FPS drops gradually while playing until restart

[Pyro_o]

Hello all, I'm hoping you guys can help a fellow gamer out.

First of all, I bought a new pc recently (1 month ago), here are the specs:

•Antec EW 750W Gold Pro Modular Power Supply
•Core i9-11900K (3.5GHz, 16MB Cache, 8x Cores, 5.3GHz Turbo)
•Gamdias Chione M2-240R AIO CPU Liquid Cooler
•ASUS PRIME Z590-P Intel ATX Motherboard
•32GB DDR4 3600Mhz G.skill Ripjaws RAM
•ASUS DUAL OC GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB GPU
•512GB Klev NVME SSD 2000MB/s+ Speed
•240GB C100 SSD

SO whenever I play games, any game, I can only play for like an hour or so, sometimes less, before my frames start dropping. I get for example 120FPS in Forza Horizon 5 on Extreme settings to start with but the longer play the more the frames drop. After about 30mins to an hour I'm sitting with a game on 20% GPU usage and 30FPS and eventually the game just crashes. If i restart the game when the frames start dropping, it is fine again for about an hour, but restarting the game every 40mins is quite frustrating.
I have sent the pc back to the seller and they replaced the GPU and Motherboard for me, but the issue still persists.

I have also tried all of the following "fixes" I found online:

•Formatted my pc a few times to both Windows 10 and Windows 11
•Running games and Windows off the same SSD & running them off separate SSD's
•XMP off(2666MHz); XMP 3200; XMP 3600
•Overclock CPU to 5.1GHz all-core boost instead of 4.7GHz
•Monitored all my temps while playing (CPU; GPU; VRM; MB; SSD) nothing above 75c
•Making the paging file larger/ setting it to system managed/ turning it off completely
•Overclocked GPU
•Set GPU to performance and to silent mode with physical switch on GPU
•Updated BIOS
•Reset CMOS
•Unplugged my front USB ports from MB + unplugged all USB extenders & hubs
•Reseated GPU & RAM
•Made sure I have all the latest drivers for all my hardware
•Tried the previous version GPU driver
•Uninstalled GPU driver with DDU & manually install new driver without GeForce
•Turned off Discord, Steam & Game Bar overlay
•Disabled Game mode & Game capturing
•Changed power plan to maximum performance
•Set NVIDIA 3D settings in Global & Program to V-sync On and Off
•Set NVIDIA 3D settings in Global & Program to Max performance
•Tried with G-sync on and off
•Did a defrag on both SSD's
•Did sfc /scannow as well as DISM repair and Scan for HDD errors with chkdsk
•Scanned for bad sectors on both SSD's
•Confirmed the SSD's are at the correct speeds
•Uses Microsoft memory diagnostic tool
•Reinstalled & repaired all games
•Disabled all non-Windows processes & services
•Plugging my PC into the wall socket directly instead of in a surge protected plug

That is everything I've tried so far with no avail. All the games I'm playing are having this issue so I've ruled out that it might be game-specific.
The games include (DOTA 2, Battlefield 2042, COD: Warzone, Grounded, Forza H5).
It's really frustrating and would really like to game without issues
I hope someone has had this issue before and have a solution, because i don't know what to do anymore.

 

[Brian Boru]

Welcome to the forum

I have also tried all of the following

Good lord, that's the most comprehensive list of troubleshooting steps I've ever seen! Thank you for such an informative post.

Did a defrag on both SSD's

Did something change with new SSDs, that they now need defragging? That was a no-no up to recently.

What resolution are you playing at, and what monitor have you?

Try these in one of your games, see if they help:
Reduce following:
Ray Tracing
Anti-aliasing
Ambient occlusion
Shadow quality
Resolution—last resort
I'm not a hardware expert, above is just from notes I have to improve FPS.

It sounds like something is 'leaking' over time, so:
In Task Manager, check your settings for CPU, GPU & RAM usage say 10 minutes into a game. Then check again when the FPS problem occurs—let it drop a good bit, so any change will be noticeable.

ASUS DUAL OC GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB GPU

I wonder is 8GB VRAM enough for this year's games at Extreme settings? Have you dropped to lower settings?

I don't know if there's a way to check the 3060's built-in RAM to see if that's malfunctioning. Totally guessing here, but if that deteriorated over time, I assume the GPU would have to switch to and load from slower system RAM, which I again assume would slow things down.

Look in Device Manager for any yellow warning icons—expand sections to see individual components.
Check Reliability Monitor and/or Event Viewer for any warnings around the times of the problem happening.

One of our hardware experts should be along soon with better suggestions.

 

[Lutfij]

Agreed on the list of things you've done. That should be a benchmark for how things should be listed out on any forums, just to make everyone's lives easier.

Updated BIOS
Could you please mention the BIOS version you're on at the time of writing?

Formatted my pc a few times to both Windows 10 and Windows 11
Can you mention where you sourced the installers for the OS from?

Did a defrag on both SSD's
You never run disk defragmentation on SSD's, unless you want to cripple them and use as an excuse to get a new SSD.

For both SSD's, did you check to see if they have any firmware updates pending? As for manually installing your GPU drivers, did you do so by running it in an elevated command? Could you check and see what sort of temps you're seeing when the frame drops occur? Could you provide a link to both SSD's? As for both of them how much free space does each drive have after all app's/games are installed? Where did you source the installer for Forza Horizon 5?

 

[Pyro_o]

Did something change with new SSDs, that they now need defragging? That was a no-no up to recently.

No it was just one of the recommendations to do so i tried it.

Try these in one of your games, see if they help:

I have put the game on "Very low" and it lasts for about 30 mins longer than on extreme, but also does the same after a while.

What resolution are you playing at, and what monitor have you?

I play on 1080P 240Hz on an Alienware 25' 240Hz monitor

Check Reliability Monitor and/or Event Viewer for any warnings around the times of the problem happening.

I have checked event viewer but there is only 1 warning coming up that is something about COM permissions, i will post the exact message as soon as i'm home.

 

[Pyro_o]

Could you please mention the BIOS version you're on at the time of writing?

BIOS version 1017 (latest) from ASUS website https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/BIOS/PRIME-Z590-P-ASUS-1017.ZIP

Can you mention where you sourced the installers for the OS from?

Downloaded the ISO's from Microsoft's website https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11

You never run disk defragmentation on SSD's, unless you want to cripple them and use as an excuse to get a new SSD.

I had no idea, it was one of the suggestions but i have tested the speeds and they seem fine, is there a way to rollback or fix?

For both SSD's, did you check to see if they have any firmware updates pending? As for manually installing your GPU drivers, did you do so by running it in an elevated command? Could you check and see what sort of temps you're seeing when the frame drops occur?

I did but it's quite hard to find firmware updates for the brands. I downloaded the GPU driver from NVIDIA's website and installed the GRD only instead of doing it through GeForce experience.

 

[Pyro_o]

Could you check and see what sort of temps you're seeing when the frame drops occur?

All temps are stable
CPU=60-75c (under load)
GPU=70c until drop then about 40-55c (under load)
VRM=50-55c (under load)

 

[Lutfij]

Good, that gives us some more context with your BIOS version. Did you also utilize the ME update tool listed here?

What's done is done in terms of defragmentation. All you can do now is not do so again. You can disable Disk Defragmentation window(after opening the feature by right clicking installer>Run as Administrator), and hit Turn Off. As for the SSD's, the firmware can only be found using their app's/tools. you shouldn't manually update firmware for SSD's unless you're absolutely sure that the firmware you have sourced is meant for your specific model of SSD. Speaking of SSD, which slots are your respective SSD's occupying on the motherboard?

If you sourced the ISO's from Microsoft, what did you use to fabricate the installers?

Disabled all non-Windows processes & services
How did you go about doing that?

I did an edit on my previous post, might want to check that out.

 

[Pyro_o]

Did you also utilize the ME update tool listed here?

Yes i have, i've downloaded and tried all the drivers under the motherboard manufacturer as well as the Intel driver and support tool to get all available driver updates.

Speaking of SSD, which slots are your respective SSD's occupying on the motherboard?

My NVME drive is in the M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 mode slot, and my SSD is in a SATA 6Gb/s port 1

If you sourced the ISO's from Microsoft, what did you use to fabricate the installers?

I used RUFUS 3.17 https://rufus.ie/en/

How did you go about doing that?

I ran msconfig
Selected the Services tab, and then selected Hide All Microsoft Services.
Selected Disable All and restarted
Did the same with "startup"

 

[Pyro_o]

Where did you source the installer for Forza Horizon 5?

Xbox Windows App / Microsoft store, but it's not only Forza doing it, it's all my games

 

[Lutfij]

I used RUFUS 3.17 https://rufus.ie/en/
Why bother reinventing the wheel when there already is a wheel to source. By that I meant that Windows Media Creation Tools will allow you to fabricate a bootable USB installer without using a third party app. The same is for Windows 10 and 11. Just remember to use a 16GB pen drive when fabricating the installer.

As for disabling services for the OS, don't bother doing anything under the hood. As of Windows 8.1, doing anything under the hood tends to make the OS go belly up.

Links to SSD's.

 

[Pyro_o]

Links to SSD's.

NVME
SSD

 

[Lutfij]

The HIKVision might have a firmware update but the Klevv doesn't have one, can't seem to find an app(akin to Samsung's Magician app) that handles their firmware updates/delivery/status.

What sort of free space do you have each of the SSD's after you've done with all the installing?

 

[Pyro_o]

The HIKVision might have a firmware update but the Klevv doesn't have one, can't seem to find an app(akin to Samsung's Magician app) that handles their firmware updates/delivery/status.

What sort of free space do you have each of the SSD's after you've done with all the installing?

On the Hikvision i only have windows installed so i have about 180gb free or so. On the Klevv I have my games installed at the moment and have about 360GB free

 

[Lutfij]

Hmm, when you fill up an SSD beyond 50%, that's when performance of an SSD drops. That's why I asked about free space. The sort of thing you're seeing is similar to what someone with an SSD filled up to 70 or so % sees, i.e, slow down in read/writes. That number greatly varies with the controller and quality of flash memory used. The Klevv is most certainly a higher pedigree drive when compared to the HIKVision.

I suspect the OS being your issue. Fabricate your installer using Windows Media Creation Tools and see where that lands you. Also, source all the latest drivers from Asus(motherboard) and Nvidia(GPU), onto a pendrive and disconnect from the www when installing the OS, that way you don't have the OS download drivers it thinks is necessary for your platform. When installing any drivers do so like this:
Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

Although double clicking the installer does constitute as manually installing, you're not doing so in an elevated command.

 

[Pyro_o]

Hmm, when you fill up an SSD beyond 50%, that's when performance of an SSD drops. That's why I asked about free space. The sort of thing you're seeing is similar to what someone with an SSD filled up to 70 or so % sees, i.e, slow down in read/writes. That number greatly varies with the controller and quality of flash memory used. The Klevv is most certainly a higher pedigree drive when compared to the HIKVision.

I suspect the OS being your issue. Fabricate your installer using Windows Media Creation Tools and see where that lands you. Also, source all the latest drivers from Asus(motherboard) and Nvidia(GPU), onto a pendrive and disconnect from the www when installing the OS, that way you don't have the OS download drivers it thinks is necessary for your platform. When installing any drivers do so like this:
Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

Although double clicking the installer does constitute as manually installing, you're not doing so in an elevated command.

Makes sense, I am going to test this over the weekend. Do you suggest doing windows updates after installing the OS offline and the drivers?

 

[Lutfij]

Do you suggest doing windows updates after installing the OS offline and the drivers?
Affirmative. Once you've installed all drivers manually, that's when you plug into the www, either Ethernet or WiFi and then use Windows Updates to give platform an once over.

Use this as a checklist in your driver installation process:
Here is a list of drivers you may need to look for prior to downloading them:
1. Motherboard Chipset
2. USB and third party controllers
3. Management Engine Interface (Intel)
4. Audio
5. Networking adapter (Wired and/or Wireless)
6. Graphics card (onboard or dedicated)
7. Storage (native and/or third party)
8. Keyboard and/or mouse
9. Gamepads and game controllers
10. Displays and/or monitors

On the topic of internet, are you connecting using wireless+? If so what is the make and model of your wireless adapter?

 

[Pyro_o]

On the topic of internet, are you connecting using wireless+? If so what is the make and model of your wireless adapter?

I'm using Fiber internet with a Cat6 cable from my pc to the router.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Hi, shot in the dark because youve covered a lot of stuff here already. Have you checked task manager while its in the process of slowing down, to see if something has a memory leak or similarly is using up a lot of CPU other than the game?

 

[Pyro_o]

Hi, shot in the dark because youve covered a lot of stuff here already. Have you checked task manager while its in the process of slowing down, to see if something has a memory leak or similarly is using up a lot of CPU other than the game?

Hi, yes i have, i always have above 10GB of RAM free

 

[Pyro_o]

Do you suggest doing windows updates after installing the OS offline and the drivers?
Affirmative. Once you've installed all drivers manually, that's when you plug into the www, either Ethernet or WiFi and then use Windows Updates to give platform an once over.

Use this as a checklist in your driver installation process:
Here is a list of drivers you may need to look for prior to downloading them:
1. Motherboard Chipset
2. USB and third party controllers
3. Management Engine Interface (Intel)
4. Audio
5. Networking adapter (Wired and/or Wireless)
6. Graphics card (onboard or dedicated)
7. Storage (native and/or third party)
8. Keyboard and/or mouse
9. Gamepads and game controllers
10. Displays and/or monitors

On the topic of internet, are you connecting using wireless+? If so what is the make and model of your wireless adapter?

Ok so i've tried this and noticced an improvement, it takes longer before it decides to break. I've installed RTSS to better monitor the game as well as HWinfo and i logged it to a CSV file. I also recorded 2 seperate videos, 1 before playing and 1 after playing for a while so you see exactly. The most concerning thing i found was the frame time jumping from 10ms to 60ms after playing for a while.

Just starting the game
after playing for a while
CSV Log

 

[Lutfij]

Which two slots are you populating with the sticks of ram? Make and model of your router? See if the router has any firmware updates pending.

I noticed images in the first two links, you stated capturing video...?

 

[Zloth]

Did something change with new SSDs, that they now need defragging? That was a no-no up to recently.

Yep, they did.

They were a no-no because SSDs had a life span of maybe 3 or 4 years. Defragging uses the drive a LOT, so doing regular defrags would cut that down significantly. Now SSDs last much longer, so defragging them is no longer a problem. (Windows 10 might have updated how they do SSD defrags, too.)

As to whether defragging helps enough to bother doing one, though, is another question. Seems real unlikely to help anything with an NVME drive! 10% faster than near-0 is still near-0.

Temperature was my guess, but you already ruled that out.

 

[Lutfij]

“Fifty percent of something is better than than one hundred percent of nothing.”
― Chuck Barris

 

[Pyro_o]

Which two slots are you populating with the sticks of ram? Make and model of your router? See if the router has any firmware updates pending.

I noticed images in the first two links, you stated capturing video...?

I have two sticks of 16GB RAM populating the two Dual Channel slots (slots with "*") But i found something else...

I had an interesting weekend. I went to a friend so he can help me troubleshoot what could be the problem. We ran the game for 1-2 hours and sure enough the fps dropped from 110 to 60 and the frame time jumped from 8ms to 50ms as well as the GPU utilization falling from 99% to 55%. We decided to swop GPU's (he has a 1080) and i ran the game for 2 hours without any drop, not even 1% util, 1ms frame time or 1FPS drop. Can this be an issue with the 3060ti or just my card? And can it be a memory or cache issue?

 

[Lutfij]

^ interesting indeed.

Look through this chart and tell me what the power requirements with respect to GPU are;

PSU REQUIREMENTS - RealHardTechX

PSU REQUIREMENTS - RealHardTechX

www.realhardtechx.com

The GTX1080 needs less power...

I'm now inclined to ask you to swap out the PSU for something more...reliable, considering you tried DDU with the latest drivers and ruled out a corrupt OS with a refabricated bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools.