MSI afterburner bug report & suggestion

I'm having a problem I've not seen before: MSI Afterburner doesn't detect my GPUs (on Windows 10 Insider Build 16273).

Details: I have 2 GTX 980 Ti GPUs, not in SLI. Today, I updated my Windows Insider build (like I usually do), picking up Windows 10 Insider Build 16273 (I'm on Skip Ahead, so I got 16273.1000). While troubleshooting another issue (where it seems my game is not properly using GSync in this build, and instead allows FPS to go up to ~400 instead of locked to refresh rate of 144, like maybe it's using Fast Sync) .... I used Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to uninstall/reinstall the drivers (385.28). Since then, MSI Afterburner has not been able to see my GPUs - It says "There are no devices available.". I've tried v4.4.0 Beta 16, v4.3.0, and v4.2.0... but none of them can find my GPUs. My other programs like GPU-Z, NVIDIA Inspector, EVGA PrecisionX, HWiNFO64, ... CAN see the GPUs.

I filed Windows 10 feedback here:
https://aka.ms/Ci31vw

Can anyone on 16273, try using DDU to uninstall/reinstall drivers, and see if you can reproduce the same problem? If so, reply back, and also upvote that feedback.
And does anyone have a workaround?
And do we think this is a new Windows 10 bug?
And any suggestions on what we could do to troubleshoot this, like with logs?

Thanks,
Jacob Klein

 

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windows-10-build-16273-broke-ab-and-rtss.416463/

 

Thank you for the confirmation. How strange for them to be breaking things weeks before release!

 

I'm guessing this is a windows thing not AB, but does anyone know how to stop the system tray temp/usage icons from partially ending up in the "Show hidden icons" section each boot?

I have CPU temp/usage, and GPU 1 & 2 Temp/Usage enabled for system tray, they are all set to sit in view on the system tray, but at least one each boot will move itself back into the "Show hidden icons" section, I have to click the little arrow and drag it back down each time

Not a biggy just a PITA

 

Perhaps Windows thinks of them as being uninstalled thus one or more return with default (on) settings when the program is initialized upon boot again?
I'm not really too certain on how Windows 10 handles these settings though so not too sure on if it's something that can be resolved in Afterburner or if it requires a update to the OS itself though I would lean on it being more on the OS side of things and Windows 10 is just being "dumb" on how it handles this information.

 

The "On" setting is how it should be to display them in the system tray correctly, they all remain in the On position, but one or two always end up back in hidden icons

All settings remain equal for all temp/usage icons, but some behave differently to others

 

Oh I got too focused on the settings themselves, it's the behavior in the tray menu and how it's displayed then?

Wonder if that's due to how the OS handles these processes, it seems to be very sensitive to a number of conditions which can easily cause things to reset though I don't know if that's the case with Afterburner.
IE the Battle.net software uses separate sub folders when it gets updated leading to Windows 10 detecting it as a new process so it always needs to be re-arranged and adjusted due to this every time it gets updated, I wonder if it's similar to Afterburner when it spawns these processes and the OS thinks some of them are new and thus they get the same treatment leading to the user having to re-adjust them.
(But then that should be for all of them, not just a few?)

Path and process name seem to be important factors both, not sure if the order Afterburner creates these in also play a role in how the OS arranges the resulting icons and their display status but I wouldn't be surprised about it.

Still not too sure on a actual solution though, could be something like that when Afterburner creates these processes but then how to solve it? And what's the actual cause of this issue.
(Even with Afterburner spawning a number of these monitoring processes they still have their own distinct names and other identifiers so it's strange Windows would just miss one or two or reset them again and again, down to their order then?)


EDIT: Though after a few quick searches this doesn't seem to be a very uncommon issue for Windows 10

This came up as a possible location for the registry setting.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify

 

Yea that's the strange thing, the settings remain the same, but the result changes, recently it's been GPU 2 usage that has been hiding itself, but happens with others occasionally too

Yea you could be right about processes, I'm guessing each one of those icons is a separate process as you can enable and disable them individually

No idea either, happened to me for a long time now, but never found a solution through Windows versions and AB releases

I'm gonna guess its a Windows thing though, feels like something MS wouldn't give a monkeys about for years, like the UAC prompt appearing behind any other window that is open, and file copy prompt doing the same

 

Hmph. That's fair I guess. But here's a suggestion. I setup multiple partitions so I can easily boot into Release, or Slow Ring, or Fast Ring, or Fast Ring Skip Ahead. If you ever consider wanting to support Insider Builds, I'd recommend doing that, so you can easily "stay in Release" most of the time if you'd like.
Thanks for everything you do.

 

My hunch on this, is that ... the Settings app, which uses radio buttons for "Off" and "On", isn't properly showing you the settings of "Show only when activity", which prior OS's used, and Windows 10 actually still uses. My workaround for this is simple: For the tray icon giving you fits, find it in that Setting list, and toggle the setting back and forth. To my knowledge, that removes the "Show only when activity" setting, and "hard sets" it to either On or Off.

That's my take on this behavior. If you find the workaround to work for you, then report it as a suggestion in the Windows 10 Feedback app, so they stop being lazy.

 

Yea looks like you're right, now that settings panel isn't showing GPU 2 usage at all even as a toggle option

EDIT - Restarting AB shows it in settings again, I've toggled it, see what happens after next reboot

 

I am running mining RIG's with 13 GPU's , mixed AMD with Nvidia the UnofficialOverclocking is not working for AMD cards. If I remove 1 card , is just working fine . I try to modify the profile's , regedit , put an monitor intro the AMD card... etc all the tricks provided on the google none of them seams to work with 8 AMD and 5 Nvidia.

 

In a way it makes sense, having early support of a upcoming OS is nice but with Windows 10 constantly in development and more important with functions and features broken in one build and fixed in another it might be better to keep to the stable fully released builds rather than jump into the insider builds, particularly they're speeding up fast ring builds even more now so who knows what the next couple of public RS3 insider builds will be like or even the release version until they get one or two monthly cumulative updates out. (Generally one tends to be available in time for the full public release after they hit final RTM taking care of some of the worst issues so that's something at least.)

If the issue does remain in the next build released it might start to become a actual concern but some issues have remained through several builds before Microsoft fixed them so it's not a sure way to tell either if a upcoming OS update will change or break anything.
(Though the switch to rapid six-month build releases now should also see the monthly cumulative updates less prone to break things I suppose and more focused on security and critical fixes leaving major enhancements to the next full build of Windows 10.)

Well if there are any issues when RS3 is released in full next month or when it was planned for hopefully Afterburner compatibility won't be too troublesome and it'll be sorted out quickly.
(Preferably without it being Microsoft that tampered with something and leaving it undocumented.)

Actually thinking about it supporting a range of different operative systems (Vista and newer, perhaps even old XP still.) sounds like it's already quite a huge task, guess these changes to Win10 as a always in development OS and now pushing it to major builds twice a year isn't making things any easier.


EDIT:

I could be wrong but it seems a bit non-standard to run mixed GPU's like this so the software might be confused expecting AMD's ADL or NVIDIA's nvAPI and then running into both, amount of GPU's shouldn't be a problem but I don't know if SLI and Crossfire could run into issues as well with both drivers being in play. Then again it's not too different from having a Intel GPU on the CPU die I suppose and having that co-operate (Or compete, some software does get a bit confused.) with the dedicated GPU though I'm not sure how Afterburner would handle mixed GPU's from both AMD and Nvidia if it can even work with both driver API's like that but perhaps it can.

It's a interesting setup in any case.

EDIT: What is the max supported GPU count from AMD and Nvidia anyway? Thought it was 4 but that could just have been the recommended max.

EDIT: Ah so I might have been wrong, good to know though.
(Assumed Afterburner would just take the info reported by the GPU driver but perhaps there's a cap on just how many GPU's it actually could handle, still unsure about the mixed vendors too and thus multiple drivers going at it.)

 

I must be missing something here. Does Afterburner read the pagefile correctly? According to Afterburner I'm using a 10GB pagefile when it is set manually to 4GB. Yet the Memory reading never goes any further than just over 5GB...

 

The "Pagefile" reading in Afterburner is actually "Commit Charge", so includes both RAM and pagefile usage.

 

Ah, I see. It would have been handy to see one for what the pagefile really was doing when I was near max 8GB ram when playing Quake Champions.

So what is the ram setting then that doesn't report correctly? Or I'm simply not reading it right...

 

And just because was not designed it means it can't be improved? We didn't got fire in the begin, or medicine or super computers at home. Was afterburner build for miners or graphic stations ? it was build for gamers with no SLI or CrossFire in the begin.. but still GPU's sells increase with 30% because of miners in the last period.. so there is demand in the market.