MSI RTX 3070 Usage/Power Drop Spikes

[Daniel O'Hara]

Hi, for the past few weeks I have for the life of me been trying to figure out why as seeing a sudden sharp drop in my GPU usage and power similar to a reverse spike with a sudden stuttering in game lasting 1 - 3 seconds before returning to normal, the temps for both CPU and GPU are fine, I have not come close to hitting my VRAM limit, as far as I can tell the VRMs are fine and not overheating, and I have tried reinstalling the GPU drivers even with DDU and also reinstalling windows. As you can see in these pictures: https://imgur.com/l0Qj7Bt https://imgur.com/55jiFK9 https://imgur.com/viF8XIj everything at least to me looks good my only concern if it is one is the motherboard is a B450 so it could be in some way be hitting a limit of some kind but I am not sure what that would be. PC specs:

CPU: Ryzen 5600X
GPU: MSI RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio
PSU: Corsair RM850x
Motherboard: Aorus B450 Pro
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 3200Mhz 32 GB (4x8GB)
OS: Windows 10 64Bit
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB, Samsung 860 Evo 2TB, Samsung 860 Evo 250GB (OS)
PC Case: MSI MPG GUNGNIR 110R
CPU Cooler: MSI MAG CORELIQUID 240R (Top Slot above the CPU)

I do plan on upgrading my build soon in a few weeks fully custom watercooling it and installing a new motherboard (Asus ROG Crosshair VIII X570) which I hope will eliminate any issues, I am also thinking as the braided cables I used are extensions is it possible these could be in some way be affecting the power getting to the card. At this point I am unsure what the problem is causing this stuttering, it is not completely bad and I can some what play games decently if I am able to ignore the drops but it would be awesome if this could be resolved. Any thoughts, could this just be the games I play or something else?

 

[Daniel O'Hara]

There's really nothing in CPU usage hinting it being the cause.
After problem occurring check event viewer and reliability history for errors matching that time.


And zero sense in more expensive than CPU board.
It won't make PC any faster/longer good lasting, only you that much poorer while marketroids laugh their asses off on their way to bank.
Sub £150 B550 board would be everything needed for normal gaming use.

True, I will look at either B550 or cheaper X570 boards, I am aware the B450 will work with the 5600X. But I am eager to try out PCIE 4 once it becomes more widely used. I will run a game now and keep event viewer opened to check if something shows up now.

I doubt it's related to the board, I'm using a B450 with a 5800X + 3080 and it's smooth as butter.

What resolution are you gaming at and have you run a memtest on the ram?

You have 2 separate cables connected to the psu for the GPU?

2560x1440, I ran a memtest everything checked out fine and I did use to daisy chain to my GPU but after seeing stuff online I swapped over to two separate cables.

I had a similar issue.
Occasional stutter/freeze on regular bases. Spent ages reinstalling and resetting to think I fixed it. Only for the problem to come back later.
Duh moment when I traced it to windows background slideshow switching (5 min period on a large directory of images - "stop the world while it selects a random image"). Thats why I thought I fixed it by reinstall. Then after a while I turn the slideshow on again.

So look for disk usage during those spikes, maybe some background process is doing something. If that is not it, look for windows doing something. Windows has low level access to hardware, so it can interrupt anything you're doing

I will check out the disk usage, I doubted this issue the most as I do have SSDs but I could be wrong and this is the issue so I will monitor the usage to see if it lines up with the usage/power drop spikes I am getting

 

[Daniel O'Hara]

Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite and MSI X570 Tomahawk are the most expensive X570 boards needed.
Those have also good chipset cooler designs capable to mostly passive cooling.
Unlike design from rear hole of marketroids brand overhype boards of Asus...
B550 boards again lacked chipset fan Asus could screw up.

Windows keeps logs no matter if Event Viewer is open or not and stime stamps allows matching errors easily with detected problems.
It's Windows Resource Monitor you would need to keep open to see something from graphs.

Well I monitored the logs for errors or issues and nothing is showing up had the issue occur a few times now and the logs for today are completely clear, so I am suspecting it is simply some piece of software causing the interruption so I will use resource monitor to see if I can track the culprit down