[Solved] What's making my GPU run at 100%? ...all the time.

[Charlie98]

I have a EVGA GTX560Ti 448 that I pulled from my gamer rig while I'm updating it. I've had it for 3 years in two different machines and it has always performed well and correctly.

Now all of a sudden the GPU and shader clocks run at 100% all the time... even when there is nothing going on. Unfortunately, this means it's at 55C+ all the time, too, and the fan runs. This is on a fresh W7 install, with current NVidia 347.09 driver. It does it whether or not I've got Precision X open, and I'm running it on default settings and voltage. I have it running 2 1600x900 monitors via HDMI and DVI.

Anyone...?

 

[bigboxes]

Did you try an older driver?

 

[Charlie98]

I reinstalled 337.88, the last WHQL driver... and it didn't change anything.

 

[bystander36]

Usually hardware acceleration causes this sort of thing. More and more programs are using it. Your browser likely uses hardware acceleration. Putting your power management set to adaptive can help some, or turning off the hardware acceleration for a complete fix.

 

[Ig]

Two possibilities. The old dual monitor issue, where it would run a full clocks when using dual monitors. I think that was fixed in some driver version. The other is some odd program is causing it to run at full clocks.

For me, Logitech's mouse software, SetPoint, would cause my 560ti-448 to run at full clocks. I had to check each version until I found one that wouldn't.

 

[Techhog]

Usually hardware acceleration causes this sort of thing. More and more programs are using it. Your browser likely uses hardware acceleration. Putting your power management set to adaptive can help some, or turning off the hardware acceleration for a complete fix.

This, but also do a virus scan to make sure that nobody is using your machine for mining.

 

[Charlie98]

Two possibilities. The old dual monitor issue, where it would run a full clocks when using dual monitors. I think that was fixed in some driver version. The other is some odd program is causing it to run at full clocks.

...that was it. I unplug the DVI to the 2nd monitor and the clocks drop. :'(

My GTX760 didn't do it, but this is the first time I've used the 560 with 2 monitors.

It's obvious it isn't fixed in the latest driver...

 

[bigboxes]

Well, at least you know. Like you said, this is a temporary situation.

 

[Charlie98]

Yaa, but it's sucking 50w+ of power it doesn't need to in the meantime...

 

[Charlie98]

Follow up...

I went all the way back to 2012's drivers and never found one that fixed the problem, so if anyone knows a driver version that handles it... please post it.

I wound up using a program called Nvidia Inspector to control the multi display GPU ramp up. I don't like having to use an outside program to control my GPU, but, so far, it's the only way I've found.

 

[WT]

I ran into the same issue with an AMD 6970 card, thread here ->http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2402620

I pretty much gave up on fixing it, and found that a 7970 card I had worked perfectly with no issues using the same driver.

 

[Charlie98]

I ran into the same issue with an AMD 6970 card, thread here ->http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2402620

I pretty much gave up on fixing it, and found that a 7970 card I had worked perfectly with no issues using the same driver.

Same here... no problems when I had my GTX760 installed, that's why I was so surprised.