AMD Radeon HD 6850 FPS Drops

[Internetianer]

Hello,
I'm having this weird problem with my graphics card since some time.
After playing Bad Company 2, GTA IV, Fallout New Vegas or Crysis 2 for maybe about 15 - 20 minutes, I'm getting a heavy FPS drop.

In Bad Company 2 the FPS drops from 80 to 40, in New Vegas from 60 to 30, in GTA IV from 30 to 10, and in Crysis 2 from 45 to 20. It's getting really annoying, and I'm worried that my card is dying.

PC Specs:
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.80 GHz
AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB
ASUS M4N68T-M LE V2 Motherboard
4 GB Ram
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

I hope you can help me.
-Internetianer

 

[supremeusa]

Hope u have a warranty on it

 

[Internetianer]

I'm not sure about the warranty for the card. I had some issues with the website where I got it off from some years ago when I needed some parts.

 

[amuffin]

Temperatures?

 

[Onus]

Your card may be throttling due to overheating. Make sure its fan is running properly, and that your case has some airflow through it. You can use Catalyst Control Center to manually force the fan speed higher; see if that makes a difference.

 

[Reyho]

Sounds like its overheating. Download hardware monitor from www.cpuid.com, safe website. Run it, after u see its showing both ur cpu and gpu temps run th game as normal. After it starts to drop in fps exit the game and take a look at the monitoring program for the max temp readings. If its over 90'c u have a problem.

 

[Internetianer]

Sorry for the late response. I checked while playing, and the card never went over 65°C.

 

[Reyho]

Sorry for the late response. I checked while playing, and the card never went over 65°C.

Ok heat isnt an issue at all then, the next thing it could possiably be is the card is wanting more power but it isnt getting it, do you have a sufficient psu to power everything and still have around 50W spare??

Only other thing. Can think of is a driver issue or possiably somthing to do with windows that interupts ur cpu/gpu whileur playing for a certian amoun of time.

 

[Reyho]

Try running the game in window mode with task manager open on the performance tab and keep an eye on the cpu usage, if u see it go higher then normal when playing the game then the game starts to slow that may be ur problem.

 

[Internetianer]

The CPU usage is usually about 70% - 85% while playing, sometimes even 90%.
There shouldn't be any driver issues either. I even reinstalled Windows two weeks ago to see if it helps. I'm not sure if I still have 50W spare. The PSU is a LC-Power LC600H-12 with 600W.

 

[esrever]

thats weird if your cpu is at 70-85% for a 6 core on those games as they should be closer to 40% due to the core count being so much higher than the games would use.

you sure something else isn't using your cpu and thus lagging you down?

 

[Internetianer]

There isn't anything else using my CPU that would push the usage up that much.

 

[esrever]

can you check your task manager durring gaming when cpu is high and see what is using it? thats really weird.

 

[Internetianer]

Okay I just checked again, this time with Bad Company 2. The CPU usage was about 45-70% all the time.

 

[dreamwithin]

I have the same problem too. I'm not sure what's wrong and I've been trying to find out what's wrong. I even reinstalled alot of different drivers just to see if its the drivers issues and nothing working. I tried doing windows updates yet they're not helping at all.

Probably around 1-2months ago, I was playing Starcraft II on ultra settings with 62 fps constant and it would ONLY DROP a little bit down to like MINIMUM 50 on rare occassions. Now i can't even handle starcraft II on ultra settings since it keeps going from 62 - 30 back and forth like a ball bouncing up and down. Not consistent and very fluctuating...

My setup is similar to yours:
AMD X6 Phenom II 1100T 3.3ghz ~
Sapphire HD 6850 1GB
Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H
2GB RipJaws (x2)
Corsair HX650 650W
Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit

Hope someone can help us out here....

 

[wolfram23]

Did you change anything in the BIOS? Or check if you have the latest one?

I'm almost thinking that the CPU is downclocking itself under load for some reason.

You could also run GPUZ (sensor tab with background recording on) or MSI Afterburner. I'd be curious if the GPU clocks are fluctuating.

 

[dreamwithin]

I just downloaded GPUZ and I checked the sensor tab with the background recording on and it actually is showing that the GPU clocks are fluctuating.
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/12/01/04/f9v.png
Thats the link to show my results and this is only with like 4-5 programs running with no games on except for the League of Legends browser.

 

[wolfram23]

Well in windows they will fluctuate like that, what's important is whether they do it in-game. With a 3D program running they should remain pinned at their highest speeds.

 

[dreamwithin]

Yea its solid when its in game