3 years old PC started having problems keeping steady FPS not that long ago

[AJXD]

PC build in 2014 and the problems only started around 5-8 months ago.

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 760K @ 3.8 Ghz

Mobo: MSI A78M-E35

GPU: MSI R9 270 2GB (running at stock)

RAM: 1x8GB DDR3 Kingston Fury

Storage: Crucial MX300 528 GB SSD (boot, games and other all programs), WD 500 GB HDD (old HDD that I have; about 6-8 years old; using it now for movie storing and nothing else)

PSU: Corsair CX500W 80+ Bronze

The problem:

FPS drops like crazy while playing games. Since I'm now mostly playing Overwatch I will give examples of the problem based on playing Overwatch but the problem still exist while playing other games. While playing games there is nothing else running in the background apart from b.net, steam, discord, MSI Afterburner, Google Drive (not syncing anything), AMD Radeon Settings. So I'm playing Overwatch on all Low settings at 1920x1080 resolution and in the menus everything is fine GPU usage is 95-100%, CPU is at ~50% with capping out 200 FPS limit. Once I start a match there is a gradual change that happens. GPU usage gradually goes down to ~40-30% while the CPU usage goes up to 95-100% while the FPS struggles to stay at 50-60. After about an hour of playing it starts to drop to around 40-50 FPS especially when there is a lot going on in the game (big team fights). This stays all the time until I get into the menus or close the game. The temperatures are fine GPU is only at 57°C while the CPU is at 67°C. RAM usage is at 5.8GB.

Attempts at fixing the problem:

Tried running AIDA64 stress test for a couple of hours and the CPU seems to work fine and doesn't go past 67°C.

Additional details:

I've seen people running Overwatch with this CPU and GPU build at 1080p Medium-High settings at steady 60+ FPS. I did try setting the graphics a bit higher and actually got higher FPS but after about an hour of playing it dropped to 20-30 FPS which is lower than running on all Low settings. The AMD Gaming Evolved program recommends running Overwatch in Medium-High settings for this system. Any thoughts on what is the problem and a way to fix this apart from buying new parts?

[QuantumBit]

Thats really hard to read, make sure to edit, select all the text, and click "automatic" for the color.

[AJXD]

4 minutes ago, QuantumBit said:

Thats really hard to read, make sure to edit, select all the text, and click "automatic" for the color.

What do you mean? It's all black to me. Did what you said and it looks the same.

[Enderman]

7 minutes ago, AJXD said:

What do you mean? It's all black to me. Did what you said and it looks the same.

 

[AJXD]

43 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Thanks for that. Didn't even realize this was a thing.

 

[AJXD]

56 minutes ago, QuantumBit said:

Thats really hard to read, make sure to edit, select all the text, and click "automatic" for the color.

Its fixed now.

[Enderman]

Personally I would back up any data and clean install windows.

Sometimes windows just craps out after a long time, usually due to corrupted updates or version upgrades or stuff like that.

If a clean install doesn't fix it then you have much more serious problems, like maybe defective memory or something.

[AJXD]

On 7/18/2017 at 2:57 AM, Enderman said:

Personally I would back up any data and clean install windows.

Sometimes windows just craps out after a long time, usually due to corrupted updates or version upgrades or stuff like that.

If a clean install doesn't fix it then you have much more serious problems, like maybe defective memory or something.

Did a clean install on Windows but still the same problem. Tried to raise the settings to Medium and underclock the GPU to 880 MHz. Now the GPU usage is at 60-80% constantly. The CPU usage is still at 95-100% but at least I'm getting higher FPS. Barely drops below 60. A temporary fix but still need something to lower the CPU usage and I should be fine.

[Ace McPlane]

trying doing a firestrike benchmark in 3dmark with aida64 in the background open (but not running) with the stress test window open so you can monitor for thermal throttling issues. The bottom graph  with the line for thermal throttling should stay at 0. The dark green line is for thermal throttling.

[Enderman]

44 minutes ago, AJXD said:

Did a clean install on Windows but still the same problem. Tried to raise the settings to Medium and underclock the GPU to 880 MHz. Now the GPU usage is at 60-80% constantly. The CPU usage is still at 95-100% but at least I'm getting higher FPS. Barely drops below 60. A temporary fix but still need something to lower the CPU usage and I should be fine.

You need to leave windows alone for a few hours so that it can finish installing updates...

[AJXD]

13 hours ago, Enderman said:

You need to leave windows alone for a few hours so that it can finish installing updates...

Windows was up to date when I tried again.

[AJXD]

14 hours ago, stateofpsychosis said:

trying doing a firestrike benchmark in 3dmark with aida64 in the background open (but not running) with the stress test window open so you can monitor for thermal throttling issues. The bottom graph  with the line for thermal throttling should stay at 0. The dark green line is for thermal throttling.

Tried this and no thermal throttling. On GPU specific test CPU capped at 62% usage and 50% on average. GPU was at 99% usage most of the time. During the combined test both the CPU and GPU usage dropped or went down.

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/13159794 The results of the benchmark. It says that the Graphics driver is not approved but I don't know why. I'm running on the latest driver 17.6.2 with only an optional available 17.7.1 on AMD Radeon Settings.

 

Also found results for this PC almost 3 years ago when I first built the system. http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2538171

[Ace McPlane]

2 hours ago, AJXD said:

Tried this and no thermal throttling. On GPU specific test CPU capped at 62% usage and 50% on average. GPU was at 99% usage most of the time. During the combined test both the CPU and GPU usage dropped or went down.

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/13159794 The results of the benchmark. It says that the Graphics driver is not approved but I don't know why. I'm running on the latest driver 17.6.2 with only an optional available 17.7.1 on AMD Radeon Settings.

 

Also found results for this PC almost 3 years ago when I first built the system. http://www.3dmark.com/fs/2538171

It's normal for the FPS to drop down on the combined test and the one before it.

Don't worry about that message. You must have updated it recently. It takes a bit for them to approve new drivers.

I'm not seeing much of a big difference between your scores so that's not it.

Luckily, I don't think you have a hardware issue.

 

Have you tried monitoring your task manager at idle?

Maybe there's a program running in the background sucking up resources here and there and causing spikes in your CPU usage.

Turn on your computer,

let it run for like 10 minutes

then hit Ctrl-Shift-Escape

wait a couple more minutes..

then watch the processes with the CPU % up top.

It should stay around 1-2% as long as windows isn't trying to do anything in the background like looking for updates.

You could have some crappy anti-virus software or something else spiking in the background.

Though I imagine your CPU usage when the problem is happening would be higher if that were the case.

Maybe your video card is just starting to show it's age.

I'm getting scores of just under 18000 with my 1080

so it may just be time for an upgrade.

[AJXD]

On 7/20/2017 at 2:19 PM, stateofpsychosis said:

It's normal for the FPS to drop down on the combined test and the one before it.

Don't worry about that message. You must have updated it recently. It takes a bit for them to approve new drivers.

I'm not seeing much of a big difference between your scores so that's not it.

Luckily, I don't think you have a hardware issue.

 

Have you tried monitoring your task manager at idle?

Maybe there's a program running in the background sucking up resources here and there and causing spikes in your CPU usage.

Turn on your computer,

let it run for like 10 minutes

then hit Ctrl-Shift-Escape

wait a couple more minutes..

then watch the processes with the CPU % up top.

It should stay around 1-2% as long as windows isn't trying to do anything in the background like looking for updates.

You could have some crappy anti-virus software or something else spiking in the background.

Though I imagine your CPU usage when the problem is happening would be higher if that were the case.

Maybe your video card is just starting to show it's age.

I'm getting scores of just under 18000 with my 1080

so it may just be time for an upgrade.

Tried what you said and here are the results. https://gyazo.com/3d5d33c8e1ac8ddda4cb780b7aeac6dd You can ignore the gyazo usage since its what I used to take the screenshot. Running at idle was fine with about 5-7% CPU usage but when I started moving the mouse around Windows explorer took 16-18% CPU usage and some other programs also started using the CPU more. This might be just because the CPU is pretty old (2013 release date).

 

I already have a 1060 6 GB ordered which dispatches next week. I just wanted to try and fix this PC since I'm leaving it for my younger brothers to use. He mostly plays Minecraft, Don't Starve, Smite so I think he shouldn't have many problems running the games on this PC.

[Ace McPlane]

1 minute ago, AJXD said:

Tried what you said and here are the results. https://gyazo.com/3d5d33c8e1ac8ddda4cb780b7aeac6dd You can ignore the gyazo usage since its what I used to take the screenshot. Running at idle was fine with about 5-7% CPU usage but when I started moving the mouse around Windows explorer took 16-18% CPU usage and some other programs also started using the CPU more. This might be just because the CPU is pretty old (2013 release date).

 

I already have a 1060 6 GB ordered which dispatches next week. I just wanted to try and fix this PC since I'm leaving it for my younger brothers to use. He mostly plays Minecraft, Don't Starve, Smite so I think he shouldn't have many problems running the games on this PC.

Yea, I'm not seeing anything that's really telling me anything there.

Doesn't seem to be a problem with the CPU anyways.

I'd say the computer is just showing it's age.

Shouldn't be a problem for games like minecraft though.

[AJXD]

3 hours ago, stateofpsychosis said:

Yea, I'm not seeing anything that's really telling me anything there.

Doesn't seem to be a problem with the CPU anyways.

I'd say the computer is just showing it's age.

Shouldn't be a problem for games like minecraft though.

Well at least there isn't a hardware problem and I can just leave the PC for my brother. Thanks for the help.

[Ace McPlane]

no prob. Let us know if you have any problems.