GPU spiking and acting strange...new 7970 (SOLVED it was Adobe Updater.exe)

[Cr0nJ0b]

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to figure out what is up with my GPU. I just installed a new 7970 into my Win7 system. I've replaced my 6870 to get some better performance, but I'm seeing some strange behavior.

I have GPU monitor running as a gadget to track GPU load and it's showing a pretty consistent 40% load with nothing open but my browser. I didn't see this before with the old card.

I tried cleaning the old drivers and doing a fresh install but it's still there. I've tried using GPU-Z and it still shows up.

I looks at the GPU with process explorer, but that doesn't show any great GPU usage at all. I think it's not tracking what is running on the card itself. I'm still hunting to see if there is a Gpu tool that will show all of the processes that are using the GPU, but haven't found anything other than process explorer.

any thoughts?

thanks

 

[Yuriman]

Perhaps your GPU tool is feeding you baloney? Try GPU-Z.

 

[24601]

Sounds like a bitcoin/litecoin mining trojan.

Process explorer shows every hardware "hyperthreading" thread as well as hardware holding pattern thread on your GPU.

GCN 1.0 has 2 hardware "hyperthreading" threads as well as 8 hardware holding pattern threads.

My Process explorer shows 30 gpu "engines" due to this.

Install MSI Afterburner to triple check GPU load, and if it shows same as GPU-z, you have something running that is taking up GPU time.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

So I ran CPU-z and aferburner and my GPU monitor...and they all show the same spiking performance.

On a lark I killed the Adobe updater.exe process and for a time that seemed to kill the spikes. I haven't been back home yet to do any more tests, but will post something when I get back.

PS. I've also run 5 different Virus/Malware scanners and all came up empty.

 

[Stuka87]

Is it showing the clocks being low when idle? And by idle I mean not gaming.

Remember load percentage is variable depending on clock speed. 50% utilization at 300MHz is not the same as 50% utilization at 900MHz.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

I have confirmed that Abode updater (updater.exe in the adobe folder) is causing this issue. below is a link to the various monitoring tools I used. You can see the sawtooth spikes. Once I kill the updater process it all stops.

My next question is why? Is this a virus? I scanned the file with meta scanner and only got one Trojan hit a dropper. All of the other services think this is a good file. I'm going to delete the file, but was just wondering if this abhorrent behavior of a valid file or a virus soaking up my GPU time.

thanks for the help.

 

[Piotrsama]

Probably a bug with the updater software.

 

[ViRGE]

I've been seeing the same issue with my NVIDIA card. It doesn't appear to be a virus, rather it's just Adobe doing something weird.