FPS drops after PC idles

[tuffluck]

i'm experiencing a very weird problem. my build is fairly new...i5 2500k, 8gb RAM, and this week i added a 7850 OC. i am running win 7 64-bit.

so here is the problem i've noticed in the last few days. i'll come home for lunch from work, turn on the PC (shut it down at night) and play BF3 or Dirt 3 and get an average of 60fps in BF3 and 65fps in Dirt 3. i use fraps to determine this info.

then i leave the computer on, go back to work for a few hours and come home and play again. this time i get 50fps in BF3 and 45fps in Dirt 3. i have even played the same map in both with the exact same timing on benchmarks and seen this difference. if i restart my computer, immediately my FPS increase to the normal rates in those games.

what's even weirder is that if i run 3dmark2011 either right when i start my PC or 5 hours later when i seem to have FPS problems in game, i still score the same at about 6,100. i cannot figure out what's going on at all. maybe it's a driver issue? i have the latest for the 7850, but i know that's a new card and maybe there are some bugs. it doesn't sound like a hardware problem though.

any help is much appreciated.

 

[blackened23]

i'm experiencing a very weird problem. my build is fairly new...i5 2500k, 8gb RAM, and this week i added a 7850 OC. i am running win 7 64-bit.

so here is the problem i've noticed in the last few days. i'll come home for lunch from work, turn on the PC (shut it down at night) and play BF3 or Dirt 3 and get an average of 60fps in BF3 and 65fps in Dirt 3. i use fraps to determine this info.

then i leave the computer on, go back to work for a few hours and come home and play again. this time i get 50fps in BF3 and 45fps in Dirt 3. i have even played the same map in both with the exact same timing on benchmarks and seen this difference. if i restart my computer, immediately my FPS increase to the normal rates in those games.

what's even weirder is that if i run 3dmark2011 either right when i start my PC or 5 hours later when i seem to have FPS problems in game, i still score the same at about 6,100. i cannot figure out what's going on at all. maybe it's a driver issue? i have the latest for the 7850, but i know that's a new card and maybe there are some bugs. it doesn't sound like a hardware problem though.

any help is much appreciated.

Sounds like the clock speeds are dropping after sleeping. You can fix it with msi afterburner and creating a clock speed profile and applying it. (or rebooting)

 

[tuffluck]

Sounds like the clock speeds are dropping after sleeping. You can fix it with msi afterburner and creating a clock speed profile and applying it.

i use CCC and have it maxed at 1050/1450. i even opened GPU-Z and it showed those speeds even after the long idle period. but i just disabled my OC and i played the same dirt 3 map and split the difference in fps at 58. so do you think idle is underclocking my GPU, because after idle i'm getting 45fps average, which is much lower than either 58 or 65.

 

[ViRGE]

By any chance is your CPU overclocked? Sleep mode and CPU overclocks have been known to have weird side effects in some cases.

 

[tuffluck]

By any chance is your CPU overclocked? Sleep mode and CPU overclocks have been known to have weird side effects in some cases.

CPU is not overclocked. anyone else?

 

[SickBeast]

My 2500k sometimes plays games at 1600mhz, I'm guessing because the games are not demanding much cpu power.

To fix it set maximum performance in the control panel power options.

 

[f1sherman]

memory leak, rootkit, background/scheduled nonsense

 

[Jaydip]

Op before u leave for work take a screenshot of the performance tab of the task manager.After u come back take another screenshot,do u notice something drastically different?

 

[tuffluck]

i haven't noticed anything weird in the task manager after idling for a while. right now cpu is at 3% and RAM at 1.75gb used (of 8).

what else is there to look for or try? what's weird is pcmark2011 scores the same when i reboot and after i idle for a while, so performance seems to only be affecting games.

 

[Jaydip]

Whats GPU-Z showing during the gaming?

 

[tuffluck]

Whats GPU-Z showing during the gaming?

doesn't it always just show the maximum clock? is there a way to see what the current clock is?

btw i played bf3 just now and getting 60fps average again (normal) and did not restart overnight. i played bf3 last night and average was low at 45. so something else must be going on here. how to test for memory leak?

 

[Jaydip]

No.Load GPU-Z when u encounter these kind of issues and check the clocks.

 

[Jaydip]

U can use Performance Monitor and Resource Monitor which are included in Windows 7 and u can monitor and graph resource use over time.OP is windows keeps creating "svchost.exe" files over time and are growing gradually?Sometimes video card drivers can cause these kind of issues,if possible please test with other drivers.

 

[ViRGE]

Random thought: perhaps when the PC is coming out of sleep, it isn't being restored to the right PCIe lane configuration? E.G. it's being locked in PCIe 1 and/or at fewer than 16 lanes?

 

[tuffluck]

Random thought: perhaps when the PC is coming out of sleep, it isn't being restored to the right PCIe lane configuration? E.G. it's being locked in PCIe 1 and/or at fewer than 16 lanes?

i don't know what that even means lol...how do i check that?

okay so just played BF3 and got an average fps of 42, so it's definitely doing it right now. i checked gpu-z and cpu-z in-game and they were both running at the correct clock speeds.

i'm totally lost!!! what the heck is going on????

 

[blackened23]

i don't know what that even means lol...how do i check that?

okay so just played BF3 and got an average fps of 42, so it's definitely doing it right now. i checked gpu-z and cpu-z in-game and they were both running at the correct clock speeds.

i'm totally lost!!! what the heck is going on????

99% sure that the clocks aren't raising up out of sleep or your motherboard doesn't restore full pcie speed after sleep. You should download the latest beta of MSI afterburner to verify your clock speeds when gaming, it has an OSD that appears during games that you can use as well (shows clockspeed, fps, gpu usage, etc).

You can fix it with a reboot most likely. Just reboot. I'm pretty certain that will fix the issue anyway.

 

[ViRGE]

i don't know what that even means lol...how do i check that?

okay so just played BF3 and got an average fps of 42, so it's definitely doing it right now. i checked gpu-z and cpu-z in-game and they were both running at the correct clock speeds.

i'm totally lost!!! what the heck is going on????

GPU-Z can tell you. Reboot the computer, fire up something that puts a load on the GPU, and then take a look at the Bus Interface field. It should read: PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x16 2.0.

Then put the computer to sleep, wake it back up, confirm performance has dropped, and check again.

 

[tuffluck]

it's reading PCI-E 3.0x16 @ x16 1.1

it is currently in the "bad performance" stage though, so i think that is right.

anyone else? doesn't anyone have a 7800 series card that can maybe tell me if they have similar problems? i'm starting to think it has to be the drivers. what else could it be??

 

[ViRGE]

Make sure you have the GPU operating at load (put up FurMark in a window or something). At idle it will move down to slower PCIe states.

 

[chimaxi83]

what kind of motherboard do you have? have you checked the settings to see if there is anything not correctly set in there?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I've experienced this problem with all the AMD cards I've used in the last 3 years. My 5870 did it and my 7970 does it. Just reboot to restore performance. I have no idea what causes the performance drop, but it's noticeable for me.

 

[tuffluck]

I've experienced this problem with all the AMD cards I've used in the last 3 years. My 5870 did it and my 7970 does it. Just reboot to restore performance. I have no idea what causes the performance drop, but it's noticeable for me.

really? that's so weird. anyone else seen this happen? it just doesn't seem right. is it possible the card is defective?

 

[tuffluck]

anyone?