I asked this on the Nvidia driver thread (but no one replied and guessing had no idea why it was doing it) :-
Anyone noticing that skype now sets the GPU to a high gpu clock and mem clock ?
This happens when you turn your camera on and you will see the clocks go to almost full speed for core and memory and will stay there and will not down clock untill you turn the camera off again. The camera I have is a Logitech C920 HD 1080p . It is really annoying it is doing that while using skype it only does it when you turn your camera on, does not matter if the other persons camera is on or off.
On the latest drivers and latest skype here. I did upgrade to windows 10 creators update too, but it was doing this before the windows 10 update and the latest nvidia drivers that are meant to be compatible with creators update.
It use to run skype at the idle clocks before but seems to be doing some hardware acceleration now on the GPU or is tripping the GPU drivers to set very high clocks for core and mem for no good reason, it is basically behaving like a power virus and making the GPU run warm for no good reason.
Just a note too, I did try the Logitech drivers from Logitech and the ones windows 10 can install too from Microsoft and both behaved exactly the same. Also did a reinstall of the Nvidia drivers (clean install) and skype to rule them out too.
Maybe a new headache they did update skype a few times recently and maybe one of the updates to skype is now doing that, have not rules out an older version yet that may stop it.
FIX here :-
OK found the issue for this problem and will add a fix here to help others with webcams with built in hardware encoding. The new skype is using the NGC codec (next generation codec) which ignores if your high end camera has hardware encoding so uses your graphics card as the encoding device and in turn turns your graphics card to full base clocks and wastes electricity and heats up your GPU for no good reason or benefit.
Now if you have a camera with hardware encoder built in you can simply rename a file in skype to turn off the NGC codec and go back to the Silk codec that uses your hardware encoder in the camera and allows your GPU to idle at normal speeds again.
In C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone or wherever you installed skype there is a file called RtmCodecs.dll all you need to do is rename it to something like RtmCodecs.dll.NOTUSED. Restart skype and it will say there is an error with skype and says to download again or cancel, click cancel and use skype as normal. All will be fine apart from this error message on start up that can be ignored.
Ok this will explain the high gpu use when using skype and turning on your camera, this will apply for non Nvidia GPU too as I found it does this on Intel and AMD cards too and if you have a laptop it makes the GPU fan on the laptop run louder and if on battery kills your battery quicker of course as it is using the GPU at full base speed.
Anyone noticing that skype now sets the GPU to a high gpu clock and mem clock ?
This happens when you turn your camera on and you will see the clocks go to almost full speed for core and memory and will stay there and will not down clock untill you turn the camera off again. The camera I have is a Logitech C920 HD 1080p . It is really annoying it is doing that while using skype it only does it when you turn your camera on, does not matter if the other persons camera is on or off.
On the latest drivers and latest skype here. I did upgrade to windows 10 creators update too, but it was doing this before the windows 10 update and the latest nvidia drivers that are meant to be compatible with creators update.
It use to run skype at the idle clocks before but seems to be doing some hardware acceleration now on the GPU or is tripping the GPU drivers to set very high clocks for core and mem for no good reason, it is basically behaving like a power virus and making the GPU run warm for no good reason.
Just a note too, I did try the Logitech drivers from Logitech and the ones windows 10 can install too from Microsoft and both behaved exactly the same. Also did a reinstall of the Nvidia drivers (clean install) and skype to rule them out too.
Maybe a new headache they did update skype a few times recently and maybe one of the updates to skype is now doing that, have not rules out an older version yet that may stop it.
FIX here :-
OK found the issue for this problem and will add a fix here to help others with webcams with built in hardware encoding. The new skype is using the NGC codec (next generation codec) which ignores if your high end camera has hardware encoding so uses your graphics card as the encoding device and in turn turns your graphics card to full base clocks and wastes electricity and heats up your GPU for no good reason or benefit.
Now if you have a camera with hardware encoder built in you can simply rename a file in skype to turn off the NGC codec and go back to the Silk codec that uses your hardware encoder in the camera and allows your GPU to idle at normal speeds again.
In C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone or wherever you installed skype there is a file called RtmCodecs.dll all you need to do is rename it to something like RtmCodecs.dll.NOTUSED. Restart skype and it will say there is an error with skype and says to download again or cancel, click cancel and use skype as normal. All will be fine apart from this error message on start up that can be ignored.
Ok this will explain the high gpu use when using skype and turning on your camera, this will apply for non Nvidia GPU too as I found it does this on Intel and AMD cards too and if you have a laptop it makes the GPU fan on the laptop run louder and if on battery kills your battery quicker of course as it is using the GPU at full base speed.