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Question

Having serious odd issue with GPU Driver

Jun 14, 2019 5:12PM PDT

Hey guys, i've been scouring the internet for ages and I just cannot find the cause nor a solution to this issue.

I'm a gamer, I love games, and I have a PC for gaming. Recently (well, not recently, but this issue has been weirdly on and off), i'm having an issue where all my FPS in games appears to be cut in half. Skyrim, for instance, which normally would run at 60 for me easily, is dropping to 24 to 30 frames per second, and can't climb above that.

Now, the odd thing is if I reinstall my nvidia GPU driver, it fixes the issue..

Until I reboot my computer that is. then, the issue is back and I have to reinstall my driver again if I want to play my games.

I have tried a clean install of the GPU driver, and quite frankly i'm at my wits end with this. I'm not a computer expert by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing i've been able to find online has been able to help me.

I'm running windows 7 64 bit, geforce GTX 970, an i7-4770K CPU, and 16 gb of ram.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
You told me about the GPU driver.
Jun 14, 2019 6:37PM PDT

But what about the rest of the PC drivers? I find that the average computer user skips the update to the chipset package or there are other issues they are not aware of.

So the common things I encounter are:
1. The owner has not installed the motherboard chipset driver package.
2. The HDD has high values in 01 and/or 07 of the SMART report.
3. There is some misconfiguration such as the monitor is plugged into the motherboard or other.
4. They ALLOW WINDOWS to select a driver from Microsoft. I have written for years to turn that off when you read a story like yours. I do not write how as it's just a google away.

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answer
Jun 14, 2019 7:13PM PDT

I have installed what I understand is the most recent chipset driver package for my motherboard, I'm not sure what you mean by number 2 as, again, i'm not what you would call a computer expert i'm afraid. I can assure you my monitor is plugged into the GPUs output spot, not the motherboards, and i'm not entirely sure what you mean regarding number 4, but I am running the latest GPU driver from nividia that is supported by my GPU, geforce driver 430.86.

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OUCH.
Jun 14, 2019 8:49PM PDT
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Unfortunately..
Jun 15, 2019 12:54PM PDT

This has been an issue across multiple driver updates for me, unfortunately.

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Then the news is grim.
Jun 15, 2019 1:25PM PDT

That could tell us the driver is not the issue but something else.

As I don't see you sharing the item 2 results and you claim no driver works right then the problem is elsewhere where we have yet to cover.

ITEM 1 in detail. I'm running into folk that click on the Update Driver in Windows. Sorry, that's a disaster system. As in broken as a Russion EPS-5 button (also known as the AZ-5 elsewhere.)

ITEM 2. You need to share HDD Smart Values 01 and 07. Otherwise it's still in play.

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Response (why on earth does every response need a title?)
Jun 15, 2019 1:36PM PDT

Regarding number 1, the chipset, I assure you I didn't let microsofts auto update choose for me. I went to intels website and tracked down the appropriate chipset (haswell, if you're wondering) and made sure to install it. Same issue after installing that so that doesn't appear to be the cause of the problem.

Regarding item 2, i've got Speccy installed now and am not entirely sure which piece of information you're looking for (again, i'm not super tech savvy in this regard) so instead of going back and forth with me being an idiot and trying to track the cause, i'll take a couple pictures of the results.

My machine has two hard drives, a relatively small SSD as the main one where the OS and everything runs from, and a data hard drive where all my games and such are installed. If I'm not completely incorrect then these pictures should include both of them.

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As to the title.
Jun 15, 2019 1:46PM PDT

It's just how this forum works. I've known folk to bail out over this. Your choice.

Now that you can see the Seagate's 01 and 07 values that issue is well discussed and can lead to terrible PC performance to BSODs, hangs, delays. and long debates whether it matters.

Your machine but here these are removed when found since we can't have a PC coming back to service over this.

-> And yes, it can kill framerates.

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odd
Jun 15, 2019 1:50PM PDT

When I first got this machine the Seagate was already in it and for years has never been an issue. I'm still a bit curious why reinstalling the GPU driver fixes the issue until the machine is rebooted if its the Seagate causing the issue.

Is it possible perhaps that the GPU itself may have gone faulty in some odd way?

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Because HDD issues can be that way.
Jun 15, 2019 2:09PM PDT
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Actually
Jun 15, 2019 3:05PM PDT

I've got it set so that windows update never installs anything without my say so after a bad update 2 or 3 years back almost destroyed my system, but I'll take the extra steps. Thanks for that, man.

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My concern is not Windows Update.
Jun 15, 2019 3:10PM PDT

It's the other update system.

Check out my supplied google search.

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PS.
Jun 15, 2019 1:47PM PDT

Sometimes folk think I wrote "that's it." I didn't. I noted it's a common cause. You don't know till it's removed and in the case of where you remove the drive then Windows makes you unsure as the drive is missing so Windows goes dumber and dumber as it looks for files on that drive.

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hmm..
Jun 15, 2019 1:55PM PDT

Hate to say it but this is getting to be a bit much for me. I may need to just consider taking it in to a shop to see if they can figure this out (no offence, i'm extremely thankful for you trying to help, but a lot of this is going over my head Silly ) and if that doesn't do the trick I may need to just consider cutting my losses and building a new machine.

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I wish you would try a new good drive.
Jun 15, 2019 2:08PM PDT

These mechanical 1TB drives are now about 50ish here and the shop fee is 150 here plus the 50 and some shops will try to fix it and you get to go back many times.

As to it worked when you go it, this make drive is well known in tech circles along with the impacts.

Either way you go, good luck and don't get ripped off. It's about 99% sure it's not the motherboard or PSU so I can write that much.

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Thank you
Jun 15, 2019 2:14PM PDT

Thank you for your attempts to help. theres a store I trust to take a look at it (i've used them before regarding laptop issues in the past). If they think its the drive too when its in front of them i'll order one and see if that fixes it, if not, well at least I have a chance to upgrade everything anyway with a new machine. I'll of course respond again if I have any sudden updates.

But first, just in case, I'm going to try uninstalling it from the Seagate and installing it to the main SSD drive, just to see if that fixes the issue. If it does, i'll say to hell with it and pick up a nice 2TB SSD from newegg or something.

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Quick Update
Jun 16, 2019 9:43PM PDT

Moving the games off of the seagate and on to the SSD had no effect, the issue is still there unfortunately.

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Folk have tried that.
Jun 16, 2019 10:25PM PDT

They leave the old HDD with high values attached and the issues remain. It's a well done area so I tend not to go over and over it.

Plus Windows doesn't help as it may have items it wants to refresh from that drive.

Again, so well done, discussed far too often. Once you figure it out you get it and know to look for it on other complaints like it.

-> RECAP.

1. You need to be absolutely sure W7's DRIVER UPDATE is turned off. This is NOT Windows Update.

2. Drives with high values in 01 and 07 are not allowed on PCs where performance is needed.

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Good News!
Jun 16, 2019 11:52PM PDT

I think I may have discovered the source of a problem. I was chatting with a friend of mine after dinner and mentioned my issues, and he said that they sounded eerily similar to an issue he had with his own GPU a couple months back. He told me to check not nvidias official site for drivers, but instead to track down my exact model number (not easy to do considering Asus' model number pattern is rather silly) and check their site instead for the drivers.

Low and behold, it appears my specific GPU doesn't actually play nice with all the nvidia driver releases. The last stable one for my GPU specifically is actually the one from all the way back in April, 419.67. This would also explain why I would have a month or two on occasion where it all worked fine, I would just happen to have installed a driver that actually played nice with my GPU. After using DDU to remove all traces of the most recent driver update and installing 419.67 from Asus site instead of Nvidias (and an update to the GPU BIOS for good measure), my FPS issue appears to have disappeared. I booted up Fallout 4 and ran a good 30 minutes through without a frame drop in site lower than 59.

I'm going to run a few other games to test, and reboot the system a couple times just in case before I call this issue solved, but I'm optimistic. Your advice on disabling all automatic driver updates however is going to come immensely helpful in the future though to ensure I only have drivers that Asus says will work installed.

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That's a good find.
Jun 16, 2019 11:58PM PDT

Rare but usually the owner knows this as they have learned that one before.

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Lucky
Jun 17, 2019 12:01AM PDT

Yeah, I'll know to check that for any issues with future GPUs now. This 970 has worked great for me for years but I suppose it makes sense this issue would pop up now since the 900 series is no longer a focus, and my old GPU wasn't strong enough that I played enough games for this issue to come up.

But thank you for all your help! Even with this issue fixed, I learned quite a lot from you, including introducing me to Speccy. I really appreciate the help!