Question PC not as fast as it used to be

[Radrob82]

Hi all thanks for reading.

I built my PC about a year ago. My specs are as follows.

I59400. With stock cooler
Rx570 8gb.
Asus b365m tuf MOBO.
1tb Western digital ssd.
750 watt kratos 80 bronze psu.
16 GB Corsair vengeance ram.

I use to be able to play cold war at 1440 on high settings with a solid lag free 60 fps. Now I struggle to get 60 to 70 fps at 1080 medium settings. All my games seem to be running slower. Fallout NV struggles to run smoothly. Counter strike only gets 100 to 200 fps at 1080 when my set up says it will get 200 to 300. Titan quest stutters and lags. All games struggle huge between loading screens dropping to 5 to 10 fps.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled GPU drivers. Reflashed bios. Clean install of windows. Factory reset my card. Set power performance to high. Malwarebytes scan came clean. I'm all out of ideas. This morning I took out my cpu and cooler and dusted them. Thermal paste was thin. But it dropped my idle from 60 65c down to 40 45c. My load temp for cpu dropped from 80 85c down to 60 65 c. GPU temp holds steady at 75c when gaming. As far as I can tell it's not temp related. My gaming performance hasn't changed even being 20 degrees cooler.
Fromy viewpoint it looks as if it's starving for power. There's really no screen tearing or glitching. It's like its not being able to keep up.

Has anyone had this problem? Or advice? My 3d mark score came back at 3900. I know that's low but very average for my setup. I just don't know how my PC could perform so well and now it can't with no hardware changes.

Is my psu failing ?

 

[Colif]

750 watt kratos 80 bronze psu.

if problem survives a clean install its unlikely windows.

its not the best known brand of PSU, so could be it.
Maybe you need a better psu by someone like Seasonic, EVGA or Corsair.

 

[Radrob82]

So basically these cheap OSU's lose performance that bad in one year?

I have some canned air and I'm gonna deep clean my GPU and psu today or tomorrow. Once I do that I will post an update

Thanks

 

[Brian Boru]

Do you have some more non-gaming apps running now when gaming, that you didn't have before? Especially ones which update intermittently but frequently, like chat, messenger, email, notifications etc. If you have extra gaming stuff running like overlays or comms apps, disable them all.
It could be that an app you use while gaming went 'bad' for your system during an automatic update it did sometime.

You don't mention reseating your RAM—do that.

1tb Western digital ssd

How much space is free on that?

Which Win10 version—1803, 1909, 20H1…?

Look in Task Manager to see what apps & processes are running—any ones you don't recognize, or ones consuming significant CPU, GPU or RAM resources.
While you're there, check the Startup tab and disable any which you don't need to start with Windows.

Look in Event Viewer for any errors or warnings around the time of a poor gaming experience.

It's possible that you made some changes to Windows over time, or Windows Update made them, both of which could survive a new install. Some things to look at:
If you don't use the Game Bar, try it; if you do use it, stop.
Disable Search Indexing.
Turn off fancy stuff like Transparency and Visual Effects.

Set power performance to high

Try setting it to Ultimate. This isn't visible on consumer Windows, but you can enable it by opening Command Prompt—maybe as Admin, I don't remember—and typing…
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
…and press Enter—now Ultimate will show up in your Windows Power choices.

 

[Radrob82]

Hi. Thanks for the reply.

My windows task manager runs really clean. I dont have anything running in the background thats not needed. I have everything but Lg hub disabled on start up as well. My pc boots super fast. I dont even have steam enabled unless I choose a game. Performance tab shows next to no draw on most things and cpu temp idle is 38 to 40 celcius.

Ive tried gamebar on and off. As well as game mode on and off. I also set windows to best performance. And also enabled pci express power plan to high as well.

My windows version according to my pc is Windows versions 20H2. Not sure if that means something or makes a difference, But if it does then please let me know if there's issues with that.

My ssd is pretty clean also. I have 560 gb free.

I have also re-seated my ram and gpu.

From what I've read online a gpu shouldnt lose perromance. Not sure how or why but something tells me that my psu should still be ok for my needs. I know its a crap one but I cant see it losing like 30% performance in one year. Maybe it can but it just seems doubtful. Im like 300watts over whats recommended for my system too.

From what I can see its almost as if my cpu and gpu aren't meshing well. At the main menu at cold war, it bogs my system down to like 5 fps when transitioning to the menu where you select between the 3 modes. Then it fluctuates from 40 to 59 fps when idle there. Then when I select multiplayer it bogs down again to roughly 5 fps. Then hovers again in the 40 to 59 fps range. If I keep my 1080 res with medium to low settings I can achieve 60 to 70 fps when in game. I remember before I was able to get over 100 fps on those same settings. But way back then I use to be able to use high settings on 1440 and it ran super smooth at 60 fps. I play on a couch on a 58 inch tv with only 60 hertz. Thats why I was happy with 1440 at 60 fps. I can t utilize any more than 60 frames. Oh and game mode on tv is also set to on which helps the screen stay more smooth and fluent.

Ive also tried other things. Lke enabling and disabling the hdcp support on radeon settings. Ive factory reset my card and set it to sports and gaming performance. Ive tried using the overclock feature on the settings itself. Ive tried setting the power option to plus 50%. Ive tried all options from what I could find online as to people with the same issues reported with stuttering and low frame rates. Its not thermal throttling, its not like I dont have enough power, my cpu and gpu is capable of the performance I had before. I heard there was a windows issue that was causing poor performance in games but Ive updated all my updates and since I did a clean install I dont have an early restore point now I believe.

Does anyone think that the new graphics drives are bad? I didnt have these issues when I was using the 19.0 versions a while ago.

Im at the point now where I think its not fixable. I've tried almost everything. I wish I could find a fix because eventually I want to upgrade everything but I dont see the point if I cant get whats expected of the new parts.

When I did do my deep clean there was some dust. I even took apart my psu and its was clean as a whip. All fans, cpu, cooling fans, psu, gpu and mobo are all super clean now.

 

[Colif]

When you removed GPU drivers, did you use Display Driver Uninstaller? It cleans pc of previous drivers so you start fresh - Here is a handy guide on how to use it - https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...n-install-of-your-video-card-drivers.2402269/

Try setting it to Ultimate. This isn't visible on consumer Windows, but you can enable it by opening Command Prompt—maybe as Admin, I don't remember—and typing…
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
…and press Enter—now Ultimate will show up in your Windows Power choices.

Ultimate power? whats difference between high & ultimate? just curious.

Lesser quality PSU may not supply the power they say they can. I don't know about going bad in a year but how long is its warranty? if its under 5 years I wouldn't trust it in my pc. The 3 brands I mentioned may have up to 10 or more years on warranty, and a 750 watt unit from any of them will give you all 750, whereas cheaper PSU may not. You don't need 750, it was just an example.

 

[Radrob82]

Ok I will try ddu.

But wouldn't a clean install of windows kinda do that ? Or will it hang on to such files even after the fact?
Sorry for being dumb.

Thanks

 

[Colif]

no. clean install would have done that

I wasn't sure of the order.

 

[Radrob82]

So not worth using ddu?

Lol I've tried everything I can think of lmao. And thanks for all the help thus far from everyone. I'll continue to see and read up on things I can try. And will definitely post an update if I find a fix. I just tried to disable cpu turbo boost. That did nothing but make it worse. Probably since running a low end cpu.

 

[Radrob82]

Not sure if it helps. But even playing Titan quest (old game) between menus it drops to 34 fps. But usually runs around 300 at 1080. But I get slow downs. Like when moving my character it doesn't say lag, but moves super slow, then returns to normal speed. Even having trouble running fallout New Vegas(another old game) lol.

For reference cold war says my VRAM usage is set to less than half at my settings. VRAM overlay says 3756 mb roughly at main menu. Hovering at 56 to 60 fps right now.

All I can say it's if my computer is constipated lol. Struggles so bad when loading cold war. My internet is good. Speed test showed 150 Mbps or higher and upload 15 Mbps. All my other tasks seem to run fine like installing programs and other tasks. Just gaming is terrible

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Have you tried different cables, SATA and SATA power cables on the SSD and HDD? Different PCI-e power cables as well?

Try the GPU in the second PCI-E slot of you have one and make sure the slot is set to x16 in BIOS.

Try the RAM in the other pair of slots as well.

Just a few things that I can think of I don't think were mentioned yet.

You are right your PSU isn't being stressed at all its barely at half capacity under a full load, but its more about the quality of the power it supplies to your motherboard and GPU. Poor quality power supplies literally wear out your other components faster including your storage, so it may also have indirectly caused a problem somewhere.

 

[Radrob82]

I haven't tried switching cables for my ssd. Its an m.2 ssd and its in my thermal slot with the cover and heat pad. It sits right behind my gpu.

I tried switching my gpu down to the second slot. It made no difference. And I set the setting in my bios to gen 3 which said that it was 3.0 speed.

I tried the ram in the first and third slot. It didnt make a difference either. So I put it back into the second and fourth slot where it was originally.

Not sure if it helps but I ran 3d mark pci bandwidth test. It wont let me see or access results online to compare but Im getting 13.36 gbps score. But I dont know if thats good or normal or what to compare it too. It says its scored that with 1920x1080 with 150% dpi scaling. That score also showd 4000 mhz cpu, 1750 mhz gpu memory clock frequency and 1268 mhz gpu clock frequency.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

It seems like everything is running around where it should as far as I can see clock speed wise .

Not 100% on the PCI-e bench as Ive never heard of it before just now. I'm getting around 21 GBPS but I have a 5700XT and a PCI-E 4.0 motherboard on a 2560x1440 screen so I would imagine mine should be higher.

Have you tried rolling back to some older graphics card drivers? You can find some archived here for example

 

[Brian Boru]

all super clean

Yes indeed, kudos on all you've tried, and the quality of your posts describing everything.

Ultimate power? whats difference between high & ultimate?

According to this page:

Add or Remove Ultimate Performance Power Plan in Windows 10

How to Add or Remove Ultimate Performance Power Plan in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

"This new policy builds on the current High-Performance policy, and it goes a step further to eliminate micro-latencies associated with fine grained power management techniques."

 

[Brian Boru]

if your hard disk is almost full

It's not:

I have 560 gb free

 

[Radrob82]

Hi all I have an update.

I enabled the ultimate power plan for windows through command prompt. I also rolled back to 19.12.1 I believe drivers.

In cold war I'm now able to achieve 45 to 52 fps at the main menu and 52 to 65 fps at 1440 with high textures but lighting and shadowing off. It's not as good as it once was but it's much much better. The only problem now is that only plays that smooth with vsync on during gameplay. If I turn it off I can get up to 72 fps but see lines and tearing here and there. Not sure how to fix that but I'm very pleased that it's almost back to normal. I haven't tried any other games but if I'm getting this boost with cold war I'm sure other games will benefit too.

If anyone can give me a hand with the screen lines that would be great as well.

But thanks for the help so far, I'm now running almost perfect again.

Thanks everyone for the help to get this point. It's much appreciated.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Glad that its improved for you!

I dont think there's any way of avoiding tearing without using Vsync, its just what happens when your GPU throws out more FPS then your screen can display. You either take the tearing or take the latency hit. Its the reason first high refresh displays and then VRR have become popular in the last few years.

Not sure why you wouldn't have had it before if you were getting over 60FPS regularly and not using Vsync.

EDIT: I assumed you had a 60Hz screen if thats not the case, apologies!

 

[Radrob82]

Hey thanks.

I use to very seldomly have the issue with screen tearing but it wasn't very often. Maybe once a month or so. It use to be able to keep up almost all the time. Even with more higher settings on



For sure after this tv is done I will be definitely getting a 120 hurtz or more or maybe even a monitor. It's so hard to play iracing unless I bring a chair up to the tv lol.

Im going to try with just the power plan upgrade and the rolled back drivers singly to see which one makes the difference or if both and will post so that others can see what truly made the difference. I'm also gonna try the newest drivers and new power plan and see what results I get. When it's all done I'll be sure to post the outcomes. I'm sure theres a few ppl out their with similar rigs and it would be nice if the info was there to help them too of they're having problems.

Thanks again

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Screen tearing is more a case of FPS not matching the monitor refresh rate. Youll get tearing at either over or under 60FPS without Vsync.

With Vsync on you'll still get tearing when the refresh rate drops below 60. I used to adjust quality settings to keep the minimums over 60 where possible, and I found triple buffering also helped. But I'm about as far away from a competitive FPS gamer as you get so I mostly dont notice any latency hit.

 

[Radrob82]

Hi all.

Yeah I just settled to have v sync on. It just looks better. I can run it 1440 with high settings and a few things turned down and get a fairly stable 60 fps which is mostly fine. But I went to 1080 with all settings on high and ultra and it holds steady at 60 fps with v sync. I also overclocked my card a bit. So between all that and probably the ultimate power plan I'm doing pretty good now.

Although I think the power plan helps it wasn't what mostly fixed it for me. I tried installing the newest drivers and it's a crumby mess lol. I reverted back to a 19.0 version and it's just so much better. Not sure why the new drivers are crap but then again my card is 4 years old or so. Going to upgrade to a 3060 or a 3070 in the future. Then not sure if I want to go ryzen or Intel. By the time those cards are available in normal stock they'll likely be cheaper lol. Such a shortage now with GPUs. Even the crazy expensive ones lol

I've been doing my reading and for the newest games starting to come out my card is just not gonna keep up if I wanna get a good 1440 experience.