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GPU Severly Underperfoming? (GTX 275)

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
After running the Batman Arkham Asylum game and getting dissapointing frame rates I decided to benchmark my GPU again to see if it was just the game or my GPU. As it turns out it seems to be my card (or software issues?).

I benchmarked my computer about a week or two ago and got a score of 20k in 3DMark06 and when I just did the benchmark again I got 10k....I noticed the GPU scores and they were half of what they were with the first benchmark. The clocks on the card all seem to be fine (CPU-Z reports 400mhz core clock on the program but then online it reports what my EVGA Precision reports).

Anyone have any idea what would be causing this? I have the latest drivers from Nvidia (might re-install now actually)

Update:Full Synopsis below

- Graphics card is performing at about half the level it should be. A benchmark test in 3DMark06 proves this, it should be running at 120fps in one scene but for some reason it is running at 60fps during some tests.
- Here's what happens: Initially it performs fine, I'm able to run the benchmark and get the correct FPS (meaning my clocks are correct). However after playing a game or even some idle time (maybe, haven't tested), the GPU lowers the clocks to about half of their stock level bringing the same area in the benchmark test down to 60fps.
- A temporary fix for this seems to be to fully shut down the computer and making sure all the connections are good inside the case.

My guess's to what it might be: Bad Motherboard (utilizing the slot as only x8 instead of the full x16), Bad GPU (this is obvious) and maybe even a bad PSU? I'm going to try switching the power cables to another set of PCIE ones soon <--- just tried that and it might've worked, now I just need to wait for it to happen, or hopefully not happen again

I don't want to spend too much of my time troubleshooting this and I don't actually have any other capable computer that can run this card without needing to upgrade that machines PSU
 

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
Ok now I'm a bit pissed, here's what has happened:

I thought I got it working at full speed again (reconnected the power connectors on the card) and it got the full 8k score I was looking for in 3DMark06. Now after finishing a little gaming with Crysis and now just Heroes of Newerth my graphics card is under-performing again at about half of what it should be.

So the problem is something like this: the card is running at just about half of what the stock specs are, leading to a drastic performance decrease in games. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the card itself now (hardware-wise?). Any other possible solutions?

EDIT: Could my motherboard/os somehow be interpreting my x16 slot as a x8 slot? I say this because under Nvidia's System Information window (using Nvidia Control Panel) it says the bus is: PCI Express x8 GEN2
 

Joey

New Member
Ok now I'm a bit pissed, here's what has happened:

I thought I got it working at full speed again (reconnected the power connectors on the card) and it got the full 8k score I was looking for in 3DMark06. Now after finishing a little gaming with Crysis and now just Heroes of Newerth my graphics card is under-performing again at about half of what it should be.

So the problem is something like this: the card is running at just about half of what the stock specs are, leading to a drastic performance decrease in games. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the card itself now (hardware-wise?). Any other possible solutions?

EDIT: Could my motherboard/os somehow be interpreting my x16 slot as a x8 slot? I say this because under Nvidia's System Information window (using Nvidia Control Panel) it says the bus is: PCI Express x8 GEN2

You know, my Card isn't really killing it like I thought it should, but I never really know what to do. I realized I never looked for Motherboard driver and bios...

We should both do that, actually.
 

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
You know, my Card isn't really killing it like I thought it should, but I never really know what to do. I realized I never looked for Motherboard driver and bios...

We should both do that, actually.

My motherboard drivers should be up-to-date, just installed them a few weeks ago. It's odd, I was able to boot up and do a quick benchmark that showed accurate fps and what I was aiming for and then I played batman - much better this time but it eventually crashed and then my graphics card started to "suck" with half the fps it should be getting
 

NoEffex

Seth's On A Boat.
It's VERY likely that it's the PSU.

When I had a bad PSU on two different computers, both times the GPU was what started going out first.

It'd usually work fine for a bit then it'd just slow out to a screeching halt, graphics would slow, etc.

(If it's not too much to ask) What do you have running in your computer(in terms of parts)?
 

Greyone

Funny Little Green Ghouls
FrozenIpaq, your card is getting stuck in "2d" mode

i'm not sure of a fix atm, but call EVGA, they have the best customer support and are open 24/7 ;)
 

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
FrozenIpaq, your card is getting stuck in "2d" mode

i'm not sure of a fix atm, but call EVGA, they have the best customer support and are open 24/7 ;)

Yeah, I contacted them last night and they provided a quick and very nice answer :) I might've had one of the power connections loose from the PSU so I switched to a different pair and haven't experienced the problem yet. However I did try EVGA's instructions as well (they told me to turn off the adaptive power save which makes complete sense - because the card will underclock to preserve power and it has been doing this when it wasn't supposed to).

Now it's just the waiting game
 
Have you ever change the power options of your windows vista/7? Just a thought. try setting it in high performance.



I know this topic is old but just a idea.
 

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
Have you ever change the power options of your windows vista/7? Just a thought. try setting it in high performance.

That was checked as well but I don't believe Windows deals with GPU speeds nor do they underclock them, that's generally something reserved for the GPU and it's manufacturer/software.

Since posting this the problem seems to have been fixed. I still get an underclocking when I shouldn't, however I'm putting the blame on one game (Heroes of Newerth) because it always seems to behave like that after playing it, but not always. A simple restart seems to fix the problem now
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
I have noticed on mine that minimizing any Source game then opening back up the window will drop FPS in half. Seems the clocks get stuck or something.

Just seems to affect Source games like TF2 and HL2 though, not anything else.
 

James.

User Not Found
Sorry to hi-jack a thread, but my gfx card has some issues.
Its a notebook card, GeForce 9300m GS, and it said on the box that it could handle 1080p no problem, but whenever i try to play a 1080p video file its all choppy and out of sync, also it's using way too much cpu ~70% and I thought it offloaded onto the gfx card.
I can play 720p fine, but again high cpu usage (~40%).
Am I missing something? Or does my card not support Hardware Acceleration?
ps, I'm using MPC-HomeCinema as my player.

tl;dr
Videos use ~70% of CPU, should be offloading
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
Sorry to hi-jack a thread, but my gfx card has some issues.
Its a notebook card, GeForce 9300m GS, and it said on the box that it could handle 1080p no problem, but whenever i try to play a 1080p video file its all choppy and out of sync, also it's using way too much cpu ~70% and I thought it offloaded onto the gfx card.
I can play 720p fine, but again high cpu usage (~40%).
Am I missing something? Or does my card not support Hardware Acceleration?
ps, I'm using MPC-HomeCinema as my player.

tl;dr
Videos use ~70% of CPU, should be offloading

The problem may be the software.. not all playback solutions offload everything to the GPU (VLC for instance). Have you tried CoreAVC:

CoreAVC.com: Worlds Fastest High Definition H.264 Video Software Decoder
 

James.

User Not Found
I have CoreAVC installed
It doesnt seem to be running. I'll play around with the settings in mpc

EDIT: I looked on the MPC-HC website for DXVA
DXVA is quite picky, so if you want to use it you have to respect those rules :

* Windows XP users, select Overlay Mixer, VMR7, VMR9 or VMR9 renderless
* Vista users, select EVR or EVR custom renderer

The MPC-HC Video decoder must be connected directly to the renderer. That means no intermediate filters such as DirectVobSub or ffdshow can be inserted between the decoder and the video renderer.
Internal subtitles can work with the MPC Video decoder in DXVA mode, but the rules are even more restrictive :

* Windows XP users, select VMR9 renderless
* Vista users, select EVR custom renderer
* In "Options / Playback", tick the checkbox "Auto-load subtitles"
It reduced CPU usage to 10% on 1080p, with no sync errors (that I can tell at least) and I'll post about dropped frames in a second :)

EDIT2: 0 Frames dropped :D
But it was just a 1:09 sampler, I'll update when I watch a movie later and maybe this could help someone
 
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