Weird drops in FPS (notable even in web browser)

[Gordon.C]

Hi,

I get some pretty weird behavior with my new gaming rid. This machine is build to run Battlefield 4 at above 70FPS and it usually does; however sometimes I get these massive drops in FPS. Sometimes games (BF4, Metro LL, Thief) run at 30FPS sometimes as low as 10FPS. Not sure what this sudden drop triggers.

To save some time, my specs are

CPU: Inter Core i5-4670
GPU: Radeon R9 290 Tri-x
RAM: 16Gb
SSD: 250GB Samsung 840 EVO
OS: Windows 8

Usually what helps is a reboot. So far I have noticed that the FPS is determined right after I reboot. I can expect low FPS when I open FireFox and even JavaScript driven elements that move (menus and stuff) render rather slow on a website. I reboot again and usually both web content and games run very smoothly. Important is that everything runs slow or fast at the same reboot.

I am not even sure whether its something to do with CPU or GPU. I dont run any unusual software then ever before. One is never safe from viruses but this has been happening pretty much ever since my first game launch a month ago.

At first I was blaming PhysX because I didnt know whether to install it on my AMD card or not, then I decided to remove it but this problem occasionally reappeared. My missed guess was PhysX because some forums would suggest to install PhysX even on AMD cards to play Metro LL and some passages that obviously used PhysX ran very poorly compared to other passages in the game. Now my PC is PhysX free and about 50/50 game attemps run smoothly / laggy.

Another slight hint is that games would more often run smoothly if I run them as soon as I reboot. If I was to run a game 30 minutes into being booted to my system chances are I am gonna have to reboot.

Any idea what it could be?

 

[Dean11]

Post your cpu and gpu temps, sounds like your pc could be throttling.

 

[Gordon.C]

Post your cpu and gpu temps, sounds like your pc could be throttling.

Worth a shot.

Idle CPU : 34C
Idle GPU: 45C

Then I ran 15 minutes of Battlefield 4. Averaged at 75 FPS

CPU Max: 72C
GPU Max: 76C (with other games and longer gameplay I never saw GPU go over 80C)
GPU VRM Max: 78C (not sure what that is, but it had highest temperature Gpu-z showed)

When this issue reappears again I will check CPU and GPU load for any anomalies even in Idle. It seems maybe as if some process was bottle necking CPU (or even GPU) because this seriously affects even smoothness of JavaScript on websites.

 

[Jgpassage]

Worth a shot.

Idle CPU : 34C
Idle GPU: 45C

Then I ran 15 minutes of Battlefield 4. Averaged at 75 FPS

CPU Max: 72C
GPU Max: 76C (with other games and longer gameplay I never saw GPU go over 80C)
GPU VRM Max: 78C (not sure what that is, but it had highest temperature Gpu-z showed)

When this issue reappears again I will check CPU and GPU load for any anomalies even in Idle. It seems maybe as if some process was bottle necking CPU (or even GPU) because this seriously affects even smoothness of JavaScript on websites.

From what I could find, CPU is running hot. Your CPU is reaching critical temperatures.

http://www.pantherproducts.co.uk/index.php?pageid=CPUtemperatures

 

[Gordon.C]

From what I could find, CPU is running hot. Your CPU is reaching critical temperatures.

http://www.pantherproducts.co.uk/index.php?pageid=CPUtemperatures

Now that I did some digging you might be right. I will check my options for improvement.

Anyway I did a new test while the game was running on low FPS. So this time Battlefield 4 would average at 30FPS sometimes running as low as 5FPS and I did a 15 minute run again.

CPU Max: 65C (usually saw it averaging around 60C on all cores)
GPU Max: 71C

Weird thing about CPU was average of 55% Utilization while gameplay.

I should check CPU Utilization when the game runs smoothly but I think this could be the source of problems. System could be blocking the CPU to run greater load for some reason. I will reboot and see if anything changes now.

P.S. Yesterday I was not able to reproduce this issue, as I said it happens in about 50/50 chances.

--

After reboot as expected CPU Utilization went all the way up to 100% making the game run at 75FPS on average. So that could be the cause.

So what is able to limit CPU load to 55%?

 

[Jgpassage]

Now that I did some digging you might be right. I will check my options for improvement.

Anyway I did a new test while the game was running on low FPS. So this time Battlefield 4 would average at 30FPS sometimes running as low as 5FPS and I did a 15 minute run again.

CPU Max: 65C (usually saw it averaging around 60C on all cores)
GPU Max: 71C

Weird thing about CPU was average of 55% Utilization while gameplay.

I should check CPU Utilization when the game runs smoothly but I think this could be the source of problems. System could be blocking the CPU to run greater load for some reason. I will reboot and see if anything changes now.

P.S. Yesterday I was not able to reproduce this issue, as I said it happens in about 50/50 chances.

--

After reboot as expected CPU Utilization went all the way up to 100% making the game run at 75FPS on average. So that could be the cause.

So what is able to limit CPU load to 55%?

Your GPU is fine.

Your CPU is exceeding critical temperatures. When it reaches critical temperature, it throttles the CPU to prevent damage.

Your CPU should be staying in the 40's or 50's while gaming. Not in the 60's or 70's. That's a serious problem.

Your CPU is not being cooled correctly. How is your CPU cooled? Did you install CPU yourself?

 

[Gordon.C]

Your GPU is fine.

Your CPU is exceeding critical temperatures. When it reaches critical temperature, it throttles the CPU to prevent damage.

Your CPU should be staying in the 40's or 50's while gaming. Not in the 60's or 70's. That's a serious problem.

Your CPU is not being cooled correctly. How is your CPU cooled? Did you install CPU yourself?

This is very odd, because the throttling effect seems to be determined and initiated during each system boot. Never once during short or long gameplay has the FPS dropped from high to low.

I dont have many options for improvement. The CPU is cooled by Arctic Freezer Xtreme Rev.2‎ and I got a Bitfenix Ronin case with front and back built in fans. There should be 4 more slots for fans so I guess that my one option. My PC was built and put together by the computer shops mechanics (I believe they did not mess it up).

Any other options maybe?

 

[Gordon.C]

While my CPU temps are not ideal during gameplay this issues occurs even in idle.

For example my PC has been running for an hour just in Windows now and I can see laggy JavaScript on regular websites and even photoshop runs rather slow and laggy. I didnt launch any games today so my temps could have never exceeded 40C on CPU.

Is seems the problems has to do with software not hardware so far. Could there be something wrong with Windows maybe?

P.S. I bet if I reboot now, things will run smoothly again.

 

[Jgpassage]

While my CPU temps are not ideal during gameplay this issues occurs even in idle.

For example my PC has been running for an hour just in Windows now and I can see laggy JavaScript on regular websites and even photoshop runs rather slow and laggy. I didnt launch any games today so my temps could have never exceeded 40C on CPU.

Is seems the problems has to do with software not hardware so far. Could there be something wrong with Windows maybe?

P.S. I bet if I reboot now, things will run smoothly again.

Someone with more experience than me could tell you if it's software or not. Unfortunately, I can't.

Your CPU isn't in "ideal temperature ranges", your CPU is in "critical temperature ranges" meaning it's not healthy to be that hot. There's something wrong with your cooling system. Even if the hot CPU isn't causing your system to lag, it's still running way hotter than is safe. Let's not forget temperature offsets, either. Your CPU could be hotter than it's showing, depending on how warm or cold it is in your facility.

You'll find when it comes to PC's there's never consistency when it comes to problems like this.

I guess I can try since no one else has responded on this thread. Take a screenshot of Task Manager under "processes" tab when your computer doesn't lag. Then give us CPU temperature.

Do the same again when the computer lags.

 

[Xibyth]

Sounds like the thermal compound has gone dry. Just quickly replace it after cleaning the old stuff with some isopropyl alcohol and check the heat-sink and fan for dust. Even a little dust on the heat-sink prevents the air from contacting the metal at all. See how things go from there.

 

[Gordon.C]

Someone with more experience than me could tell you if it's software or not. Unfortunately, I can't.

Your CPU isn't in "ideal temperature ranges", your CPU is in "critical temperature ranges" meaning it's not healthy to be that hot. There's something wrong with your cooling system. Even if the hot CPU isn't causing your system to lag, it's still running way hotter than is safe. Let's not forget temperature offsets, either. Your CPU could be hotter than it's showing, depending on how warm or cold it is in your facility.

You'll find when it comes to PC's there's never consistency when it comes to problems like this.

I guess I can try since no one else has responded on this thread. Take a screenshot of Task Manager under "processes" tab when your computer doesn't lag. Then give us CPU temperature.

Do the same again when the computer lags.

So I did a comparison run in both SMOOTH and LAGGY mode and monitored my processes.

Making a screenshot of Task manager in either mode would be almost 1:1 copy with exception that on LAGGY mode my CPU only allows Battlefield to consume 50% - 60% while in SMOOTH mode CPU allows to go up to 95%.

Again there are days I am unable to reproduce the LAGGY mode and there are days I have to reboot twice before getting the SMOOTH mode. The temps cant directly affect it, because LAGGY or SMOOTH is determined on each reboot from what I can see right now.

 

[CorruptHawkeyez]

The temperature is your main enemy right now, quit trying to second guess your main objective. Right now you need to get the temperature on that CPU down. Unless I missed where you may have already done this, you need to reseat that heatsink, and in the process apply some new thermal paste. Do this before you damage that processor. Unless it is a damaged processor already......