Terrible performance with high specs

[thenzfarmer]

Hi, I'm posting here because I believe (strongly) that I have tried everything in my power to get my system to work and it just doesn't seem to, not to the expected standard.

That is, framerates are generally low with massive lockups and dips to abysmal numbers.

The specifications of my system are in my sig but the rundown is that I get terrible performance across all games, whatever the settings and that's with a 7700k and GTX1080 Ti.

I have done the following:

1. Clean install ox Windows 10 64 bit (twice)

2. MOBO Bios flash to newest version from Asus website

3. Installed all chipset and other drivers as required

4. Installed all windows updates

5. Ran Memtest overnight and it proved up no issues with the RAM

6. Ran Prime95 over a 6 hour period and it proved no issues with the CPU (100% load maintained with no dips below 99%)

7. Tested the GPU with Heaven and 3D Mark and that's where some issues appeared - noticeable dips in the GPU load in Heaven benchmark.

8. Enabled and disabled the RAM XMP profile

 

I've attached screenshots of the CPU and GPU tests - my principal observation, but one I don't know how to act upon, is that upon OCing the GPU, the results in the Firestrike benchmark are improved for the GPU while the other two benchmarks (physics & combined) are worse off. I suspect this has something to do with power draw but I don't really have a clue.

I checked the connectors on the CPU, GPU and PSU and they're all in as far as they can go. I use a single split cable for the GPU as it doesn't draw in excess of 230W and I expect the rail on the PSU is more than capable of sustaining that load. There is some coil whine coming from the PSU and GPU in some instances - it comes and goes. Sometimes the one, sometimes the other - keeping things fresh.

 

Would anyone have an idea as to the cause and remedy to this issue?

Thanks for any assistance you might be able to provide.

Mike

[RadiatingLight]

Hm....

Maybe the VRMs are getting hot?

that's the only thing I can think of TBH.

[Jurrunio]

Heaven benchmark seems normal. GPU usage will drop when it switches scenes.

[thenzfarmer]

3 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

Hm....

Maybe the VRMs are getting hot?

that's the only thing I can think of TBH.

Ok I'll run a test and post the temps of the VRMs - haven't looked for that

 

Edit: I'm not sure HWinfo reports VRM temps - how can I monitor them?

[HalGameGuru]

Does the PSU have a single rail or multiple rails? If it has more than one rail you may want to make sure you use all the rails rather than pull off a single cable. If the rails are set specifically for certain power draws you could be getting ripple or bad voltages under heavy load

[HalGameGuru]

From a review site on this model PSU under cons: 

• Regulation On 12V Rail Could Be Better

It says it supports up to 4 PCIe connectors natively. I'd try using one cable for each, and does that mobo/CPU/PSU combo do a 4 pin CPU connector or 8 Pin?

[HalGameGuru]

looking at that model on Newegg it looks like its a single 12v rail. But with some of the reviews I'm reading about it I would definitely suggest not using a splitter and see how it performs with separate cables for each connection.

[thenzfarmer]

Just now, HalGameGuru said:

From a review site on this model PSU under cons: 

• Regulation On 12V Rail Could Be Better

It says it supports up to 4 PCIe connectors natively. I'd try using one cable for each, and does that mobo/CPU/PSU combo do a 4 pin CPU connector or 8 Pin?

Thanks Hal, questions I don't know the answer to - I believe it's a single rail.

 

I guess, failing any other solutions, I'll open the build and test it with one cable for each GPU power connector (1x6pin and 1x8pin).

The CPU connector is 8 pin.

[thenzfarmer]

Just now, HalGameGuru said:

looking at that model on Newegg it looks like its a single 12v rail. But with some of the reviews I'm reading about it I would definitely suggest not using a splitter and see how it performs with separate cables for each connection.

Jeez you're quick! Alright, I think I'll follow your advice and run two cables from the PSU to the GPU and see how that fares!
I'm going to have nightmares re. cable management haha

Thank you

[HalGameGuru]

I'll try to check on the forum early in the morning and see how things are going for you. Time difference is a headache but I hope we can get it figured out

[thenzfarmer]

Just now, HalGameGuru said:

I'll try to check on the forum early in the morning and see how things are going for you. Time difference is a headache but I hope we can get it figured out

I'll send you a note, it might take me a while as I need to undo/remake the loop and refill etc. fun times ahead ><

Thanks

[Ethan.]

Yeah... given no issues with a faulty GPU/CPU, this seems like a PSU issue. Instability there will definitely have a random impact on your GPU.

[thenzfarmer]

3 minutes ago, ElectronicWizard said:

Yeah... given no issues with a faulty GPU/CPU, this seems like a PSU issue. Instability there will definitely have a random impact on your GPU.

Yeah, just played 5 mins of BF1 and it's a rollercoaster of a chart! Going to see if I can't plug in the cable without undoing the loop! Back in a jiffy!

[Ethan.]

3 minutes ago, thenzfarmer said:

Yeah, just played 5 mins of BF1 and it's a rollercoaster of a chart! Going to see if I can't plug in the cable without undoing the loop! Back in a jiffy!

Any chance of you getting a new PSU, from a brand like Corsair atm, given its 5 pm for you Aussies?
Asking a bit much, but if you can get a PSU, plug it in, and if it DOES fix it, keep it, and if it doesn't affect anything, return it, would help clear up that point of contention.

[thenzfarmer]

58 minutes ago, ElectronicWizard said:

Any chance of you getting a new PSU, from a brand like Corsair atm, given its 5 pm for you Aussies?
Asking a bit much, but if you can get a PSU, plug it in, and if it DOES fix it, keep it, and if it doesn't affect anything, return it, would help clear up that point of contention.

Haha you know your timezones

Well the reason why I am using this one is because the other PSU I have, a Bitfenix 750W was whining a lot.

I just tested the PC with two cables running from PSU to GPU and the issue remains  (Pic attached shows GPU usage variations with 2 power cables connected to the PSU).

 

I might have to empty the loop and test the other PSU just for the sake of it... Oh man, Mini ATX builds are ghastly...

 

Edit: I re-enabled the XMP profile after resetting the CMOS and the performance seems slightly improved with less noticeable decreases in framerate. Could this be a BIOS issue? Seems odd...
 

[Ethan.]

44 minutes ago, thenzfarmer said:

Haha you know your timezones

Well the reason why I am using this one is because the other PSU I have, a Bitfenix 750W was whining a lot.

I just tested the PC with two cables running from PSU to GPU and the issue remains  (Pic attached shows GPU usage variations with 2 power cables connected to the PSU).

 

I might have to empty the loop and test the other PSU just for the sake of it... Oh man, Mini ATX builds are ghastly...

 

Edit: I re-enabled the XMP profile after resetting the CMOS and the performance seems slightly improved with less noticeable decreases in framerate. Could this be a BIOS issue? Seems odd...
 

I mean hey, if you wanna do some BIOS tweaking/searching online and see if you can resolve it, go for it. I just suggested Corsair because (being perfectly honest) never heard of that brand before and don't know anything about them. Best of luck to you solving it, its 4:30am here and I need to head to bed. Good luck mate.

 

(Side note, given XMP made a difference, RAM issue? That would be extremely odd, but it's not unheard of for low/defective RAM to cause poor video framerate despite a capable GPU, but I've only ever seen that really happen with low-end hardware.)

[thenzfarmer]

1 hour ago, ElectronicWizard said:

I mean hey, if you wanna do some BIOS tweaking/searching online and see if you can resolve it, go for it. I just suggested Corsair because (being perfectly honest) never heard of that brand before and don't know anything about them. Best of luck to you solving it, its 4:30am here and I need to head to bed. Good luck mate.

 

(Side note, given XMP made a difference, RAM issue? That would be extremely odd, but it's not unheard of for low/defective RAM to cause poor video framerate despite a capable GPU, but I've only ever seen that really happen with low-end hardware.)

I totally agree, corsair is great but I couldn't get my hands on a good corsair PSU and seasonic had great reviews.

[Teddy07]

I am a total newbie but have to tried to reseat the CPU or even return it to buy another one?

[thenzfarmer]

2 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

I am a total newbie but have to tried to reseat the CPU or even return it to buy another one?

Hey, no I haven't - because Prime95 and other benchmarks indicate it is operating normally.

 

I just flashed the new BIOS released by ASUS yesterday and it seems to have done the trick - need to check over a longer time period but no more locks or freezes and stable 95-100fps at 1440p in BF4 which is as expected

 

Thanks all for your help, will report back in a few days to validate that was the issue.

[HalGameGuru]

that could still be voltage related. I'd really wanna test with a Corsair or Seasonic PSU. But I'd also wanna see what changes were made to that BIOS. it could well be there was an issue with tolerances on voltage causing downclocking or errors because voltage tolerances were set too high. using two cables would have helped lower the ripple, making it less frequently proc but it would still eventually happen until those tolerances were reset to their proper levels.

[thenzfarmer]

6 hours ago, HalGameGuru said:

that could still be voltage related. I'd really wanna test with a Corsair or Seasonic PSU. But I'd also wanna see what changes were made to that BIOS. it could well be there was an issue with tolerances on voltage causing downclocking or errors because voltage tolerances were set too high. using two cables would have helped lower the ripple, making it less frequently proc but it would still eventually happen until those tolerances were reset to their proper levels.

Hey, there's definitely something off still...

It seems however that only the GPU is affected. The CPU shows only a slight decrease in power consumption when the GPU's core load collapses. Its performance seems stable however.

Also, what I don't get is why the GPU is only affected in games. Synthetic benchmarks seems pretty much unaffected.

 

Like you said, I think testing with a secondary PSU is needed.

Yet, somehow, I feel like the issue is with the MOBO and its support of the 7700K and Gskill RAM...

 

It was running so well for a few hours last night

[thenzfarmer]

On 17/09/2017 at 11:51 AM, HalGameGuru said:

that could still be voltage related. I'd really wanna test with a Corsair or Seasonic PSU. But I'd also wanna see what changes were made to that BIOS. it could well be there was an issue with tolerances on voltage causing downclocking or errors because voltage tolerances were set too high. using two cables would have helped lower the ripple, making it less frequently proc but it would still eventually happen until those tolerances were reset to their proper levels.

Hey Hal,

 

I just looked at the PSU readings for the 5V and 12V rails and there are massive increases and dips which I suspect are not supposed to be there?

See pic below for reference - do you know if that's common behaviour for PSUs?

Thanks, Mike

[HalGameGuru]

I can't say how normal it is but I don't like seeing it

 

Could you tell if they corresponded with stuttering?

[thenzfarmer]

Hmmmm no I couldn't, doesn't seem to be a correlation...

For some reason I just played another round of BF1 and the rails seem stable...

 

Will swap out the PSU ASAP and if that doesn't fix it, it's either the MOBO or the GPU.

Man this is annoying - 10+ years building my own systems and this is my first real struggle...

 

[thenzfarmer]

Hey, been a while since I last posted - I finally got around to testing the system with a different PSU and the issue was exactly the same.

 

Upon shutting down all ASUS related apps however, the problem seems to be gone (fan control, lighting and EZupdate).

XMP profile activated with slight CPU OC, prefer maximum performance activated in NVIDIA control panel etc.

 

Thank you to all for your help, I'll report back when I'm satisfied all the issues have been ironed out after sufficient testing.

Might finally be able to game haha

 

For other people with this issue: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance-winpc/asus-ai-suite-3-causing-issues-until-uninstall/35f45842-deef-486d-bb29-b8284f0efeab?auth=1

Edited October 16, 2017 by thenzfarmer
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