestions?

 

[WebowJo]

Pardon the double post but im willing to make a log file of gpu and cpu speed and utilization, please recommend me a good software..

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you did everything, EXACTLY as outlined, that I suggested above, and are having this issue still, then I'd suggest you start looking at some settings related fixes. There may be something in GeForce exp that is causing the issue or an in game FPS limit setting.

If there are no settings related issues then regardless of what you think you are seeing in terms of CPU usage, that 4770 which is pretty old now, is almost guaranteed to be the cause of your trouble when paired with that 1080 TI. It simply is not that capable with it's four cores and four hyperthreads compared to just about any modern processor. Especially on titles that are highly optimized for multithreaded processing.

 

[WebowJo]

I did just about precisely as you suggested, short of reinstalling windows, which i might resort to although much unwillingly, I'm going as far as possible to answer this qualm because i see im not the only one who has this problem, for your convenience an csv file listing all my computers sensors that are relevant while running Killing Floor 2, a simple game to run even for my cpu, lo and behold the gpu usage is wonky, the cpu is anywhere from 10 to 59%, I'm not expert at reading these logs so if anyone has insight from that file please share!

if nothing works I'm going to try this gpu in a newer gen cpu, hopefully, 9'th and see what we get then, maybe, it is just a faulty gpu, anyhow I'm not letting this go with a "bottleneck" that seems unlikely.

thank you for your help, i will try to update with progress

peace

 

[WebowJo]

dumb me forgot the file.. sorry

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1khT62aTonVuXBDvBalZYMTqOpw9wevVQ

i tried marking the important things but im an excel noob. thanks

 

[tennis2]

Why is it so hard to believe that a 6 year old, 3.6GHz CPU can be a bottleneck, even if it has 4C/8T?

The charts below were tested with a GTX1080Ti (FE) at 1080p Ultra settings. Your 4770 (non-K) is roughly equivalent to the i7-3770K. Maybe a smidge higher, but not as good as the i7-2600K (OC to 4.6GHz all-core).