Graphic card behaving strangely (low fps after XXX time)

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

My graphic card is weird: I played all day to dayz/league of legends/two worlds II at max fps, but now it seems "stuck" somehow. I can't go over 20 FPS on league of legends whcih I usually run at 60fps all time, even battlefield has low fps while I can easily run it at 30 fps.

I'm using a a GeForce GTX 560 Ti with driver 301.42. Notice that is a gainward graphic card so a bit overclocked by default (but never created problems).

What I'm seeing with MSI afterburner is that even if it shows 99% gpu usage, my temperature is around 56°, which is definitely not normal (usually it's around 70°).

I tried by shutting down all process (my taskmanager is quite empty), but I can't seem to find a way to fix this issue except if I reboot my computer. Which fix it without any problem.

I thought it was a cpu problem but that is running smoothly even on cpu-hungry applications.

It could be ram (I have 12 GB ram) but again sounds really strange, I imagine a crash if ram is faulty.

The computer is pretty "new" (1 year old) and cleaned recently (2 months ago) because I changed my thermal paste on the cpu.

Everything is cooled correctly and I have air conditioning in my room.

Notice that I'm using a PCI-E SSD (ocz revodrive) but this problem seems recent to me. Maybe it's the nvidia driver that is faulty, I don't know if I should downgrade it (but the one released when battlefield came out had another problem with power supply -.-) or upgrade to a beta driver (but I don't know consequences).

What's causing the issue and how to solve it?
If you need other information, I'm here!

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I just run 3Dmarks06 to understand the situation:

Score
3172 3DMarks

SM2.0 Score
1129
HDR/SM3.0 Score
1106
CPU Score
5423

The cpu looks ok (i7 950) while the gpu has odd results.

 

[clutchc]

Try cleaning your system of resource wasting crap and registry errors with CCleaner. Do the Clean and Registry both.
http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER
You may need to run it a couple times.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I don't think that's the issue, I run ccleaner quite often.

I just restarted my computer and new 3Dmarks are:
Score
19757 3DMarks

SM2.0 Score
7254
HDR/SM3.0 Score
9734
CPU Score
5668

Definitely different from before (except from cpu whcih is basically the same).

The important thing is this: the graphic card does a "louder" sound when I play games (well it's not noisy, but you can definitely hear when she is really working). I can listen to it (the fan is running at 2400rpm and 71°), while when the issue comes out I can't here the graphic card working and infact the fan is running at 1300rpm, with maximum 56° temperature.

Notice also that when this happen, I'm watching to gpu clocks too, and they didn't change, however it looks like the "maximum" power of my graphic card simply get reduced to 1/6.

I'm thinking it's an issue with recent graphic card drivers, I'm reading around that a lot of people have this issue with my graphic card and latest drivers (not the same, they have permanently lowered their fps while I get this problem only after a lot).

 

[clutchc]

If it is a software issue, perhaps uninstalling the driver, running Driver Sweeper from Safe Mode, and re-installing the new driver will help.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

If it is a software issue, perhaps uninstalling the driver, running Driver Sweeper from Safe Mode, and re-installing the new driver will help.

Thanks I'll try, with beta driver and driver sweeper.

 

[clutchc]

Thanks I'll try, with beta driver and driver sweeper.

I wouldn't try the beta until you have the system stable and no issues. But, your choice.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I wouldn't try the beta until you have the system stable and no issues. But, your choice.

The problem with going to the previous driver version instead of beta, is that those driver have another issue with my graphic card (lol i'm lucky) that "fault" the power saving feature, making the video driver crash a lot.

 

[clutchc]

The problem with going to the previous driver version instead of beta, is that those driver have another issue with my graphic card (lol i'm lucky) that "fault" the power saving feature, making the video driver crash a lot.

I see. Have you thought of going back a driver version or two and seeing if it makes any difference?

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I see. Have you thought of going back a driver version or two and seeing if it makes any difference?

I'm thinking about it, however I got some nice fps boost on some games with newer driver.
Btw I'm testing with new beta driver now, it will take a day or two to reproduce the "bug" (if it happens). I'll inform you.

Thanks a lot for following me however.

 

[yummerzzz]

Hm, well in DayZ I know that sometimes the GPU utilization will only be around 20%, you can check this by downloading MSI Afterburner and editing the overlay. But that still doesn't explain the problems with your other games..

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Hm, well in DayZ I know that sometimes the GPU utilization will only be around 20%, you can check this by downloading MSI Afterburner and editing the overlay. But that still doesn't explain the problems with your other games..

Well, I'm playing dayz but the problem is not connected with it: when the problems come out, it persist (until restart) on EVERYTHING that uses the graphic card. So every game, flash player, even html5 on videos.

It's a really strange issue, it's like the gtx 560 ti "becomes" my old 8800 gts (well, that was on another computer too, but the idea is this).

 

[ferenz]

Just curious, are you using a custom fan profile? The only reason I ask is that I'm experiencing something similar with an EVGA GTX 580 SC. As soon as I enable a custom fan profile and play a game for awhile (a few hours, depends), my card starts decreasing FPS and GPU utilization for no apparent reason. For some games, it decreases my GPU utilization down to 40-50%, whereas for others it stays up around 90-99% but the FPS is still at around 30-50% or normal for that usage value. Unfortunately, I can't fix my problem by rebooting and it requires a system restore to a point before the custom fan profile was set (in either AB or Precision). Also, I start seeing minor artifacts in games when the performance decreases also. Weird.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Just curious, are you using a custom fan profile? The only reason I ask is that I'm experiencing something similar with an EVGA GTX 580 SC. As soon as I enable a custom fan profile and play a game for awhile (a few hours, depends), my card starts decreasing FPS and GPU utilization for no apparent reason. For some games, it decreases my GPU utilization down to 40-50%, whereas for others it stays up around 90-99% but the FPS is still at around 30-50% or normal for that usage value. Unfortunately, I can't fix my problem by rebooting and it requires a system restore to a point before the custom fan profile was set (in either AB or Precision). Also, I start seeing minor artifacts in games when the performance decreases also. Weird.

No I'm using my graphic card "as is", not profiles or overclocking.
What I understood however, is that the 500 series is cursed with a LOT of driver bugs, expecially the 560 ti.

Today I discovered an incompatibility with a game I'm playing (two worlds 2) which crashes after random time, forced me to play in windowed mode.
How nice, I spent 200 euros for this.

 

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Seems like, at the moment, installing beta drivers fixed the issue!