Frustrating Windows lag when I use all PCI-E slots

[Nebell]

Hi,

So I have 2 similar motherboards, MSI Z170/Z270 Pro Carbon. Z170 supports up to 6 GPUs and Z270 7 GPUs.
Both rigs are lagging a lot when I max out the PCI-E slots. I can acceptably surf the net but the problem is watching movies. They lag too much.

My specs are more than enough to play movies (rig1/rig2):
MSI Z170/Z270 Pro Carbon
Pentium 4560
4gb ddr4 ram
120gb SSD
6x/7x GTX 1060 3gb
Corsair 850W/Seasonic 1200W PSU
Windows 10 64-bit
Latest Nvidia drivers

I even checked task manager and at most CPU is at 70% (while playing a movie), it's usually around 50%. GPU utilization is at 99% of course, but there's no difference between having maxed out PCI-E slots and having one less card, GPU utilization is always at 99% while mining.

All I want is to play movies without lag 

Any solutions?

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[fanatic26]

I cant watch movies while mining on my machine. Thats why you build dedicated mining rigs and dont try to use them like normal computers.


P.S. 4GB of RAM is not nearly enough if you are trying to use the system while mining.

[Cryptohminer]

Try to exclude GPU 0 from within the mining software, maybe it will help.

[philipma1957]

Hi,

So I have 2 similar motherboards, MSI Z170/Z270 Pro Carbon. Z170 supports up to 6 GPUs and Z270 7 GPUs.
Both rigs are lagging a lot when I max out the PCI-E slots. I can acceptably surf the net but the problem is watching movies. They lag too much.

My specs are more than enough to play movies (rig1/rig2):
MSI Z170/Z270 Pro Carbon
Pentium 4560
4gb ddr4 ram
120gb SSD
6x/7x GTX 1060 3gb
Corsair 850W/Seasonic 1200W PSU
Windows 10 64-bit
Latest Nvidia drivers

I even checked task manager and at most CPU is at 70% (while playing a movie), it's usually around 50%. GPU utilization is at 99% of course, but there's no difference between having maxed out PCI-E slots and having one less card, GPU utilization is always at 99% while mining.

All I want is to play movies without lag  

Any solutions?

buy a third pc and don't mine with it.

get a small used one like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-m700-Tiny-Desktop-i3-6100T-3-2GHz-4GB-DDR4-500GB-10HY001XUS-/182700670567?

this one would need a 4gb stick of ram  added to do all that you want

[Vann]

I use a Gigabyte i7 NUC as my main PC and love it. Awesome system and very low power. Handles VM's, 4K video and anything else you can throw at it except new games.

[SCSI2]

...
I even checked task manager and at most CPU is at 70% (while playing a movie), it's usually around 50%....

You need to figure out what is eating up your CPU while mining. Utilization should not be that high on 4560. What are you mining with?

In Task Manager, go to the Details tab and sort by CPU in descending order. If MSIAfterburner shows up in Top-5 - close its UI. It's quite expensive. Same goes for Corsair Link. If MsMpEng (Windows Defender) is showing more than 0%, turn off real-time protection or exclude mining folders from scanning... and the list goes on.

Or just post a typical screenshot of the Task Manager details tab here and we will try to help.

-SCSI

[Nebell]

It doesn't explain the reason why is it working fine with 6 gpus and not with 7, also rig 2 with similar specs works fine with 5 gpus and not with 6. As long as I fill all PCI-E slots, it starts lagging.
I'm using Claymore and mining Equihash. Mining speed is not affected by lag.

Mining only:



Mining while playing a video:

[hyet24]

I usually test algo and software on my main computer with 1080ti.  What I do I switch to integrated GPU by using the onboard display.   It's pretty annoying that Windows doesn't have a way to switch to iGPU by software.

Whatever I do like youtube, excel, and browsing the iGPU takes care of it and no lag.  I see the miner loses only about .25 MH/s.

I did another test for fun.  I had GTX 980 with a game while 1080 ti is mining.  No fps drop (300 fps) but again same 1-2% drop on the miner.  It really surprise me.  Maybe its the 16gb of ram or i7 6700 that made multitasking really strong.

[SCSI2]

It doesn't explain the reason why is it working fine with 6 gpus and not with 7, also rig 2 with similar specs works fine with 5 gpus and not with 6. As long as I fill all PCI-E slots, it starts lagging.
I'm using Claymore and mining Equihash. Mining speed is not affected by lag.

[...]

1. I have no experience with MSI motherboards and can only speculate here. You are saying that it's working fine with -1 GPU. This makes me thinking that your video player (VLC) is trying to use a GPU for codec (decoding) acceleration and probably uses integrated graphics when one less PEG is installed. This could be a limitation of the motherboard BIOS and I've seen similar issues before with other motherboards. For example, with my Asus for some reason I can't use iGPU if I have 8x PEGs installed.

Is your monitor plugged in into the integrated graphics port? If not, try going that route.

2. Another question is why does your Microsoft Software Protection Platform Service use up more CPU than everything else while VLC is running? Is your Windows activated? Fully updated? You have MS Office installed? It could be a bug in sppsvc.exe or many other things. Try to disable it and see if it helps: https://ugetfix.com/ask/how-to-fix-high-cpu-usage-by-sppsvc-exe-on-windows-10/

3. Try installing latest Intel chipset drivers from MSI or from Intel. Just in case.

Also, I was asking for a screenshot of the Details tab in Task Manager. It provides more realistic CPU utilization numbers and shows more process info.

-SCSI

[Nebell]

It doesn't explain the reason why is it working fine with 6 gpus and not with 7, also rig 2 with similar specs works fine with 5 gpus and not with 6. As long as I fill all PCI-E slots, it starts lagging.
I'm using Claymore and mining Equihash. Mining speed is not affected by lag.

[...]

1. I have no experience with MSI motherboards and can only speculate here. You are saying that it's working fine with -1 GPU. This makes me thinking that your video player (VLC) is trying to use a GPU for codec (decoding) acceleration and probably uses integrated graphics when one less PEG is installed. This could be a limitation of the motherboard BIOS and I've seen similar issues before with other motherboards. For example, with my Asus for some reason I can't use iGPU if I have 8x PEGs installed.

Is your monitor plugged in into the integrated graphics port? If not, try going that route.

2. Another question is why does your Microsoft Software Protection Platform Service use up more CPU than everything else while VLC is running? Is your Windows activated? Fully updated? You have MS Office installed? It could be a bug in sppsvc.exe or many other things. Try to disable it and see if it helps: https://ugetfix.com/ask/how-to-fix-high-cpu-usage-by-sppsvc-exe-on-windows-10/

3. Try installing latest Intel chipset drivers from MSI or from Intel. Just in case.

Also, I was asking for a screenshot of the Details tab in Task Manager. It provides more realistic CPU utilization numbers and shows more process info.

-SCSI

Thanks for the suggestions.
I have disabled iGPU so I can't use that. I have not tried to enable it, but maybe I'll give it a go. Just the guide I used said to have it disabled.
Windows is activated, I found a solution on that Windows protection software and I'm going to give it a go now, see if things change.

[Nebell]

Thanks a bunch man, that tip to use iGPU works on Windows lag, everything is smoother. Except movies :p
But I found what the problem was, it was VLC, my movies work fine with Windows Media Player. I need to find a good video player that is like Media Player but can play subtitles like VLC.

[SCSI2]

Thanks a bunch man, that tip to use iGPU works on Windows lag, everything is smoother. Except movies :p
But I found what the problem was, it was VLC, my movies work fine with Windows Media Player. I need to find a good video player that is like Media Player but can play subtitles like VLC.

Glad to hear it helped

Maybe you can try disabling GPU acceleration option in VLC and see if that helps?

[fanatic26_]

Why all these posts when the answer is to run linux?

[swogerino]

Thanks a bunch man, that tip to use iGPU works on Windows lag, everything is smoother. Except movies :p
But I found what the problem was, it was VLC, my movies work fine with Windows Media Player. I need to find a good video player that is like Media Player but can play subtitles like VLC.

In that case try media player classic, it is a free download and you are only one google search away from it. I don't remember 100% but that is what I usually try to tell to the persons I go to fix their computers, either use VLC or in case it won't work for you then use Media Player Classic with its full K-lite codecs pack. I think I remember it well that this Media Player supports subtitles as I have watched movies with it with subtitles on. I am a fan of the Dracula series and they were all subtitled when I first downloaded them.

[vuli1]

well, 6x/7x GTX 1060 3gb and 4 GB of Ram.  Sorry but are a  total noob, do some research at least before you start mining.

[adaseb]

Go download your motherboard manual and there should be an PCIe diagram about which lanes use what.

Basically some LAN or Audio cards might use an PCIe lane and its what is causing this. Basically you need to disable it.

If there is no diagram in your manual, then just disable anything you aren't using like LAN, Sound, USB3.0, etc.

However in general you should just get a different PC because your browsing will cause your system to hang.