Custom Gaming PC not running as expected

[Anderslaw]

Hi guys, I built my first custom PC back in August 2017 with the following specs:

[ul]
[li]AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor[/li][li]Gigabyte GA-AB350-GAMING 3 ATX AM4 Motherboard[/li][li]Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory[/li][li]PNY CS1311 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive[/li][li]Seagate Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive[/li][li]Palit GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB GameRock Video Card[/li][li]Fractal Design Define R4 ATX Mid Tower Case[/li][li]Corsair CX 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply[/li][/ul]
I had some issues but for the most part I didn’t really think much of it, was getting at least 60 frames for most games released before 2016/17, was getting ~200 fps on CS:GO (my main game) on low settings (I play on a 144hz monitor).

Then I decided to upgrade my PC on Black Friday 2019 with the following changes:

[ul]
[li]AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor for the Ryzen 5 1600[/li][li]MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard for the Gigabyte board[/li][li]MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB VENTUS OC Video Card for the 1070[/li][/ul]
However, post-upgrade I’ve been having some issues. I’m now getting roughly 100-250 fps on CS:GO (same settings) with some very large frame drops. I also installed Witcher 3 for the first time in an attempt to play and I was struggling to keep 60fps on the lowest settings. I also tried Red Dead Redemption 2, which I’m aware is a very intensive game but I was struggling to hit 50fps on the lowest settings.

Before the Black Friday upgrade my RAM was running at stock speed as I attempted to overclock using the built in XMP profile but couldn’t get it to work so I let it go, I am since using the built in Game Boost and XMP settings and I believe my RAM is running at advertised speed (although I can’t be sure as my task manager has decided to stop showing RAM speed, but some benchmark software has shown it at advertised speed).

Here’s a benchmark I just ran https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/24597283

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated and I’m willing to run any tests or give any extra info you need

[veeg]

Hello

Hopefully some of our members will chime in soon..

@Evan Omo

[Evan_Omo]

Hi Anderslaw, Welcome to PCHF!

Are you overclocking any components? Have you installed the latest drivers for your video card? What version of Windows 10 are you using? Have you tried setting the power plan to high performance on the system?

Have you checked Task Manager to make sure you have no other processes that are taking up your computers resources during a gaming session? Do the FPS drops only happen in CS: Go or do you experience this issue in other games that you play?

[Anderslaw]

Hi Anderslaw, Welcome to PCHF!

Are you overclocking any components? Have you installed the latest drivers for your video card? What version of Windows 10 are you using? Have you tried setting the power plan to high performance on the system?

Have you checked Task Manager to make sure you have no other processes that are taking up your computers resources during a gaming session? Do the FPS drops only happen in CS: Go or do you experience this issue in other games that you play?

Hi Evan, thanks for the warm welcome!

[ul]
[li]Overclocking my RAM from the base 1700mhz to the advertised clock speed of 3000 mhz and that’s it. That’s done using the built in XMP profile in the BIOS.[/li][li]The latest GeForce Game Ready Driver, Version 442.19 from 02/03/2020.[/li][li]Windows 10 v1903, build 18362.657.[/li][li]I was running the default power plan but I’ve just switched to High Performance so I’ll see if that makes a difference.[/li][li]I do find that Chrome takes up a lot of resources while playing if I leave it open, but even if I close everything besides the game I’m playing, Discord, and sometimes Spotify then I still get frames lower than I’d expect and drop frames.[/li][li]I experience lower than expected frames and consistent frame drops in pretty much every game I play, Red Dead Redemption 2, Mafia 3, CS:GO, Witcher 3, The Divison 2, Siege, Wildlands, Mad Max, Shadow of War etc.[/li][/ul]

[Anderslaw]

Hi Evan, thanks for the warm welcome!

[ul]
[li]Overclocking my RAM from the base 1700mhz to the advertised clock speed of 3000 mhz and that’s it. That’s done using the built in XMP profile in the BIOS.[/li][li]The latest GeForce Game Ready Driver, Version 442.19 from 02/03/2020.[/li][li]Windows 10 v1903, build 18362.657.[/li][li]I was running the default power plan but I’ve just switched to High Performance so I’ll see if that makes a difference.[/li][li]I do find that Chrome takes up a lot of resources while playing if I leave it open, but even if I close everything besides the game I’m playing, Discord, and sometimes Spotify then I still get frames lower than I’d expect and drop frames.[/li][li]I experience lower than expected frames and consistent frame drops in pretty much every game I play, Red Dead Redemption 2, Mafia 3, CS:GO, Witcher 3, The Divison 2, Siege, Wildlands, Mad Max, Shadow of War etc.[/li][/ul]

Also, my audio keeps cutting out at random times

[Evan_Omo]

Ok try setting your RAM speed back to default as well. Even though you are using the XMP profile, having unstable RAM can cause issues as well.

Also try Performing a clean boot in Windows and see if that makes any difference.

[phillpower2]

Any update Anderslaw?

[Anderslaw]

Any update Anderslaw?

Sorry, haven’t got around to it yet, been a manic couple days, I’ll give it a shot when I get a chance and let you know

[phillpower2]

Thanks for getting back to us, forum procedure is to ask for an update when a thread remains unanswered for three days, if still no answer after a further two days a second update request is post along with notice that the thread will be closed if not replied to within 48hrs, we have to have such a procedure to keep the forums in order as some folk will start threads on five or six forums and then abandon all but one of them.

[Evan_Omo]

Sounds good. Keep us posted.

[Anderslaw]

Ok try setting your RAM speed back to default as well. Even though you are using the XMP profile, having unstable RAM can cause issues as well.

Also try Performing a clean boot in Windows and see if that makes any difference.

I disabled my Game Boost (I believe this overclocks the RAM to 4.2 ghz) and XMP profile in the BIOS and I’ve noticed that my frame rates are generally higher, but I’m still getting very unstable drops and my PC did completely crash in the middle of a CS game and I had to button it mid-game to fix. I’ve also started having an issue where my audio cuts out completely (on all apps), this was mainly while playing Mafia 3, this was happening before I disabled Game Boost and XMP, but has continued since the disable.

[Anderslaw]

I disabled my Game Boost (I believe this overclocks the RAM to 4.2 ghz) and XMP profile in the BIOS and I’ve noticed that my frame rates are generally higher, but I’m still getting very unstable drops and my PC did completely crash in the middle of a CS game and I had to button it mid-game to fix. I’ve also started having an issue where my audio cuts out completely (on all apps), this was mainly while playing Mafia 3, this was happening before I disabled Game Boost and XMP, but has continued since the disable.

I’ve also just played another day from a clean boot (with XMP and Game Boost disabled) and I was getting lows of 90fps and average of 120fps in cs, not quite sure how it got worse with a clean boot.

[Evan_Omo]

Did you try updating your motherboards BIOS to the latest version? Does lowering the games resolution help at all?

[Anderslaw]

Did you try updating your motherboards BIOS to the latest version? Does lowering the games resolution help at all?

I’m not too sure why but I’ve just tried updating the BIOS and it wasn’t detecting the update on my USB, despite detecting the USB. The BIOS is also stating that it’s running a release version that I can’t see on the website.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B450-TOMAHAWK

My “System Information” page is showing myself running BIOS version AMI 3.3 17/9/19 but the above link is only showing a 20/9/19 and an 11/11/19 release , I tried downloading both and I extracted and stored them both in the root of my USB (one at a time) and tried to update using the M-Flash tool in the BIOS and although it detected my USB it wouldn’t detect the contents.

I’ve also just updated from Windows 10 v1903 to v1909 so we’ll see if that makes a difference.

[Evan_Omo]

Is the USB flash drive formatted using FAT32 or NTFS? You need to make sure the USB flash drive is formatted to the correct file system otherwise the MSI motherboard won’t be able to read the USB flash drive contents. It should be formatted using FAT32.