GPU usage drops causing fps drops

TheRainman · March 15, 2015

My laptop specs:

CPU: Intel core i7-4700MQ @2.4 ghz

RAM: 8.00 Gb

GPU: Geforce GT 740m and Intel HD Graphics 4600

Resolution: 1366x768 60Hz

OS: Windows 8.1

My graphics card seems to work perfectly fine on some games but there are horrible fps drops in other games. The problem is that in some games, mainly MMORPG, the GPU will be working at full or near full usage at a good fps according to the game but suddenly every few seconds, the GPU usage (tracked by gpuz) will drop to 40%-50% and the fps will therefore drop to 10-20 fps which is terrible. This is indeed worse in places where there are many players.

This has happened on the following games: Neverwinter, Guild Wars 2, Tera, League of Legends and Watch Dogs. It does not happen with the following: Far Cry 3, Skyrim, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Divinity: Original Sin, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Hitman: Absolution and others (I'm trying to show recent games to show that this is not a graphic requirements thing.). In the games that it does happen, the graphics settings don't matter. For example, in Guild Wars 2, when I play with High settings I will have 50-60 fps but it will drop to 10-20 fps randomly every few seconds (when the gpu usage drops) and then return back to higher fps. The same exact thing will happen if the game is played at low settings (I have the max fps locked at 60). When there are more people on the map the effect will be worse. In world vs world, with dozens of players on the same map, the gpu usage will drop low almost all the time and the fps will be around 10 while if few players are on a map, the drops will be at around 20 fps. I should also note that playing the game with the integrated graphics card plays perfectly fine at low-medium settings with 50+ fps and shows no fps drops so I'm sure it is the GT 740m's problem. It should also be noted that this happens from the start of a game session, so it is probably not an overheating problem.

So far I have used CCleaner to clean the cache and registry, I have used AVG to look for viruses and Spybot: Search and Destroy for malware but nothing threatening was found. I have rolled back to older drivers, and I also defragged my PC. The GPU usage drops still take place. Any help?