RTX 3090 Unstable Performance

[Jobester_joestar]

Hello,

Over the course of a few weeks I've encountered a problem with my system, specifically while only playing games.

When I play any game(Overwatch, Skyrim, Insurgency Sandstorm, Escape From Tarkov) I have experienced incredibly bad frame rate and core clock drops. For example, when playing any game FPS and core clock become erratic. It will range from 0-300 FPS in some games while core clocks range from 200-1900MHz. The performance is bad, but I also have not had this problem with this same system and specs before. This is a new problem in a year old system. So that leads me to believe a part has gone bad. I have put an old 1070 and the core clock and FPS are very stable.

Specs:
Ryzen 7-3700x
MSI RTX 3090
32GB memory @3200MHz
850W gold Thermaltake PSU
Windows 10 Pro

Things I have done to troubleshoot:

• Move PSU cables to a different rail
• Install different graphics card
• Fresh windows install
• Reseated memory
• Reinstall drivers
• Reseated graphics card
• undervolted and underclock GPU
• Tweak fan curve to 100% to prevent thermal throttling

Ultimately I would like to see if I can fix the system before RMA'ing the card.

I will include screenshots of HWinfo, GPU-Z info to help troubleshooting.

Thanks.

 

[thesmokingman]

If you look at the hwinfo stats, focus on the gpu perf limits. Your gpu is hitting power, voltage, and utilization limits. The utilization is interesting because it means the gpu isn't being clocked up, ie. there is not enough load so it's clocks are reduced. If something is drawing utilization away from the gpu it you could try to track with afterburner. Inside afterburner hit the i button for information and scroll to the bottom and see what is calling for hw acceleration.

What are your settings for cpu, gpu? Overclocks, etc etc?

 

[Nexium]

If you can, try borrowing or switching to a quality 1000w PSU. My ASUS 3090 TUF Gaming OC pulled so much power in some games it would randomly shut my computer off on a brand new Seasonic 850w Titanium I got just for the darn GPU. Was running a EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 prior and stable. After much Googling about reports of this problem it was due to transient power tripping the PSU or power draw spikes, I decided to return the Seasonic within my return period and upgraded to a 1000w Super Flower PSU Platinum Leadex SE or what I could get at the time. Rock stable ever since. Never had I though I'd need 1000w PSU even with some overclocking with a Ryzen 5800x, but these 3090s power requirements should be above than what Nvidia recommends after what I experienced.

 

[thesmokingman]

If you can, try borrowing or switching to a quality 1000w PSU. My ASUS 3090 TUF Gaming OC pulled so much power in some games it would randomly shut my computer off on a brand new Seasonic 850w Titanium I got just for the darn GPU. Was running a EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 prior and stable. After much Googling about reports of this problem it was due to transient power tripping the PSU or power draw spikes, I decided to return the Seasonic within my return period and upgraded to a 1000w Super Flower PSU Platinum Leadex SE or what I could get at the time. Rock stable ever since. Never had I though I'd need 1000w PSU even with some overclocking with a Ryzen 5800x, but these 3090s power requirements should be above than what Nvidia recommends after what I experienced.

He's not suffering from power overload, ie. shutdowns. Once he gets it working he could very well hit that same problem.

 

[Jobester_joestar]

If you look at the hwinfo stats, focus on the gpu perf limits. Your gpu is hitting power, voltage, and utilization limits. The utilization is interesting because it means the gpu isn't being clocked up, ie. there is not enough load so it's clocks are reduced. If something is drawing utilization away from the gpu it you could try to track with afterburner. Inside afterburner hit the i button for information and scroll to the bottom and see what is calling for hw acceleration.

What are your settings for cpu, gpu? Overclocks, etc etc?

Clock speeds for CPU:
Base clock: 3.6GHz
Average I think is around 4.2 GHz

Clock Speeds for GPU:

Core Clock: ~1980 MHz
Mem Clock: ~ 9751 MHz

No overclocks on anything

XMP profile on system memory.

I'm not seeing anything about HW acceleration in afterburner but i can post a screenshot to move forward.

If you can, try borrowing or switching to a quality 1000w PSU. My ASUS 3090 TUF Gaming OC pulled so much power in some games it would randomly shut my computer off on a brand new Seasonic 850w Titanium I got just for the darn GPU. Was running a EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 prior and stable. After much Googling about reports of this problem it was due to transient power tripping the PSU or power draw spikes, I decided to return the Seasonic within my return period and upgraded to a 1000w Super Flower PSU Platinum Leadex SE or what I could get at the time. Rock stable ever since. Never had I though I'd need 1000w PSU even with some overclocking with a Ryzen 5800x, but these 3090s power requirements should be above than what Nvidia recommends after what I experienced.

I've actually never encountered any of these problems. It was stable with this system for a whole year.

 

[Nexium]

He's not suffering from power overload, ie. shutdowns. Once he gets it working he could very well hit that same problem.

Indeed. But I forgot to mention I also had bad graphics stuttering frequently before it would shut down eventually using a 850w PSU. It might be worth a try IF the OP can get a hold of a 1000w PSU to test as well. Unstable power definitely caused me weird instability with the frame rate like the OP described for me in addition to random crashes in several games. However, I didn't monitor for any Core Clock drops at the time as I just wanted to fix it and knew something wasn't right . Just another suggestion if troubleshooting everything else with normal overall temps, default stock settings but problem still there.

 

[thesmokingman]

I'm not seeing anything about HW acceleration in afterburner but i can post a screenshot to move forward.

Scroll down to:

On-Screen Display server
________________________________________________________________________________
Path : C:\Program Files (x86)\RivaTuner Statistics Server
Version : v7.3.1
Active client(s) : automatic profiles manager
: screen capture module
Active 3D process : not detected

The part in bold will have processes there. Normally you'd see browsers and random apps. There's usually something there in everyone's computer unless you manually removed them. I will check AB from time to time because there's always some dumb app drawing resources it shouldn't. Yesterday it was PerfectDisk, a defrag tool... like why the F does it need hw aceel right?

Anyways the way to disable apps is to highlight the name.exe, copy it and paste it into Rivatuner, aka RSS. It would be the On-Screen Display server in this case. So look for RTSS in your running apps in bottom right corner of desktop. Click to bring RTSS up, and you simply hit the add buttun and paste the name.exe you copied and choose None on the Application detection level. This will tell RTSS to not allow that app whenever its run to be able to call for hw accel. The only things I allow to use hw accel are my video editing apps and games.

Do you run other apps whilst playing games?

 

[Jobester_joestar]

Scroll down to:



The part in bold will have processes there. Normally you'd see browsers and random apps. There's usually something there in everyone's computer unless you manually removed them. I will check AB from time to time because there's always some dumb app drawing resources it shouldn't. Yesterday it was PerfectDisk, a defrag tool... like why the F does it need hw aceel right?

Anyways the way to disable apps is to highlight the name.exe, copy it and paste it into Rivatuner, aka RSS. It would be the On-Screen Display server in this case. So look for RTSS in your running apps in bottom right corner of desktop. Click to bring RTSS up, and you simply hit the add buttun and paste the name.exe you copied and choose None on the Application detection level. This will tell RTSS to not allow that app whenever its run to be able to call for hw accel. The only things I allow to use hw accel are my video editing apps and games.

Do you run other apps whilst playing games?

I don't see that anywhere when opening up the information panel on MSI afterburner. Is there any other way to check what processes are using hw acceleration.

 

[thesmokingman]

If you don't see anything then you probably have a driver or an AB install issue or both. In a proper install even if there is nothing running you should still see the what I posted above. I don't know of another easy way to track hw accel.

 

[Jobester_joestar]

If you don't see anything then you probably have a driver or an AB install issue or both. In a proper install even if there is nothing running you should still see the what I posted above. I don't know of another easy way to track hw accel.

So after turning on hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Windows Graphics settings I was able to bring the minimum core clock up to 1725 MHz, its still not stable as in it wont consistently max out my core clock, but it is noticeably better than before.

In response to this message, I've done a fresh install of windows twice now and then immediately installed graphics drivers every time. I have the same problem every windows install. Could you clarify what an AB install issue is. After turning on hardware acceleration I still get very bad performance.

 

[mrthanhnguyen]

Just upgrade your PSU. If its not, u can return it.

 

[thesmokingman]

So after turning on hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Windows Graphics settings I was able to bring the minimum core clock up to 1725 MHz, its still not stable as in it wont consistently max out my core clock, but it is noticeably better than before.

In response to this message, I've done a fresh install of windows twice now and then immediately installed graphics drivers every time. I have the same problem every windows install. Could you clarify what an AB install issue is. After turning on hardware acceleration I still get very bad performance.

GPU scheduling is not the hw acceleration that I'm writing about. GPU scheduling has to do with how the cpu prepares batches of work for the gpu and in the case of the title it allows the gpu to decide when to pass work to it.

What I'm talking about are apps that demand 3d acceleration from the gpu. Having multiple apps running in the background all demanding hw accel can cause major issues when you're trying to play a game.

Hmm, so you refreshed the OS. Detail out your process other wise its probably not ideal for me to assume you did this step or that. There's a few steps before you can use AB or game like installing amd chipset drivers and updating the DX stack.

 

[Jobester_joestar]

GPU scheduling is not the hw acceleration that I'm writing about. GPU scheduling has to do with how the cpu prepares batches of work for the gpu and in the case of the title it allows the gpu to decide when to pass work to it.

What I'm talking about are apps that demand 3d acceleration from the gpu. Having multiple apps running in the background all demanding hw accel can cause major issues when you're trying to play a game.

Hmm, so you refreshed the OS. Detail out your process other wise its probably not ideal for me to assume you did this step or that. There's a few steps before you can use AB or game like installing amd chipset drivers and updating the DX stack.

I deleted the partitions of my ssd twice and reinstalled windows using a media creation tool ~2 times i would like to say. Both times i would install geforce experience to install drivers for my GPU and then installed a game to test with.

 

[eidairaman1]

Watch this

 

[thesmokingman]

I deleted the partitions of my ssd twice and reinstalled windows using a media creation tool ~2 times i would like to say. Both times i would install geforce experience to install drivers for my GPU and then installed a game to test with

You didn't install AB? Even beyond that you have to install the DX stack. AB will auto prompt you to install DX.

 

[Jobester_joestar]

You didn't install AB? Even beyond that you have to install the DX stack. AB will auto prompt you to install DX.

Could you clarify what AB and DX are please? I did not install either of those because i thought that the issue initially was a corrupt version of windows.

I've also noticed new information in HWinfo. I'm now getting new PerfCap reasons such as: pwr, Vrel, and VOp. I'm assuming this means I'm being throttled by my psu?

I can reinstall afterburner if thats what you mean by the "AB" abbreviation and see if that allows me to see what processes are using hw acceleration.

 

[thesmokingman]

Could you clarify what AB and DX are please? I did not install either of those because i thought that the issue initially was a corrupt version of windows.

I've also noticed new information in HWinfo. I'm now getting new PerfCap reasons such as: pwr, Vrel, and VOp. I'm assuming this means I'm being throttled by my psu?

I can reinstall afterburner if thats what you mean by the "AB" abbreviation and see if that allows me to see what processes are using hw acceleration.

Afterburner and DirectX. If you want to track hw accel you need to install Afterburner and RTSS (included in AB). AB will also prompt you to install DX, do it. Windows by default has a limited DX install hence AB runs DX install.

PSU's don't throttle they shut off.

Yes, install AB regardless. You can use AB to display stats to help you track down your issue. I'm assuming you have a software issue because you wrote that it WAS working fine for a year.

 

[Jobester_joestar]

Afterburner and DirectX. If you want to track hw accel you need to install Afterburner and RTSS (included in AB). AB will also prompt you to install DX, do it. Windows by default has a limited DX install hence AB runs DX install.

PSU's don't throttle they shut off.

Yes, install AB regardless. You can use AB to display stats to help you track down your issue. I'm assuming you have a software issue because you wrote that it WAS working fine for a year.

I have just reinstalled AB and RTSS, still no option to view applications that are using here's a screenshot. Is there a setting that needs to be changed to view this info?

 

[thesmokingman]

Did you reboot after install?

 

[Hyderz]

do you have a picture of how you connect the power to the gpu?

 

[Falkentyne]

Could you clarify what AB and DX are please? I did not install either of those because i thought that the issue initially was a corrupt version of windows.

I've also noticed new information in HWinfo. I'm now getting new PerfCap reasons such as: pwr, Vrel, and VOp. I'm assuming this means I'm being throttled by my psu?

I can reinstall afterburner if thats what you mean by the "AB" abbreviation and see if that allows me to see what processes are using hw acceleration.

None of those happen to do anything with the PSU, period.
vrel and vop have to do with which voltage point is active on the V/F Curve (you can see that in MSI Afterburner). You would usually only see this at no load, and only if the card is clocking up fully at idle rather than running at 210 mhz at idle. Most users will never see vOP since they have the card downclock to 210 mhz when not being used. vrel can happen at full load ONLY if you are not hitting the cards power limit (PWR limit has nothing to do with power supply).

 

[Jobester_joestar]

None of those happen to do anything with the PSU, period.
vrel and vop have to do with which voltage point is active on the V/F Curve (you can see that in MSI Afterburner). You would usually only see this at no load, and only if the card is clocking up fully at idle rather than running at 210 mhz at idle. Most users will never see vOP since they have the card downclock to 210 mhz when not being used. vrel can happen at full load ONLY if you are not hitting the cards power limit (PWR limit has nothing to do with power supply).

I've tried a few things, but what I'm understanding here is that I should RMA the card right?

Did you reboot after install?

I did, still not showing up in AB.

Did you reboot after install?

Okay, so I figured out that only certain MSI afterburner UI's will allow me to see the setting. Which is stupid. But the only process that is using HA is Agent.exe.

 

[purecain]

I'm using a 1000w Seasonic and its solid. I hope you can upgrade as your card isnt receiving power properly. I placed your GPU-Z next to mine. Basically what Nexium said. Upgrade your PSU!!!

 

[eidairaman1]

I'm using a 1000w Seasonic and its solid. I hope you can upgrade as your card isnt receiving power properly. I placed your GPU-Z next to mine. Basically what Nexium said. Upgrade your PSU!!!

Make no sense a 1000 watter is needed for a single card though...

 

[thesmokingman]

Make no sense a 1000 watter is needed for a single card though...

This. My 5900x unleashed with 3090 maxed out including a full loop draws under 800w max. It's a lot for a single but still doesn't require 1kw psu.