Performance issues while gaming on a Vivobook pro 14

[Kosodrzewina]

Hi!

I’ve recently bought an Asus Vivobook Pro 14 (M6400RC) and have a problem with FPS drops while gaming. My first thought was that it’s probably because of the thermal throttling but after checking the temperatures I’m not sure what’s causing those drops.

I recorded a few minutes of gameplay with Riva Tuner overlay, here’s the link:

[MEDIA=youtube]lhf-vrc3jR0[/MEDIA]

. As you can see, the first minute or so is fine, I’m getting 50 - 60 FPS but then it suddenly drops to 10 - 20 FPS, stays that way for around 5 minutes and after that the performance goes back to normal. You can see the CPU temperature rising before the drop but it goes up to around 85 degrees, which for a laptop (especially such a thin and light one) is not a bad result and it seems weird to me if it started to throttle at such a temperature. The GPU temperature is also fine, it sits comfortably at 75 degrees, VRAM is also not utilized completely, the same as RAM. Everything seems to be in order, yet I still get those drops. Am I missing something?

If anyone has an idea what’s going on here, please share it with me. Any help is much appreciated.

Specs:

CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 6800H
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB DDR6
RAM - 16 GB LPDDR5 4800 MHz
Storage - 512 GB SSD M.2 PCIe
OS: Windows 11

[Bruce]

I’d be starting at getting those temps down.
85 is on the high side and certainly approaching whatever internal levels the system has set as trigger levels.

put the laptop on a stand to improve airflow, preferably one with an active fan that plugs into a USB port on the laptop.
or at least raise up the back of it and direct a fan onto the area.

how old is the laptop and did you buy it new - trying to determine if it may have dust built up on the heat sink or exhaust fan.

[Kosodrzewina]

It’s less than 2 weeks old and I bought it new. I know 85 is on the high side but still, I don’t think it should throttle at this point.

[Bruce]

yeah, see, I think it should be.
the system sees the temps going in the wrong direction and starts to nip it in the bud before it gets into the danger levels.

add to that, laptops are much more limited in terms of available options to suck air in and expel the hot air.
extra active cooling would be worth a test, it may help, it may not, but it needs to at least be crossed off the list.

[xrobwx71]

If I may also add:
Are there any other processes going on in the background when the drop happens? Backups, Virus Scan, Windows Update, etc?

[Bruce]

@Kosodrzewina - any news?

[Kosodrzewina]

I put the laptop on a stand (without a fan, just a simple stand) and it greatly improved thermals. Now I don’t see temperatures higher than 75 degrees but the problem persists. I can have 60 fps and suddenly there’s a drop to 15 - 17 fps that lasts around 2 minutes and that’s while GPU temps are under 70 degrees and CPU just a little over 70.

[Kosodrzewina]

If I may also add:
Are there any other processes going on in the background when the drop happens? Backups, Virus Scan, Windows Update, etc?

No, there are no background processes, besides even if that was the case, the problem wouldn’t occur regularly.

[xrobwx71]

besides even if that was the case, the problem wouldn’t occur regularly.

This is simply not true. An AV scan can be on a regular schedule without any indication or notifications and can cause symptoms. They can take a few seconds, a few minutes, and up to several hours.

Windows Update can cause these issues especially if there is corruption present. WU will try an update or updates, fail then repeat.

[Bruce]

Let’s get your complete PC specs, maybe something will pop out.

get Speccy from here; Speccy - Download Builds
in Speccy, click File > Publish Snapshot (hit Yes if prompted to proceed with publish) > Copy to Clipboard > Close.
now you can paste (Ctrl+V) that link into your next post.

and to check your drive and system, run the following from an elevated command prompt;
[ul]
[li]chkdsk c: /r[/li][li]sfc /scannow[/li][li]dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth[/li][li]dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup /resetbase[/li][/ul]

[Bruce]

@Kosodrzewina - where we at?

[Bruce]

abandoned