CPU lag

CPU lag

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

Recently I’ve been getting odd CPU lag, where randomly the screen (and mouse) will freeze for like 5 seconds. When it’s done, I’m running in the direction I was before the freeze, most often times into a wall. So I was still moving as far as the server was concerned but frozen at the client. I’ve tried a few different things, messing with in game graphics settings, setting gw2.exe to high priority, setting my GPU/CPU fans to run high, ensuring I have no bad sectors on my HD, reinstall of the game and these instructions as well.

I have an AMD Phenom II 965 CPU with GeForce 560Ti 448 core GPU on Windows 8.1 and have been running GW2 really well since launch until now.

It happens so randomly – I can be in the middle of a PvP match or just sitting in an explorable area doing nothing. It happens either in windowed or non-windowed mode. When it happens, I see in task manager the CPU go down from the normal 50-70% to like 10-20% before it finally recovers.

Anyone run into this?

Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

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Posted by: jello.5432

jello.5432

I’ve noticed this for about a week now. I get what you mean about you can be idle or in a middle of a dungeon to anything and get hit with this lag, my CPU drops from 3.59 Ghz to a mere 1.90Ghz for 4-6 seconds…

I have a Intel i7-3740QM CPU with GeForce GTX 675M SLI, running GW2 with no probs till recently like yourself.

And I’ve ran CPU stress tests which passed and done what you’ve done above and still to no conclusion to where this problem is from. I’m starting to think this must be a software issue as my other games run as per, fine, to high to max settings.

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Posted by: locx.6412

locx.6412

Sounds to me like both of you have heat issues. Download a program called HWiNFO64/32 (depending on which OS you have), load up the sensors tab and when you’re having these issues have a look at that quickly, look for core temperatures, voltages and frequencies. The temps can be monitored a bit better with Core Temp or Real Temp but HWiNFO shows more info.

Do the same thing to your GPU via GPU-Z.

i5-4670K @ 4.6 GHz | GTX 660 | 8GB @ 1600MHz | Samsung 840 EVO 120GB | Win 8.1

CPU lag

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

I agree, at first that’s what it sounds like, but I personally never get above 50C on the CPU and GPU never gets over 60C.

Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

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Posted by: ikereid.4637

ikereid.4637

I agree, at first that’s what it sounds like, but I personally never get above 50C on the CPU and GPU never gets over 60C.

When did you upgrade to Win8.1, and did you upgrade to 8.1 from 8 or was it a fresh install. Same question if you upgraded from 7 to 8.

Desktop: 4790k@4.6ghz-1.25v, AMD 295×2, 32GB 1866CL10 RAM, 850Evo 500GB SSD
Laptop: M6600 – 2720QM, AMD HD6970M, 32GB 1600CL9 RAM, Arc100 480GB SSD

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Posted by: Evernessince.8035

Evernessince.8035

There is no such thing as cpu lag. If your cpu had heat issues it would shut down, possibly creating artifacts on the screen. I’ve had cpus overheat on me due to fan failure many times.

This issue you describe sounds like a hard drive issue. When a hard drive is seeking or reading data the cpu remains idle, exactly the same as you are getting. Mechanical issues also cause seek and read times to increase which results in the “lag” you describe.

In order to diagnose the issue you need to get the proper software for your manufacturer. I will list the two major ones below:

Seagate Drives: Seatools

Western Digital: WD lifeguard

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

I agree, at first that’s what it sounds like, but I personally never get above 50C on the CPU and GPU never gets over 60C.

When did you upgrade to Win8.1, and did you upgrade to 8.1 from 8 or was it a fresh install. Same question if you upgraded from 7 to 8.

Went from 8 to 8.1 over the top.

There is no such thing as cpu lag. If your cpu had heat issues it would shut down, possibly creating artifacts on the screen. I’ve had cpus overheat on me due to fan failure many times.

This issue you describe sounds like a hard drive issue. When a hard drive is seeking or reading data the cpu remains idle, exactly the same as you are getting. Mechanical issues also cause seek and read times to increase which results in the “lag” you describe.

In order to diagnose the issue you need to get the proper software for your manufacturer. I will list the two major ones below:

Seagate Drives: Seatools

Western Digital: WD lifeguard

Actually the next thing on my list was to try playing the game from a different drive to isolate that possibility. I’ve not run diags on my drive with the manufacturer tools, which I’ll do. Good to hear this feedback, thanks.

Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

CPU lag

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Posted by: ikereid.4637

ikereid.4637

I agree, at first that’s what it sounds like, but I personally never get above 50C on the CPU and GPU never gets over 60C.

When did you upgrade to Win8.1, and did you upgrade to 8.1 from 8 or was it a fresh install. Same question if you upgraded from 7 to 8.

Went from 8 to 8.1 over the top.

There is no such thing as cpu lag. If your cpu had heat issues it would shut down, possibly creating artifacts on the screen. I’ve had cpus overheat on me due to fan failure many times.

This issue you describe sounds like a hard drive issue. When a hard drive is seeking or reading data the cpu remains idle, exactly the same as you are getting. Mechanical issues also cause seek and read times to increase which results in the “lag” you describe.

In order to diagnose the issue you need to get the proper software for your manufacturer. I will list the two major ones below:

Seagate Drives: Seatools

Western Digital: WD lifeguard

Actually the next thing on my list was to try playing the game from a different drive to isolate that possibility. I’ve not run diags on my drive with the manufacturer tools, which I’ll do. Good to hear this feedback, thanks.

There are numerous issues with upgrading to 8.1 with out wiping your drivers and downloading drivers built for 8.1. I HIGHLY suggest uninstalling your GPU drivers, reboot into safemode and run DDU (Driver wiper utility you can download), then boot into normal mode and install the latest stable driver for your GPU built for 8.1

As for the HDD/SDD theory, download CrystalDiskInfo, it will read your raw SMART data. If you see data values in raw read error rate, raw write error rate, Sector Reallocation, and B800000, then you should consider replacing the HHD/SSD. FYI, the B80000 is a faulty Cache module that alot of new HDDs are using to be competitive with SSDs. these HDDs are sold as Hybrid SSDs and have a 2G/4G/6G Cache Model that caches data from your HDD before your Sata controller accesses it.

I had a 500G Hyrbid HDD drop that cache model and nothing that was written to the drive was legible by ANY 3rd party tool. That drive was a total Loss.

Desktop: 4790k@4.6ghz-1.25v, AMD 295×2, 32GB 1866CL10 RAM, 850Evo 500GB SSD
Laptop: M6600 – 2720QM, AMD HD6970M, 32GB 1600CL9 RAM, Arc100 480GB SSD

CPU lag

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Posted by: Evernessince.8035

Evernessince.8035

I agree, at first that’s what it sounds like, but I personally never get above 50C on the CPU and GPU never gets over 60C.

When did you upgrade to Win8.1, and did you upgrade to 8.1 from 8 or was it a fresh install. Same question if you upgraded from 7 to 8.

Went from 8 to 8.1 over the top.

There is no such thing as cpu lag. If your cpu had heat issues it would shut down, possibly creating artifacts on the screen. I’ve had cpus overheat on me due to fan failure many times.

This issue you describe sounds like a hard drive issue. When a hard drive is seeking or reading data the cpu remains idle, exactly the same as you are getting. Mechanical issues also cause seek and read times to increase which results in the “lag” you describe.

In order to diagnose the issue you need to get the proper software for your manufacturer. I will list the two major ones below:

Seagate Drives: Seatools

Western Digital: WD lifeguard

Actually the next thing on my list was to try playing the game from a different drive to isolate that possibility. I’ve not run diags on my drive with the manufacturer tools, which I’ll do. Good to hear this feedback, thanks.

There are numerous issues with upgrading to 8.1 with out wiping your drivers and downloading drivers built for 8.1. I HIGHLY suggest uninstalling your GPU drivers, reboot into safemode and run DDU (Driver wiper utility you can download), then boot into normal mode and install the latest stable driver for your GPU built for 8.1

As for the HDD/SDD theory, download CrystalDiskInfo, it will read your raw SMART data. If you see data values in raw read error rate, raw write error rate, Sector Reallocation, and B800000, then you should consider replacing the HHD/SSD. FYI, the B80000 is a faulty Cache module that alot of new HDDs are using to be competitive with SSDs. these HDDs are sold as Hybrid SSDs and have a 2G/4G/6G Cache Model that caches data from your HDD before your Sata controller accesses it.

I had a 500G Hyrbid HDD drop that cache model and nothing that was written to the drive was legible by ANY 3rd party tool. That drive was a total Loss.

Actually you don’t want to use CrystalDiskInto or any other utility that only reads smart data. Why? Read write errors are not an indicator of bad health and these utilities do not know how these drives actually function. Modern disk drives deal with thousands of read write errors without you ever knowing. This is because each hard drive platter has imperfections straight out of the factory. To make matters worse, data size on these devices has only gotten smaller. This means that these tiny imperfections create a larger amount of errors.

These imperfections can get larger over time if the hard disk head hits them, referring to what is called a head crash. This in turn creates a gradual degradation effect in which the drive becomes more and more unreliable.

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Posted by: XFlyingBeeX.2836

XFlyingBeeX.2836

Also VRMs on mobo can throttle CPU!
Run prime 95 – if throttle you HDD is fine your VRMs are not…

So if throttle you have only three choices
1. Change mobo (or CPU and MB)
2. Home-made VRM heatsings + fan (or just try with fan )
3. Bios – lower clock and lower V

Also can be GPU drivers or even PSU.

You will need to run few strees-test
Download OCCT + prime 95
Then run prime 95 (3 cores)
Run OCCT GPU
run this test for 30 min

Give us more info about your PC

(edited by XFlyingBeeX.2836)

CPU lag

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

Thanks for the response. For a few weeks there the problem was gone. All I had done was the steps I outlined in my OP, plus removing/re-creating the pagefile. It seems that did it. Now a few days ago it’s back and with a vengeance. Even as I type it’s occuring seemingly once every 30 seconds, and every time it’s like a 5 second lag spike – CPU util goes from like ~65-ish to around 10, then back up again. I haven’t done anything differently.

This time around I did as sirsquishy recommended with wiping my old drivers using DDU in safe mode and freshly installing the latest. I also tried playing without a pagefile at all and I still had the issue. So it doesn’t appear to be an issue with a corrupt pagefile.

Things left to try are:

  • Play GW2 from a different hard drive. That was the next thing I was going to do before it magically started working.
  • Go through the steps outlined by XFlyingBeeX. Could be VRMs, who knows.

I have some PC info in the thread here, let me know if anything else would be helpful.

Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

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Posted by: locx.6412

locx.6412

Cyclical and regular performance drop can be caused by heat issues so are you sure there’s none of that in your system? Which programs did you use last time?Try monitoring them once again, see if anything’s gone wrong.

i5-4670K @ 4.6 GHz | GTX 660 | 8GB @ 1600MHz | Samsung 840 EVO 120GB | Win 8.1

CPU lag

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

Yeah I’ve got my fan settings such that my CPU never goes above 50C and GPU never above 60C.

Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

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Posted by: XFlyingBeeX.2836

XFlyingBeeX.2836

If your CPU throttle under prime95 – VRM or high T, if not then —> windows/HDD/Drivers, …. trying uninstalling and fresh install (downloading)

also check your PSU

CPU lag

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

After a few days of testing I’m still stumped. I’ve done the torture test in prime 95 and after 20-30 minutes did not notice any throttling of the CPU. I have noticed that when the issue occurs, both the GPU and CPU throttle down considerably, almost to no utilization before coming right back to where it was.

I thought maybe the VRM’s – I looked and my motherboard is notorious for having high VRM temps (Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H rev 1.0):
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1003-page6.html (see cooling section)
http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database

My VRM’s are really hot even at idle, burning to the touch if I keep on them for more than a few seconds. So I opened my case, blew a desk fan directly on them while playing and still had the same problem.

Finally I switched out my hard drive today. I was using a 40GB ultra ATA 6 IDE drive and switched to a fairly new 250GB SATA, re-installed GW2 and tonight had the same issues. I’m kinda at a loss as to what is causing the problem and running out of things to try.

PSU was mentioned – I have a Seasonic (this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095) and no reason to believe it’s going bad, but welcome any suggestions on how to check it.

Here are some things I’ve read (or thought) about but haven’t tried yet:

  • Disable Cool’n’Quiet technology.
  • Enable HPC Mode (this one sounds the most promising).
  • I play over WIFI and have a solid connection, but could try ethernet.
Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

CPU lag

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Posted by: tekky.2931

tekky.2931

Could possibly be a power supply issue, would explain the CPU spikes.

Don’t suppose you got a backup PSU to test with?

CPU lag

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Posted by: ikereid.4637

ikereid.4637

yea, I hate to say it, but this is either going to be your PSU or the VRM’s on your Motherboard.

Have you tried a OS wipe and reinstall? Or installing back to Win7 to test your system further? other then that, I am leaning at HW now.

Desktop: 4790k@4.6ghz-1.25v, AMD 295×2, 32GB 1866CL10 RAM, 850Evo 500GB SSD
Laptop: M6600 – 2720QM, AMD HD6970M, 32GB 1600CL9 RAM, Arc100 480GB SSD

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

I’ve not tried an OS wipe/re-install yet. I’d like to try to rule out the PSU first before going to that effort, but not sure the best way to do that – doing some research. Any suggestions on that? I wish I had a spare PSU laying around to try, but unfortunately do not.

So do these things sound like reasonable things to try?

  • Disable Cool’n’Quiet technology.
  • Enable HPC Mode (this one sounds the most promising).
  • I play over WIFI and have a solid connection, but could try ethernet.
Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)

CPU lag

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Posted by: ikereid.4637

ikereid.4637

I’ve not tried an OS wipe/re-install yet. I’d like to try to rule out the PSU first before going to that effort, but not sure the best way to do that – doing some research. Any suggestions on that? I wish I had a spare PSU laying around to try, but unfortunately do not.

So do these things sound like reasonable things to try?

  • Disable Cool’n’Quiet technology.
  • Enable HPC Mode (this one sounds the most promising).
  • I play over WIFI and have a solid connection, but could try ethernet.

not really, none of those should not affect your system this way.

Do you have a spare HDD you can use as a testing HDD to do a OS reinstall on?
that would be the quickest way to rule the OS out of the picture. I would go as far as trying Win7, Win8 and Win8.1 to see if there is something in the OS (or updates) doing this to ya.

Otherwise, MB and/or PSU are all thats left.

Desktop: 4790k@4.6ghz-1.25v, AMD 295×2, 32GB 1866CL10 RAM, 850Evo 500GB SSD
Laptop: M6600 – 2720QM, AMD HD6970M, 32GB 1600CL9 RAM, Arc100 480GB SSD

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Posted by: skcamow.3527

skcamow.3527

Well, it might be too early to tell, but my problem may be solved. I’ve been playing for a long time with a frame rate limiter, set via nvidia inspector. I turned it off in favor of using the in-game 60 limit just because I wanted a bit smoother experience. After doing this, I’ve had no throttling issues since. Granted it’s only been like 24 hours but my experience is a ton better. I do still experience small throttle type behavior when opening the BL trading post, but I don’t think that’s unique to me.

I had originally set the limiter at 45fps because I wanted to limit the heat output of my GPU, I believe in relation to this throttling issue. That would point to their being a problem before I started using the frame limiter but honestly I’ve been dealing with this for many weeks so I don’t recall all the details. It could be that I turned the limiter off during that couple week period where it was working for me, because I do recall switching it back/forth – I just never associated my throttling behavior to something as simple as this.

Regardless, knock on wood, hopefully I’m in the clear.

Kortham Raysplitter (Yak’s Bend)