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Problem description: I have a 4 month old PC, and it's been running smoothly up until this week. Tuesday evening I played some games and everything was fine. Wednesday, trying to play the same games, I had issues with application load times and choppy performance. I first noticed an issue when I tried to play Heroes of the Storm - the application loaded a little slowly and screen transitions were not as smooth as they should have been. In game, my performance was choppy to the point I felt I was watching a slide show. I quit and tried Diablo III, and had similar application load and in game lag issues. I thought it may have been an issue on Blizzard's end, and switched to XCOM on Steam. The Blizzard games are installed on the same SSD (the one I use for my OS), and my Steam games are installed on a separate SSD. XCOM had some minor stuttering issues, but it's the first time I've played it on this PC and I don't know if that was out of the ordinary. Attempted fixes: I checked that my graphics card driver was up to date (did not need to update, and last update was the tail end of January, before I was having issues). I ran a Malwarebytes scan that came up clean. Program history showed Avast updated at the same time I was having issues, so I have temporarily uninstalled Avast and run a Windows Defender scan that came up clean. I defragged my drives. I did a repair install of Heroes of the Storm, and then a full uninstall/reinstall. I cracked open the case and dusted with some compressed air (was some dust on the front panel intake, but the interior was pretty clean). Dr. Google ID'd OneDrive as a potential problem, so I have also disabled that. Nothing so far has made an appreciable difference. I ran the windows memory diagnostic, and it came up with no issues. Recent changes: I don't believe so. Avast updated on the same day I started to have the issue, but I don't believe any other programs autoupdated. -- Operating system: Windows 10 Pro System specs: CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive Video Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix OC 1253MHZ 4GB 7.0GHZ GDDR5 Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply Location: The US I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes Russad fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 15:41
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 12:17 |
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Pretty sure you shouldn't defrag SSDs, at least that was the last thing I heard. SSDs utilize TRIM which is somewhat similar (albeit different, let's not get into an argument over it). A quick google search has lead me to conflicting advice regarding defrag, so perhaps someone with more home computer knowledge could weigh in here. At any rate, I'd check your temps while these programs are running GPU-z and CPU-z I believe are the current ones to use. I would also get rid of avast! and use ublock origin for your browser (ads are the largest attack vector out there) and just run Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Defender whatever it is they have for windows 10. My initial guess would be temperatures under load are too high, if that's not the case, run memtest64+ or 86+, I forget the exact name, overnight and see if it passes.
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Feb 5, 2016 19:20
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My initial thought was gpu temps are getting too high and it's causing problems i.e. throttling the clocks or something. Have you noticed the fans spinning at much higher speed/noise level than normal? If the temps seem fine my money is still on the video card in some way. I would remove it from the system completely, use onboard video remove all the drivers and then reinstall it as if it were brand new. If that doesn't do it, try the other PCI-E slot. Stupid ideas, but unplugging routers and plugging them back in fix 90% of the issues too 
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Feb 5, 2016 20:22
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MF_James posted:Pretty sure you shouldn't defrag SSDs, at least that was the last thing I heard. SSDs utilize TRIM which is somewhat similar (albeit different, let's not get into an argument over it). A quick google search has lead me to conflicting advice regarding defrag, so perhaps someone with more home computer knowledge could weigh in here. Yeah, avast is gone now and I'm letting windows defender, malwarebytes, and ublock origin take care of me for the foreseeable future. I forgot to mention, I ran the windows memory diagnostic tool and it didn't find anything. I updated my OP to reflect that. thebushcommander posted:My initial thought was gpu temps are getting too high and it's causing problems i.e. throttling the clocks or something. Have you noticed the fans spinning at much higher speed/noise level than normal? If the temps seem fine my money is still on the video card in some way. I would remove it from the system completely, use onboard video remove all the drivers and then reinstall it as if it were brand new. If that doesn't do it, try the other PCI-E slot. Stupid ideas, but unplugging routers and plugging them back in fix 90% of the issues too I'm downloading the temp diagnostics now and check that out. I did try unplugging the router - that's basically my first troubleshooting step in anything these days. Low tire-pressure? Try resetting the router.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:35
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Russad posted:Yeah, avast is gone now and I'm letting windows defender, malwarebytes, and ublock origin take care of me for the foreseeable future. It should be, but I was saying more as a comparison of how things generally seem to get fixed. Unplug it, plug it back it! fwiw my old PC had similar issues after about 6 months with a GTX 460 and the issue was the PCI-E slot. My issue windows was fine, games would stutter until i got a BSOD.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:40
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I get you! Just misread it. So, I checked the temps under load: GPU comes in at about 42, and the CPU is at about the same. I'll try pulling the card out and reseating it.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:49
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MF_James posted:Pretty sure you shouldn't defrag SSDs, at least that was the last thing I heard. SSDs utilize TRIM which is somewhat similar (albeit different, let's not get into an argument over it). A quick google search has lead me to conflicting advice regarding defrag, so perhaps someone with more home computer knowledge could weigh in here.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:53
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Alereon posted:Running the Windows Disk Defragmenter on an SSD runs a TRIM pass, it doesn't actually try to defragment like it would on an HDD. So yes it is fine to run disk defragmenter on SSDs on Windows 8 and newer. Good to know! As to the original poster, I wouldn't even run malware bytes actively, just run on-demand scans when you feel you have an infection or once a week or something. Your temps do seem fine. MF_James fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 21:05
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My power supply crowds out my other PCI slot, so I can't move the card. I did pull it out and reseat it, but I'm still having the same issue. Windows had a restore point related to a directx install on the 3rd. The timestamp was a few hours after I had already noticed I had a problem, but I tried anyway and didn't have any success. I tried again on a point from about a week before that, but still no luck. At this point I might just reinstall windows and see if that helps, though I'm not exactly chomping at the bit for that.
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Feb 6, 2016 17:23
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To clarify, only the top slot (nearest the CPU) can be used for videocards, the lower one is PCI-E 2.0 x4 only, used for expansion cards.
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Feb 6, 2016 21:45
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 12:17 |
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So, trip report, I did a Windows 10 restore, and everything seems to be working as expected again.  what happened, but I'll take the wins I can get.Thanks for the suggestions!
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Feb 7, 2016 04:37
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