PC Performance Tanked Overnight

[BTLRN]

CPU - i7 9700K
CPU Cooler - Dark Rock 4
RAM - GSkill Trident Z 16Gb 3600 MHz
Motherboard - Aorus Pro Z390
GPU - MSI RTX 3070

As of a couple of weeks ago, my PC (2 years old) what seemingly happened over night, lost 30%+ performance. I went to bed with games like League of Legends playing at 350FPS, to now playing at 180, and stuttering or hitching with drops to 135. Of course this is still playable, but clearly something is going on. This is happening in all of my games: Lol, Valorant, Forza H5, F1 22, etc.

I have tried trouble shooting a handful of different issues and I have no idea where to go anymore. It feels like I spent $2400 and now have $1200 worth of parts. Below Ill try to layout the steps I have taken to solve the issue:

 

Tried a different GPU - I swapped out my GPU with my brothers 1060 and to my surprise It gave me higher frames than my 3070 (Roughly 10%). So I thought the issue was pretty clear, it was a bad GPU.

I sent mine away, got another one, and I saw an increase in performance, but only marginally, no where near where I thought it "should be".

 

Tested RAM -  I thought maybe one of the sticks of RAM was going, because I've had some BSOD in the past that had error codes that could possibly been RAM errors. I downloaded MemTest86 and ran it through a few times with the recommended settings I found online, and it found nothing.

Also made sure XMP is turned on.

 

Reinstalled Windows - Installed a fresh copy of Windows 10, because why not, couldn't hurt. No Luck.

 

CPU, GPU, RAM Usage - I wondered, maybe one of my parts was being maxed out at 100% and it was causing a bottleneck, but after checking task manager, none of my parts go above 65-70% usage during gaming.

 

I have yet to try my  "new" GPU in another PC to see what kind of numbers it gets. I doubt it's a cooling issue as I have sufficient intake, filters cleaned regularly and live in a very cool room at the moment.

Is it possible my CPU could be at fault? Maybe the motherboard? PSU?

 

It's incredibly discouraging to spend alot of money for it to all of a sudden stop working like it once did. If anyone has any possible solutions, I would appreciate them.

 

I've been told to run a Userbenchmark test to show that all of the parts appear to be running as normal, but in "real world" usage it appears to be totally different.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/58337855

[emosun]

6 minutes ago, BTLRN said:

Tested RAM

did you actually remove and try the sticks alone in the machine or only run memtest..

[Gilgamang]

Your gpu is clearly performing below potential. Did you change any settings in the Nvidia Control Panel? New drivers? 
 

Also, where did you send your gpu? If a 1060 was performing better and sending it away only saw a small increase, there’s still a massive issue with your 3070.

[Scorpion_3381]

are your drivers up to date?

that might be it!

[BTLRN]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

did you actually remove and try the sticks alone in the machine or only run memtest..

I ran the test with both of them in the motherboard, I didn't run the test twice, each time using a different stick. I did use another set of RAM from another computer, but the low performance was still an issue.

[BTLRN]

1 hour ago, Scorpion_3381 said:

are your drivers up to date?

that might be it!

At the time that this started occurring, the drivers were up to date

[BTLRN]

1 hour ago, Gilgamang said:

Your gpu is clearly performing below potential. Did you change any settings in the Nvidia Control Panel? New drivers? 
 

Also, where did you send your gpu? If a 1060 was performing better and sending it away only saw a small increase, there’s still a massive issue with your 3070.

Like I mentioned in the post, I thought the issue was clearly the GPU aswell. I RMA'd it back to MSI and have a different 3070 now, and the issue still persists. Never touched anything in the Control Panel and the drivers were up to date when the issue started happening. Ill try this 3070 in my brothers PC and see what kind of numbers his machine gives me.

[Scorpion_3381]

good idea!

[BTLRN]

6 hours ago, Gilgamang said:

Your gpu is clearly performing below potential. Did you change any settings in the Nvidia Control Panel? New drivers? 
 

Also, where did you send your gpu? If a 1060 was performing better and sending it away only saw a small increase, there’s still a massive issue with your 3070.

I moved the graphics card over to another PC with similar specs and the card performed far better. Which leaves me even more confused than I was before this.

[emosun]

16 hours ago, BTLRN said:

I didn't run the test twice, each time using a different stick.

do that , run it with a single stick and not two

[Gilgamang]

Have you monitored the temps of the card at all? The possible issues would be a faulty power supply, cpu bottleneck, bad ram, or Nvidia control panel settings/driver issues. Check your gpu utilization. Is it around 90-100 when playing a game? 

[Harmsway1283]

Check your PCIe settings in the motherboard BIOS. Make sure it’s set to 16X.

[BTLRN]

23 hours ago, Harmsway1283 said:

Check your PCIe settings in the motherboard BIOS. Make sure it’s set to 16X.

Checked them, looks like its at 16x

[Gilgamang]

What’s your gpu usage at while gaming? 

[Mark Kaine]

On 1/14/2023 at 4:40 AM, BTLRN said:

Which leaves me even more confused than I was before this.

why? that seems to prove something is up with your pc, not necessarily the gpu... its not a solution yet obviously but a step towards it. 

 

 

Now reset CMOS. 

 

Still issue?  DDU drivers and install an older version. 

 

Also update mobo BIOS and chipset drivers from intel.

 

 

oh and when that is all done and there are still issues,  run a 3DMARK Firestrike benchmark and link the results here... no guarantee but it has a good chance to show what is actually not performing as it should at least.