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Does anyone have an idea why my gpus dont work at 100 or 99% all the time?
If i leave machines alone it still isnt constant 99% usage but it fluctuates up and down from 97 to 99. And if i do more then just scroll it drops/fluctuates even more..
On other machines with different mobos and intel procs it is straight line constantly at 99%.

Heres a picture how it looks like when i just scroll in afterburner a little:
http://shrani.si/f/23/cG/2OitCZdz/gpu.jpg

Components are:

Sabertooth 990fx
4x 7970
amd sempron 145
2gb ram stick

Sorry forgot to tell:

Diablominer and cgminer with default settings (i just put in user, pass and pool ip and other standard flags) - both work the same = not well.

On other pcs with other mobos i use totally the same drivers and programs and works like it should - 99% usage straight line no matter what i do. Thats why i think its hw problem but i dont know what it is. Maybe something in bios has to be set up properly and somebody with same chipset/mobo knows it..

What is your intensity set at? On a dedicated rig, it should be at at least 8, possibly higher depending on what GPU is involved. 

I've had this problem before. I can't remember the exact cause, but I would recommend uninstalling your amd drivers and installing fresh copy. I'll think about it and get back to you if i come up with anything.

edit: uninstall and delete your MSI afterburner, download/install the latest beta. Then google "msi unsupported overclock" to get the eula agreement to copy paste into cfg file. Set overclocking mode to 2. see if that helps

I had similar issues, increased my aggression or intensity depending on what miner you're using.

I have intensity on cgminer at 9 (works good on other mobos).

Trying to put it higher results in:

http://shrani.si/f/3X/e1/3blU7Z2v/gpu1.jpg


Ill try what kokos said and see what happens..

What kokos said doesnt work either, I uninstalled afterburner and deleted its folder then installed again and put it in mode 2, it resulted in the same non constant gpu usage... :(

another thing you can try checking "force constant voltage" in msi settings. Like i said before, ive had this on a couple occasions and sometimes it was an easy fix like reinstall msi. If all else fails and you dont want to reinstall os, i had big success using a ati tool/script that once i double clicked it, it would run and take maybe 2 reboots to complete but would wipe all ati/amd drivers off. I then installed fresh copies of catalyst/msi and it was back to normal. I wish i remembered/had that tool for yah, maybe some1 else knows what i'm talking about and can point you to it. What catalyst/appSDK are you using?

i think your problem lies with os>drivers. Was it working and then all of a sudden one morning its like this or what?

I have 3 rigs with that exact same configuration (thats why i belive its not a sw problem..), it was like that from 1st day i plugged them in (but i cba until now to fix this..). I tested 32 and 64 bit win7, and drivers from the first ones to newest ones, i tried checking "force constant voltage" but its all the same - fuckers dont wanna work at 100% :(

Performance isnt hurt so much (by 1-2%) when i leave them alone but still i want to fix this..

Start task manager and select your miner in the processes tab and assign priority to high for each miner. That should max them out. I've had a few boards that have done this and this is what I have done to work around the issue.

Tried that some time ago and it didnt work :/

Any more ideas ?

I remember having a similar issue where I was initially trying out 2.1 SDK on my 5830's and I would get "low" gpu usage, even with changing "intensities" and process to realtime. I'm not sure what I did, but I think I upgraded to a different driver (still use the same 2.1 sdk) and now sit on using 11.2 or 12.1 without any problems.

Unfortunately though my cards are 2 generations old and 12.1 and 2.1 sdk wont work for your 7970's. Sorry. :/

Just try different driver combos, or various driver sweepers and such. Sorry I don't have a very specific solution. All I know is my similar problem fixed itself after iterating with different drivers and sdk