FPS Drops (possible CPU spikes) in most games

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
A_Great_Big_Tree

A_Great_Big_Tree

Reputable
Jan 19, 2015
33
0
4,540
AMD FX-8320 Eight Core CPU (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)
ASUS® M5A97 LE R2.0 (DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s)
16GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
2GB MSI R9 270 OC Gaming Edition
500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
700Watt Power Supply (80+)
Arctic Cooler 13 CPU COOLER

I hope that the Tom's Hardware community can help - this problem has been troubling me for nearly a year now.

PC is under a year old.

I play BF4, Skyrim and a little CS:GO - There is just a load of graphical lag, with everything (definitely not good for BF4)...

Could it be because I'm using an adapter out the back of the GPU? (card doesn't support VGA)

Other than that, I've tried pretty much everything I can think of.

(CPU doesn't exceed 40C)
(GPU doesn't exceed 60C)
(brain fried)

Also, BF4 community not helping...
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
M

mdocod

Distinguished
Aug 15, 2010
1,797
0
20,460
So here's what's happening..


When you installed the Arctic 13 cooler, you inadvertently removed the high-velocity air-cooling for the motherboard voltage regulation modules for the CPU. The motherboard that was once good for running up to ~140W loads, is now overheating at much lower loads than this. When the board reaches a critical temp, is triggers a self preservation protocol, this protocol is to force the CPU into it's lowest power state until temperatures recover, that's 1.4ghz@0.9V.

Obviously, games run like crap when your CPU is throttled back to 35% of it's normal "turbo" speed.

--------


Your options are:
A: Use the AMD Boxed Cooler.
B: Replace the motherboard with something much beefier.
C: install forced air cooling over the motherboard VRMs (take the 70mm fan from your AMD cooler and suspend it over the VRM mosfets).
D: Turn off Turbo Core in BIOS!!
E: A combination of the above (try A+D for free!)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A_Great_Big_Tree

A_Great_Big_Tree

Reputable
Jan 19, 2015
33
0
4,540
Thanks for your post, but the temperature monitoring software and CPU clock monitor tells me that the CPU is running 3.8Ghz, 44C and all 8 cores are running the same.. solidly

(used to have stock cooler and Powercolour HD7770, but upgraded both because this is where the problem started.



The only thing I haven't done is turn off the turbo boost, is this a massive problem? (Cool n' quiet disabled, there is a standard clock 3.5 on CPU)



ALSO, worth pointing out - these are brief and sudden, but very much drastic FPS drops - like the whole system is bugging out
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A_Great_Big_Tree

A_Great_Big_Tree

Reputable
Jan 19, 2015
33
0
4,540
Wow - Dude, I think you were speaking the truth. Sorry for doubting you!!! I should have looked at your set up first... (I've just had so many answers that have been bullsh*t recently - again, sorry bud)

All CPU Cores running at 100 percent, they boost all the way up to 3793Mhz, then drop to 1517Mhz (bus speed remaining 217Mhz obviously)

So, yeah it seems the first post I put on Tom's Hardware is a success.

So other than the above options you laid out, is there anything else I can do??

Like maybe find a way to put the high-velocity air-cooling for the motherboard voltage regulation modules back on! Or set them to be happy with new cooler.

I can't really afford a new motherboard/ have never completely fitted one before...


Any advice would be great (I don't understand why the system thinks its overheating though, I can't see a temperature on here above 50C)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

mdocod

Distinguished
Aug 15, 2010
1,797
0
20,460
Next step is to undo that overclock. Your BCLK should be at 200mhz, not 217mhz. I suspect you ran Asus's proprietary "auto tuner" in BIOS. Turn that off and revert to stock settings. If that doesn't fix the thermal throttling then we'll go over your options.

The ability to physically attach a CPU cooler to a motherboard is irrelevant to the problem you are having here. PCpartpicker doesn't consider the greater ramifications of using aftermarket cooling solutions on motherboards that depend on OE cooling. It's an issue that is really only well understood by professionals in the industry.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A_Great_Big_Tree

A_Great_Big_Tree

Reputable
Jan 19, 2015
33
0
4,540
It would appear that when the stock cooler is on, the CPU can reach upto 75C before the thermal protocal takes place and it drops down to 1.5Ghz - whereas with the Artic Cooler 13, it only allows 40.9C before it does the same?

Any idea why it does this??

Also can I change this in the bios? I suppose its there for a reason! I just don't know why it lets the temp go so high with the stock cooler?

Clocked the CPU back to 201mhz and there is no cut off with the aftermarket cooler on... cores running at 3512Mhz


UPDATE - It just cut to 1.4Ghz after 36C with the aftermarket cooler on (after underclock)


Surely i can change this cut off in the bios?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A_Great_Big_Tree

A_Great_Big_Tree

Reputable
Jan 19, 2015
33
0
4,540



I've set everything in the bios back to default settings and its still doing the same thing when running prime 95

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

mdocod

Distinguished
Aug 15, 2010
1,797
0
20,460
The problem here is that you are observing a temperature that is unrelated to the throttling...

When the stock cooler is used, the VRMs will be cooler but the CPU will be hotter.
When the aftermarket cooler is used, the CPU will be cooler but the VRMs will be hotter.

Whatever temp you are observing is obviously not being probing close enough to the VRMs. The throttling is occurring at a threshold that you either can't observe, or are aren't observing correctly. It's very possible that the LE edition of the board does not actually have a VRM temp probe, but pretty much all AM3+ motherboards have a way to detect over-heating of the VRMs and prevent self-destruction by forcing the low power state.

Sounds like you're going to need to run stock speeds and use the stock cooler to get this to work. (in other-words, run it the way it was intended).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A_Great_Big_Tree

A_Great_Big_Tree

Reputable
Jan 19, 2015
33
0
4,540


So why does the Arctic Cooler 13 cause hotter VRM?

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

mdocod

Distinguished
Aug 15, 2010
1,797
0
20,460
As I already explained, the factory cooler provides directed, high velocity air-flow directly over the VRMs.

You can actually observe this yourself... Install the stock cooler (make sure to clean up all the thermal compound and always apply a fresh new bb size application of thermal compound to the center of the CPU before each installation). Run P95. The CPU temp will rise and the fan controller will kick that tiny little fan into overdrive, should hit ~5000rpm or more. Carefully hold your fingers down over near the VRM mosfets/chokes/caps, and you'll feel an aggressive blast of air practically forced at those components. The aftermarket cooler by comparison, produces more like a gentle breeze that isn't even directed at the VRM mosfets/caps/chokes. Most of that breeze just sort of blows past that stuff with very little forced-air exchange taking place directly over those components.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom