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1 Core 99% Usage

TheSkateyBird

TheSkateyBird

TheSkateyBird

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Joined
4 Apr 2011
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775
Location
Kent
Hey,

So I jumped in on the recent 7950 Twin Frozr refurbs deal on Overclockers and I'm really impressed with the graphics improvement however I've been noticing some big frame drops from around 60fps down to 25-30fps.

I installed MSI afterburner and enable the OSD features and I saw that Core 4 of my Phenom II X4 955BE was running at between 95%-99% usage and the other cores were barely being touched. This was happening while playing Tomb Raider, Skyrim and The Witcher 2.

Is this a problem with my processor/MB or is it just as the processor is now over 5 years old and cant keep up with the stonking graphics card?

Cheers.
 
yeah sounds like your CPU is bottlnecking your GPU but it shouldnt be 95-99 have you ever OCed or done anything to your bios concerning your CPU
 
Could be the cpu bottle necking.

I get it with woth wow and other mmos. Lots of cpu usage on one core and random drops in FPs. A slight overclock seemed to reduce the drops.
 
If it was bottlenecking then would expect it across all the cores?

Hows long since clean install of windows?

Did you remove all the old gpu drivers properly?
 
Right, uninstalled CCC, rebooted into safe mode and used driver sweeper and reinstalled 7950 drivers. Seeing little difference in performance, still maxing out core 4.

I tried running Borderlands 2 and it was the same, decided to enable Vsync to see if that would fix anything and I'm now seeing a more even load distribution, between 60-80% across all cores, but that doesn't make sense to me?
 
Found this on another forum...worth a try...(obv the .exe will be game specific)

"I experienced the same problem with an AMD Phenom II 955 Processor. Would be interesting to know if it is an AMD specific problem by the way.
To solve the problem:
1. While in game press ctrl+alt+del to open the task manager
2. select the "processes" tab
3. right-click on napoleon.exe, choose "set affinity"
4. deselect all processors and select all processers again, click on "ok"
 
I had a similar issue on my Amd machine 790gx chipset, PhenomII 965. The latest AMD AHCI driver (omega 14.12 SB chipset drivers) causes heavy Interrupt I/O leaving one core going at anything between 80-99%. Rolling back to an earlier version sorted this one for me.
 
I had similar issue running xfired 6950s with a E8500 cpu but was maxing out across all (both) cores....not familiar with AMD cpus now but are any drivers required like years ago?
 
I carried out testing between a 4.2ghz phIIx4 a fx8320 and a 2600k last year using a 7950.
When the cpu holds back the gpu in bf3 all the cores would be near 80-90% utilised.

Loading on just the 4th core is not a bottleneck problem.
Instead you have either a bios, windows, or driver problem.

What does the cpu usage and memory look like in process explorer?
 
@Mad Matty

I have recently downloaded the AMD Omega drivers for the 700 southbridge chipset, how would I go about rolling it back? As far as I'm aware it got removed when I removed all features of CCC yesterday.

@Davedreee

The CPU usage in task manager shows the same usage as the graphs in task manager.

@tricknickyuk

I've had a go using the Core Unpark utility and it's yielded some results, for example in Borderlands 2 it's still showing that core 4 is at 90+% but the frame rate isn't randomly tanking anymore. Will test further.
 
TheSkateyBird said:
@Mad Matty

I have recently downloaded the AMD Omega drivers for the 700 southbridge chipset, how would I go about rolling it back? As far as I'm aware it got removed when I removed all features of CCC yesterday.
Click to expand...

If you go to device manager you should see something like AMD Sata in the IDE ATA controller list. Use the update driver function, browse for driver software and Let me pick device driver and it should list any past drivers you have installed for this device.

The last few chipset driver releases (ahci driver) have cause all sorts of oddities including 1 core always maxed when system is idle in the recent 14.12. I guess new drives are not designed to work with my aging 790 chipset. I don't remember the last good release (Maybe 13.x) as I decided to clean install for other reasons and just use the last version listed on the motherboards driver download page.
 
Just rolled back the drivers, didn't have any previous installed so it's reverted to the default Windows 2006 drivers for now. Although I can confirm that performance has shot up and the cores are now equally loaded.

Thanks a lot!
 
Well I've had a session of Borderlands 2 and the typical core usage has been around 80%-95% across all cores and around 80% on the 7950.

The Witcher 2 is showing between 70% and 80% across the cpu cores and maxing out the gpu core.

Fallout New Vegas

60-70% on two cores 40-50% on the others and 60% on the gpu.

Sound about right?
 
Last edited:
Sounds about right, you could try the cpu-nb to get that up around 2400-2600.

My testing showed the 4.2 b55 holding back a clocked 6950/7850, and a 7950 even more so.
But for an old cpu it's showing it's age nowadays.
 
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