Solved Custom Gaming PC not running as expected

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Anderslaw

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Feb 12, 2020
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Hi guys, I built my first custom PC back in August 2017 with the following specs:

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:

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
 
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?
 
Evan Omo said:
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?
Click to expand...

Hi Evan, thanks for the warm welcome!

  • 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.
  • The latest GeForce Game Ready Driver, Version 442.19 from 02/03/2020.
  • Windows 10 v1903, build 18362.657.
  • I was running the default power plan but I've just switched to High Performance so I'll see if that makes a difference.
  • 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.
  • 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.
 
Anderslaw said:
Hi Evan, thanks for the warm welcome!

  • 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.
  • The latest GeForce Game Ready Driver, Version 442.19 from 02/03/2020.
  • Windows 10 v1903, build 18362.657.
  • I was running the default power plan but I've just switched to High Performance so I'll see if that makes a difference.
  • 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.
  • 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.
Click to expand...
Also, my audio keeps cutting out at random times
 
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 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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 said:
Did you try updating your motherboards BIOS to the latest version? Does lowering the games resolution help at all?
Click to expand...

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.

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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.
 
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.
 
Evan Omo said:
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.
Click to expand...

USB flash drive is formatted as FAT32, still wasn't detected, not too sure why. Just tried reseating RAM just in case that was the issue and PC is running same as before.
 
Thanks for all your help guys, I did some troubleshooting with my friend this weekend and I've replaced my RAM and found out that my GPU was in my secondary PCIe slot, which although runs at 16x by default, drops to 2x when a PCI slot is being used (which it is, by my network adapter). Since these changes, my fps is significantly increased as you could imagine
 
Glad you got it sorted and thank you for posting the solution so that the info may be of help to others :thumbsup:
 
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