PC on go slow (excessive CPU) after investigating games rebooting windows

[stockportgerbil]

Hi!
Apologies if this is not the right forum but…

I’ve been trying to figure out why my windows 10 PC (windows 10, AMD-FX6300, NVidia GTX750TI) crashes / reboots when playing graphics intensive games. In the process of trying to figure out the problem I seem to have messed up the PC still further.

The problem I now have is that some applications are now taking up huge amounts of CPU even when they’re not doing anything. The worst / most regular offenders seem to be Avast (which I’ve now uninstalled), Google chrome (I’ve removed, rebooted then reinstalled) and windows explorer. But even now the PC is still using a lot of processor, even while not doing a great deal. Also disc access is slow and sometimes the directory

I think all the drivers are up to date and I’ve used driver booster to confirm that. I’ve disabled all the non-Microsoft services and all the startup apps with little joy. Apart from installing and uninstalling whocrashed I can’t figure out what I’ve done to cause these issues.

I’m now wondering about resetting windows / rebuilding from scratch unless you’ve any better ideas?

This problem only started / was noticeable when I was trying to figure out why for the past few months graphics intensive games have crashed out after a few minutes, apart from installing and uninstalling whocrashed I can’t figure out what I’ve done to cause these issues.

I can reliably recreate the problem running the unigine Heaven benchmark. I know usually the issue is power or heat or drivers. I’ve tried swapping out the power supply, checked the drivers are up to date and found monitored the heat in the CPU and graphics card (55 degrees and 50 degrees centigrade respectively) immediately before it fails.

WhoCrashed reports the offending module was ntoskrnl.exe with error:WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR.

Thanks
Kevin

 

[ElectrO_90]

Probably motherboard VRM's failing under load if you have changed your PSU for a good quality one.
You should list all your specs.

 

[stockportgerbil]

Thanks for the reply.
In the process of trying to investigate this problem I messed up my entire Windows installation, so wound up doing a fresh windows install. I decided if I was installing from scratch I may as well increase the SSD from a 120GB to 240GB drive so I could with a clear conscience install more apps on it.

I also bought a brand new power supply with more capacity. Although whilst fitting the power supply I found one of the wires that supplied power to an 8 pin power socket on the motherboard had become detached via a 4 to 8 pin adaptor and that needed soldering to fix that.

Ultimately I suspect it was the PSU that was causing the graphics issue and the lose power wire causing the huge CPU usage whilst the CPU was dealing with excessive interrupts. For reference (and for anyone else who has the problem) I was able to reliably recreate the games crashing problem using the unigine heaven benchmark (https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven)

After benchmarking I'm now toying with buying a second hand graphics card to replace my GTX750TI based one and am worried I'll start the cycle all over again!

Thanks again

Kevin

 

[DSzymborski]

A loose power wire isn't going to cause high CPU usage. A complete spec list would be helpful, given the key bits of information (motherboard, power supplies, RAM) still not being provided. It would also be useful if there are any other bits of information like a loose power cable using an adapter, which you didn't mention in the initial post.

I think a full wipe and reinstall would be helpful to try as well. And don't use things like Driver Booster.

 

[shknawe]

Turn on task manager when cpu usage is high to see what programs are causing this. My guess would be an out of control anti virus program. They interfere with all kinds of usage.

 

[ElectrO_90]

He said, one cable had come out, which would cause crashes if the load went high and the power couldn't be supplied.
But yes, he never ever mentioned what his system was.

A loose power wire isn't going to cause high CPU usage. A complete spec list would be helpful, given the key bits of information (motherboard, power supplies, RAM) still not being provided. It would also be useful if there are any other bits of information like a loose power cable using an adapter, which you didn't mention in the initial post.

I think a full wipe and reinstall would be helpful to try as well. And don't use things like Driver Booster.

 

[DSzymborski]

He said, one cable had come out, which would cause crashes if the load went high and the power couldn't be supplied.
But yes, he never ever mentioned what his system was.

But he's also talking about high CPU usage as being a cause of that. Obviously if he's getting a power-off scenario, a loose cable can be a likely culprit. But to be honest, I'm not sure if he's getting crashes to desktops *and* reboots or uf he uses crash/reboot interchangeably. Some clarification would be helpful, naturally.

Honestly, I think we have multiple, possibly even several issues going on simultaneously. Given that he's tinkering with services and using a Driver Booster, I'd start by just wiping his OS install and get that out of the equation from the start.

 

[ElectrO_90]

He said, one cable had come out, which would cause crashes if the load went high and the power couldn't be supplied.
But yes, he never ever mentioned what his system was.

But he's also talking about high CPU usage as being a cause of that. Obviously if he's getting a power-off scenario, a loose cable can be a likely culprit. But to be honest, I'm not sure if he's getting crashes to desktops *and* reboots or uf he uses crash/reboot interchangeably. Some clarification would be helpful, naturally.

Honestly, I think we have multiple, possibly even several issues going on simultaneously. Given that he's tinkering with services and using a Driver Booster, I'd start by just wiping his OS install and get that out of the equation from the start.

Very true and we still never got the full specs... oh well, stopping watching this thread

 

[stockportgerbil]

OK - by public demand the system is (and don't laugh - I know it's ancient)

AMD FX-6300 (stock clock and voltages)
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 (BIOS data 10/19/12)
Windows 10 Pro
Avast anti-virus, but I removed it in case that was the issue along with Chrome
Crucial 120GB SSD now Integral 240GB drive
3GB SATA storage drive & a SATA DVD RW drive.
2 x 8GB DDR3 memory (2GHz), blowed if I can remember the manufacturer
EVGA GTX 750 Ti graphics card - now keeping an eye out for an RX570 or GTX 970 from ebay.
The old PSU was an Alpine JSP-600P12P 600w and it's been replaced with a Evo Labs BR750-12R 750w via another 600W PSU that is now buried in the clutter. Yes I know it's not a big name / one that you'd trust with an expensive rig but...

The broken wire may have been due to me putting in the yet another PSU, but I saw system interrupts taking 100% CPU in task manager on occasion as well as Resource Broker taking huge amounts of CPU which is why I wonder it was something other than a corrupt Windows install and insufficient power.

Thanks again for the interest - it is appreciated.

 

[DSzymborski]

OK - by public demand the system is (and don't laugh - I know it's ancient)

AMD FX-6300 (stock clock and voltages)
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 (BIOS data 10/19/12)
Windows 10 Pro
Avast anti-virus, but I removed it in case that was the issue along with Chrome
Crucial 120GB SSD now Integral 240GB drive
3GB SATA storage drive & a SATA DVD RW drive.
2 x 8GB DDR3 memory (2GHz), blowed if I can remember the manufacturer
EVGA GTX 750 Ti graphics card - now keeping an eye out for an RX570 or GTX 970 from ebay.
The old PSU was an Alpine JSP-600P12P 600w and it's been replaced with a Evo Labs BR750-12R 750w via another 600W PSU that is now buried in the clutter. Yes I know it's not a big name / one that you'd trust with an expensive rig but...

The broken wire may have been due to me putting in the yet another PSU, but I saw system interrupts taking 100% CPU in task manager on occasion as well as Resource Broker taking huge amounts of CPU which is why I wonder it was something other than a corrupt Windows install and insufficient power.

Thanks again for the interest - it is appreciated.

You'd have been better served by buying a quality budget PSU once, instead of junk PSUs repeatedly. You don't need a poor 600W or a poor 750W; an adequate 450W like a Corsair CX 450 would have served just fine. I'd remove this as a priority.

And I'd reinstall Windows. Between the junk PSUs you're using -- it's also possible that one of the junk PSUs has damaged your components -- and what I would bet is a messy OS install, I'd remedy those two situations first and then see what behavior remains.