High GPU Activity while on idle.

[dilanlahiru]

So the usage and temperature of my video card suddenly goes up while my PC was idle. The usage increased about 90% and the temp around about 50-55 degrees. At first, I thought it was some kind of malware causing all this but I did a full scan on my PC and there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. My PC was virus free. I also took out the video card and dusted it off for safe measures but none of those methods solved the problem. If I restart my PC, the temp will be at about 26 degrees and after a while, it will shoot back up to 55 degrees with 90% usage. This has never happened before and my video card is about 3 months old now and I have no idea what to do. I also rolled back my video card drivers to a previous version and that seems to fix my problem almost immediately. But unfortunately the problem quickly came back and stayed. I also did a system restore to the date before all this started happening but did nothing either. The video card I have is an AMD Sapphire R9 270x and my OS is Windows 8.1. So I will be very grateful if someone can help me out with this issue. Thank you.

 

[Faladu]

If you have completely ruled out malware/viruses:

I would check your power supply.

If that checks out, I would swap in an old card and verify no issues with it. (skip to next if you don't have one available)

If that pans out, I would replace the thermal paste on that video card between it's GPU and heatsink.

If it's still acting up, I'd call the card brand and be looking at in warranty replacement.

 

[dilanlahiru]

If you have completely ruled out malware/viruses:

I would check your power supply.

If that checks out, I would swap in an old card and verify no issues with it. (skip to next if you don't have one available)

If that pans out, I would replace the thermal paste on that video card between it's GPU and heatsink.

If it's still acting up, I'd call the card brand and be looking at in warranty replacement.

Thank you, I will try all those options and get back to you if any are successful.

 

[Sunradiance]

I had the same problem - Card activity on 90-91% all the time ( about 15 minuts after each reboot )

Did the driver clean reinstallation - tryed actually everything - today wanted to install windows 8.1 again but before I went over services one more time.

And the reason why this was caused was steam.exe running in background ( tho I didnt open program at all and I do not have it to run automaticly as it comes into windows. )

Shuted down the process and the card activity dropped asap to 0 and temperatures went from 50 - 51°C to 30°C.

Try it and I hope it helps.

With respect , Sunradiance.

 

[SchlitzenGigles]

Possibly CryptoCoin Mining Software

I have read that some untrusted game crack uploads to torrent sites can also install cryptocoin mining software (i.e. Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc...). Basically the torrent uploader adds cryptocoin mining software to the installation files for the cracked game, and directs the proceeds of your GPU's work to their wallet. Its actually pretty smart, these guys know that if you are downloading the game that you have at least semi-decent hardware, and they take advantage of that. I also see that your post dates during the time that the pirate bay was down, in which a lot of shady look alike sites popped up. I am not saying, nor am I condoning, that you pirate copyrighted software. I'm just saying its something you might want to consider.

As far as I know, antivirus does not pick up on the cryptocoin mining software because it is legitimate software. If it turns out that you do, or believe that you may have cryptocoin mining software on your PC, I would suggest a fresh OS install. You could probably clean it, but there could be remnants of the software remaining, and they could have taken measures to make it hard to find the directory. Just my thought on the matter. Also, rolling back drivers would definitely not fix this issue, and it is likely that a restore point would not help either. That's why I suggested a clean OS install. I realize this post is a little late, but perhaps it could help someone else.

I would like to reiterate for the mods that I do not condone, nor do I myself, pirate copyrighted material. I was just relaying some information that I have run across in my interwebs exploits for the OP.


Edit:

I forgot what led me to this conclusion. The fact that your card is running hard, but not overheating, makes me think that it may be a cryptocoin miner. Your card is running at 90%: (1) indication is that there is either a graphically intensive program running, or (2) a program that relies on heavily paralleled computations best suited to graphics cards. Examples of #(2), and the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are video rendering software (like handbrake) and cryptocoin mining software. Also, your card is running hard, but not running hot (considering the load it is under) indicates that it is not a cooling issue. If your PC would not boot, then it could possibly be a power supply issue. When your card isn't being supplied proper current and/or voltage, AMD cards (not sure about NVidia) will kick the fans up to 100%, but the system will not boot. I guess it could be a an intermittent problem with the power supply, but I think you would get random crashes or blue/black screens rather than just an over-active card.


Edit 2:

Oh, and also, if the source of the problem seems to be steam, then it is possible that it is indeed a cryptocoin mining program. The game cracks have to include a steam.dll file to bypass DRM measures in place. Seems a logical place to put some additional software that you don't want the installer to know about. Especially since the steam.dll files are flagged as a virus (for any cracked game) by most if not all antivirus programs, and the installer must turn the antivirus off or bypass the antivirus security measures in order to install the steam.dll file.

Oh yeah, and I really don't condone piracy. But, I do download freeware and such through torrents, which is why I educated myself on the risks of downloading from torrent sites. :devil:

 

[alex121]

Acctually it helped me thanks
Reinstalling now