Question My Graphics Card Utilization Keeps Spiking From Low% to 100% when Doing Nothing

[Meester_M]

Hi, I have been having a real issue with my gpu being shown as having 8% utilization, and suddenly going to 100% every few seconds
I have a
MSI RX 480 Armor OC 8GB
I5-6600K
Asus B150 Pro Gaming/Aura
16gb 2400mhz ram
Corsair 650 watt PSU
Cooler Master CPU cooler

Do you guys have any idea of what could be wrong? or what I can do?

 

[Stuka87]

As a first check, open up task manager and sort the 'Process' tab by GPU.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is this just at the Windows 10 desktop? Not watching any YouTube or other videos in your browser?

Check for "mining trojans", use a rootkit scanner.

 

[Meester_M]

As a first check, open up task manager and sort the 'Process' tab by GPU.

It goes to 100% but the percentages that are shown don't go up, so nothing is changing, but the GPU goes up to 100% when the highest % is like 8

 

[Meester_M]

Is this just at the Windows 10 desktop? Not watching any YouTube or other videos in your browser?

Check for "mining trojans", use a rootkit scanner.

Yes, it is just desktop, maybe a couple of programs that opened when turning on the pc, but nothing more. I just scanned and found nothing with a rootkit scanner.

 

[FaaR]

Yes, it is just desktop

You might want to quit any resident software you have sitting minimized in your systray one by one, if applicable. A bunch of such software use GPU compositing for their UI these days (like, Blizzard Launcher, Corsair CUE, others), and if it is updating its GUI even though it isn't visible it might conceivably register.

How long do these spikes of activity last, and what software are you using to detect activity? If it's just windows task manager I've found that to be somewhat unrealiable.

If you haven't already, you might want to try something dedicated, like GPU-Z for example, to check you don't have a false reading... 🙂 Good luck.