Issues with GTX 970

abelard

Hi all, I wanted to share my experience with some issues I'm having with a new build that (I think at least) are due to the GTX 970 and see if anyone has any ideas of what could be wrong?

So, my setup is as follows;
- i5 4460
- MSI GTX 970
- 8 GB RAM
- Games are installed on a Samsung 850 EVO SSD
- 500W PSU

The issue I'm seeing is that graphics performance seems to degrade in a matter of minutes once I start playing a game. I've tried playing The Witcher 3 and GTA V and it happens in both games. I start the game, and for 3-4 minutes it runs smooth. Then, however, I'll first start to notice some "stuttering" in both graphics and sound - like it's missing a few frames here and there. It gets to the point where it's significantly distracting and the game is pretty much unplayable. On top of this, I also notice other signs of poor graphics performance - pop-in, slow texture loading, glitches etc. And, if I use a tool to measure FPS, there is a significant decline in FPS (e.g. from solid 60 to around 30) over the course of a few minutes play.

I tried the Witcher 3 down at Medium settings, which the GTX970 should be more then comfortable with, and the issue still cropped up.

To try and illustrate, I made two recordings of GTA V. This is the first - https://youtu.be/YljTxqumb88 and this is the second - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ACZOl-lcE. Both videos were taken in the same session, about 3-4 minutes apart. The first one was just after starting to play, and the second a few minutes later. You can see a marked difference in smoothness - the second video shows the "jerkiness" I mentioned. The second also shows significant pop-in in scenery and other graphical glitching.

Not sure if anyone has had any issues like this before? Am I right in thinking it's most likely the GPU or could it be an issue elsewhere?

In terms of what I've tried;
- Drivers - initially I just update to the most recent drivers for GTX 970. I manually uninstalled and reinstalled drivers up to the GTA V driver which I saw as recommended elsewhere. Didn't make any difference.
- Altered various settings both in the games and in the Nvidia control panel to try see if there was an issue there, again with no difference.
- Power settings in Windows to try see if the GPU was in some way being throttled. No difference.

I'm really at a loss now as to what else it could be. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Lu Tze

abelard wrote: »

Hi all, I wanted to share my experience with some issues I'm having with a new build that (I think at least) are due to the GTX 970 and see if anyone has any ideas of what could be wrong?

So, my setup is as follows;
- i5 4460
- MSI GTX 970
- 8 GB RAM
- Games are installed on a Samsung 850 EVO SSD
- 500W PSU

The issue I'm seeing is that graphics performance seems to degrade in a matter of minutes once I start playing a game. I've tried playing The Witcher 3 and GTA V and it happens in both games. I start the game, and for 3-4 minutes it runs smooth. Then, however, I'll first start to notice some "stuttering" in both graphics and sound - like it's missing a few frames here and there. It gets to the point where it's significantly distracting and the game is pretty much unplayable. On top of this, I also notice other signs of poor graphics performance - pop-in, slow texture loading, glitches etc. And, if I use a tool to measure FPS, there is a significant decline in FPS (e.g. from solid 60 to around 30) over the course of a few minutes play.

I tried the Witcher 3 down at Medium settings, which the GTX970 should be more then comfortable with, and the issue still cropped up.

To try and illustrate, I made two recordings of GTA V. This is the first - https://youtu.be/YljTxqumb88 and this is the second - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ACZOl-lcE. Both videos were taken in the same session, about 3-4 minutes apart. The first one was just after starting to play, and the second a few minutes later. You can see a marked difference in smoothness - the second video shows the "jerkiness" I mentioned. The second also shows significant pop-in in scenery and other graphical glitching.

Not sure if anyone has had any issues like this before? Am I right in thinking it's most likely the GPU or could it be an issue elsewhere?

In terms of what I've tried;
- Drivers - initially I just update to the most recent drivers for GTX 970. I manually uninstalled and reinstalled drivers up to the GTA V driver which I saw as recommended elsewhere. Didn't make any difference.
- Altered various settings both in the games and in the Nvidia control panel to try see if there was an issue there, again with no difference.
- Power settings in Windows to try see if the GPU was in some way being throttled. No difference.

I'm really at a loss now as to what else it could be. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Get some monitoring software for the GPU and CPU, so you have an idea of utilisation and temps. Could be something kicking it hogging the cpu, or poor heat dissipation causing one of them to throttle. Could be lots of other things too im sure, but these are relatively easy things to check!

abelard

Lu Tze wrote: »

Get some monitoring software for the GPU and CPU, so you have an idea of utilisation and temps. Could be something kicking it hogging the cpu, or poor heat dissipation causing one of them to throttle. Could be lots of other things too im sure, but these are relatively easy things to check!

Thanks - any recommendations on monitoring software to use?

TerrorFirmer

My first thought would be that the CPU is down-clocking due to temperatures. What you're describing in GTA is exactly how the game runs on low-end processors. Use Coretemp to check out what sort of temperatures you're getting at idle and under load. Also can't hurt to check graphics card temperatures with afterburner or similar and also check that your full 8GB ram is showing in Windows.

abelard

I think you might be right about the CPU temp....

I ran MSI Afterburner and started up GTA V for a few minutes.

GPU wise;
- Temperature was in high 50's which seems fine
- GPU usage percentage was very up-and-down, maxing at about 50% and dropping down into single figures - I think this is ok though?

For CPU though;
- CPU usage across all 4 cores was about 100% while playing, and immediately dropped back to low levels once the game was closed
- Temperature across all 4 cores is about 100 degrees and remains that high even a few minutes after the game is closed - so maybe it's not cooling?

TerrorFirmer

That's the issue then. Remove the cooler, clean the paste and replace, and install it again. One of the pins must not have been pushed it properly or something - is it a stock fan or a third party one? Either way, that is the issue. The temp should be almost half that under load.

abelard

Cool, ok thanks for quick resolution. Apologies to Nvidia for assuming it was the GPU :pac:

It's just the stock fan - bought the 154460 boxed with fan

abelard

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

That's the issue then. Remove the cooler, clean the paste and replace, and install it again. One of the pins must not have been pushed it properly or something - is it a stock fan or a third party one? Either way, that is the issue. The temp should be almost half that under load.

Done as you suggested - removed the fan, cleaned the paste, re-applied new paste and reconnected everything. Things seem to have improved alright so I guess there was a connection somewhere that wasn't quite right. Simple solution in the end

Thanks for the help!