please interpret this Afterburner GPU pattern...

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by KuriousJorj, Oct 28, 2013.

  1. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    Playing games has become difficult; the gameplay becomes choppy and laggy, even in older games. Newer games (the Old Republic, Neverwinter Online) become unplayable, literally getting less than 10 FPS in combat.

    I took a few pics of Afterburner while this happens. Note the GPU line:

    Pic 1

    Pic 2

    Does anyone know what that pattern means? Remember, this can happen even while not really doing anything, or doing the same thing over the duration. (ie, just running in the game world w/ relatively same background)

    I've had Task Manager up and watched CPU and Memory use. There's always more than 1GB of RAM free, and CPU (quad core) never goes above 60% during those lags.
     
  2. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Is that 60% per core or 60% for the whole CPU. If it's for the CPU you should check core load as well.
     
  3. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    It's all four cores. When the stutter/choppiness occurs, all four cores will often jump up to 60% each. Is that high?

    Also note, these same games didn't used to lag like this; so what has changed? (I know for example, TOR has upgraded it's graphics, but that doesn't explain why it still lags on low settings, much less why even old games lag now)

    My CPU temp is fine, I recently cleaned out the fan, reapplied paste, etc.
     
  4. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    Has it always been like this?

    also Swtor is TERRIBLE optimized compared to most games and the HERO engine they using was butchers so badly they made the engine worse then what it capable of. so ignore SWTOR as an example It being a MMO dont help matters.

    When this spike is happen what exactly is running in the background? Might want to check if HDD starts accessing like crazy during those times it happen.

    As for CPU spikes you got be spike higher then 60% on the cores as I spikes well in to 80% on cores for a i7 920 in swtor which runs circles around what your have. so there is no way you have spikes lower then a i7 920 in swtor.
     

  5. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    No, all games ran fine for the longest while. Even TOR more or less ran fine. Sure, once in a while they'd break something, but fix it. Nowadays I literally can't do PvP in TOR, as I drop below 10 FPS when I try. I don't know exactly when this started, or if I did anything to cause it.

    But like I said, it does it w/ old games. For example LOTR - BFME2, it slows down when there is a lot of action on the screen. That's an old game!

    The CPU spikes I monitored (via Task Manager) was while playing Neverwinter Online.

    Nothing out of the ordinary is running in the background; ZoneAlarm, Avast, that's about it. I even uninstalled SpyBot cause it was always running updaters in the background. Like I mentioned, I have well over 1GB of RAM free according to Task Manager, at all times.

    How do I check to see if my HDD is accessing like crazy? (I ran defrag recently, fearing it was an HDD issue; made no difference to gameplay)
     
  6. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    Performance monitor under task manager.

    Checked for Spyware/Virus/Rootkits?

    What kind of temperatures the cpu at when it happens? Something is throttling
     
  7. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    What do you mean? I was using this to watch CPU and memory usage... does it also show HDD activity?

    What would be the best way to watch CPU temp during gaming? I've run Everest while rendering HD video for hours at the time (albeit, not lately) and temps didn't rise to dangerous levels.
     
  8. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    Aida64/HW monitor. temps

    Task manager under performance tab there button called performance montior
     
  9. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    Not seeing a button for Performance Monitor... is that cause I'm on WinXP?


    I installed HWMonitor... here's the 'maximum' heat readings --

    The CPU cores (4) got as high as 68'C each. (something called CPUTIN once got as high as 126'C though)

    HDD got up to 39'C.

    GPU got up to 73'C.

    None of those seem too high, except for that CPUTIN reading, but I didn't actually see it that high, that's just what the "Max" column read at some point.
     
  10. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    69C and 73C both to hot and imo are throttling. Since kepler 4xx 70c tigger throttling on nvidia gpu, and 68C is to hot for cpu.

    I would clean out your case and fans of dust and start re-applying thermal on the CPU and GPU
     

  11. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    I actually run with the side of my tower case off. Along w/ various fans, not sure what else I can do.

    I will admit, due to carpet in the room, dust does accumulate inside the case, but even that, I more or less blew out the 'big chunks' the other day. (there wasn't all that much, really)

    Also, you said thermal paste on the GPU?
     
  12. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    thermal paste on both the cpu and gpu.

    If you have to run with your case side off you need to invest in a better case with better air flow, There is also a good chance that makes things worse
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2013
  13. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    I just left the side off the case, always have, as I assumed it would allow more air in. Never did it in response to anything.

    Will take a look at the card and consider putting paste on the GPU... but if I gotta take the card itself apart to do so, doubt I will.

    I'm pretty sure the temps I listed are within normal range anyhow, according to what I've seen online. (plus, why would games lag almost immediately upon system startup, before the system has even 'warmed up' and is still cool, if temps are to blame)

    I actually put a new layer of paste on the CPU the other day. Ironically of the temps I listed, it's the only one that got above normal.
     
  14. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    Yes CPU/GPU Heatshink Fan need to come off to replace thermal paste. Likes I said Kepler 4xx card all start to throttle at 70c

    And If your hitting 69C and not even maxing your CPU out, you are going to run in to bigger problems down the road with more Throttling and over heating issue.

    Put the side case back on and see if temperatures drop. IF they get worse then when you have side off. Then you need to invest in better case with better airflow.



    your GPU is throttling once it hits 70c by 10mhz as it get hotter, Would also makes sure you have Max performance set in NVIDIA CP for Global ( on off chance this fixing the bad performance you getting with it) your card will still start throttle at 70c.

    And I personal dont care what ever thing online says is normal for what ever CPU brand 69c is to hot. and to close to thermal/throttling threshold for my taste.

    my Cpu set up is in my profile and that fan is running 1300rpm at all times and my cpu never goes pass 62c under any load including testing full load on all cores with prime95 under gaming situations it never goes past 55c All a antec 200 case with 2 exhaust and 2 intake fans all running 1500 rpm or lower. Not even my 660gtx under full load hits 70c most times it around 65c or lower. But then I sure if you have one of those reference fans setup for the nvidia cards (blower/Exhaust style) you will hit those 70c throttle limits cause my 680gtx i had could even keep under 70c with out sound like get engine so it went back for 2 dualfan gpu fan setup that the 660gtx ftw sig2 is

    Imo something is throttling and it can only be the cpu or gpu and i know at 70c nvidia cards now start to throttle 10mhz increments or something like that once it hits 70c.

    Im sure i could be wrong on some stuff and someone more intune with amd might no better. but imo 69c is to hot for any cpu

    Show picture of AB with osd showing GPu Core/Memory/Shader clock speed while this is happening.

    Could also try reverting back to earlier driver alot people over at nvidia forums complain about issue with new drivers for 4xx/5xx cards.

    Other then this i out of idea Short of it being system latency issue the cause. Which is not something some one little knowledge of what that does and and it works should be messing with imo. If you want to look it to that as issue http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=368604 check that thread it will tell you want you need to fiqure out if it is or isnt part of the issue.

    One way or another I look into better cooling for your PC/Case/ CPU/gpu
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2013
  15. KuriousJorj

    KuriousJorj Guest

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    I re-applied paste and put on a bigger fan to the CPU. Dropped temps to high 40's, low 50's. Didn't make any difference to gameplay though.

    Two possible causes I can think of:

    1. screwed up MBR from old WinXP install
    2. graphics card going bad


    1. MBR / corrupted Winxp

    I used to have WinXP on the first partition, w/ a large, secondary partition as 'storage.'

    Anyhow, the WinXP system got screwed up; can't remember if it was a rootkit or what, but when I tried to fix it w/ the install disks, things got worse, couldn't even reinstall the OS, so instead, installed WinXP to the 'storage' partition, and now use it as my boot partition. (that's what I'm on now, what I run all my program from, etc)

    The other day, I finally decided to manually delete all the old WinXP folders/files on the original, first, corrupted install / partition.
    Now the computer wants to do a HD check on every startup unless I hit a key to skip it.

    I'm thinking there's something going on there, with the MBR or something, that's messing w/ my drivers or motherboard or something, that's lagging out my graphics card.

    I'm gonna pull off all important data from that partition (which I've been using as storage since this all happened) and re-format the whole thing.

    See what that does. Then again, would that wipe the MBR? Would I lose this partition I'm on now?


    2. my graphics card is going bad

    self-explanatory
     

  16. tsunami231

    tsunami231 Ancient Guru

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    Try a diffrent video card if you got one, or if you really desperate Try a fresh install of OS on Separate HDD (not a different partion on the same drive) if it does on different HDD same issue then might be the card if it dont do it then it might be HDD you where using.
     

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