- Feb 13, 2018
- 2
- 0
- 520
I've seen this question a lot, and have been through a ton of forum posts here and elsewhere, but I haven't seen a solution yet that works for me. Starting in November/December, I started noticing random and *devistating* framerate drops in games. Now the problem is persistent. After a couple of weeks of trying this and that, I've settled on the idea that something is throttling my CPU usage. Windows 10 reports no greater than 33% usage even when I'm under heavy load, never more than 7x multiplier. I've used two different methods for loading the CPU for testing; CPUZ 'Stress CPU' and running the '1000-objects' stress-simulation in Universe Sandbox 2 (which is physics heavy, should be tacking the CPU). Windows Performance Monitor shows the CPU usage graph plateau at 34% or so even if I start trying to run other games simultaneously, maximum CPU frequency reports correctly but the 'current frequency' never goes above 1.37GHz. RAM speed is also low, at 800GHz instead of 1600.
AMD FX-4350 (and now, installed yesterday, FX-8350--same problem)
MSI 970 Gaming motherboard
16Gb DDR3 1600 RAM (two sticks of 8, slots 1 and 3, same brand and model)
AMD HD 7800 GPU
Things I've tried: re-install of Windows 10, Resetting Windows 10, turning off Cool'n'Quiet, setting Windows power management to high and forcing 'minimum CPU power' to 100%, going into AMD Overdrive and turning on Turbo Control, double-checking the 'Slow-Mode' switch on the motherboard (ran it with it 'on' and 'off' to make sure it wasn't, say, reversed compared to the documentation's diagram). I've run 6 back-to-back malware scans using 4 different applications, nothing picked up anything major. Not overclocking in Overdrive, in MSI Command Center, nor in the BIOS. BIOS settings are all [auto] except Cool'n'quiet. Overdrive shows all cores (on both processors) between 50 and 60 degrees below thermal margin, even under load. Plus, you know, brand new cooler for the new CPU. Motherboard 'north' and 'south' bridge heatsinks are far from being hot to the touch (warm, as they should be, if even that much). Motherboard has direct fan air blowing across it, and is vented passively straight up without obstructions, no accumulated dust in any heatsinks or on the board surface, to further allay the possibility of thermal issues. Problem is recent and started out intermittently, right around the time I got the Anniversary Update pushed to me, which I had massive trouble with due to an incompatibility with my WiFi card's drivers despite working before the update. Early on, the problem was most noticable in Java-based Minecraft--it would run happily, but once in a while if you started it up it would just dump the framerate for no apparent reason, and stay like that for a random number of days or weeks, and randomly decide to return to normal.
The only other thing of note I've found is that, in Overdrive, TMP2 and TMP3 values are super high--above 200C, but I know for fact these are not actual values because I've fired the computer up from cold start (It's about 20C in my bedroom right now) and immediately jumped into Overdrive and those values are there, and never EVER move. I'm willing to support the idea that these values are the problem, causing Windows to think it needs to temp-throttle, but how do I correct this? What are these values even supposed to be reporting, I can't tell? Can I reset them somehow, or are they irrelivant to the problem? Please, any ideas that don't include upgrading to a new board/processor/RAM combo (I would if I had the scratch)?
Forgot to mention: BIOS and CPUZ both report the proper hardware specs, and CPUZ confirms the Windows Performance Monitor report of '7x multiplier' and '1.37Ghz' current run speed.
AMD FX-4350 (and now, installed yesterday, FX-8350--same problem)
MSI 970 Gaming motherboard
16Gb DDR3 1600 RAM (two sticks of 8, slots 1 and 3, same brand and model)
AMD HD 7800 GPU
Things I've tried: re-install of Windows 10, Resetting Windows 10, turning off Cool'n'Quiet, setting Windows power management to high and forcing 'minimum CPU power' to 100%, going into AMD Overdrive and turning on Turbo Control, double-checking the 'Slow-Mode' switch on the motherboard (ran it with it 'on' and 'off' to make sure it wasn't, say, reversed compared to the documentation's diagram). I've run 6 back-to-back malware scans using 4 different applications, nothing picked up anything major. Not overclocking in Overdrive, in MSI Command Center, nor in the BIOS. BIOS settings are all [auto] except Cool'n'quiet. Overdrive shows all cores (on both processors) between 50 and 60 degrees below thermal margin, even under load. Plus, you know, brand new cooler for the new CPU. Motherboard 'north' and 'south' bridge heatsinks are far from being hot to the touch (warm, as they should be, if even that much). Motherboard has direct fan air blowing across it, and is vented passively straight up without obstructions, no accumulated dust in any heatsinks or on the board surface, to further allay the possibility of thermal issues. Problem is recent and started out intermittently, right around the time I got the Anniversary Update pushed to me, which I had massive trouble with due to an incompatibility with my WiFi card's drivers despite working before the update. Early on, the problem was most noticable in Java-based Minecraft--it would run happily, but once in a while if you started it up it would just dump the framerate for no apparent reason, and stay like that for a random number of days or weeks, and randomly decide to return to normal.
The only other thing of note I've found is that, in Overdrive, TMP2 and TMP3 values are super high--above 200C, but I know for fact these are not actual values because I've fired the computer up from cold start (It's about 20C in my bedroom right now) and immediately jumped into Overdrive and those values are there, and never EVER move. I'm willing to support the idea that these values are the problem, causing Windows to think it needs to temp-throttle, but how do I correct this? What are these values even supposed to be reporting, I can't tell? Can I reset them somehow, or are they irrelivant to the problem? Please, any ideas that don't include upgrading to a new board/processor/RAM combo (I would if I had the scratch)?
Forgot to mention: BIOS and CPUZ both report the proper hardware specs, and CPUZ confirms the Windows Performance Monitor report of '7x multiplier' and '1.37Ghz' current run speed.
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