My PC suddenly started performing poorly across the board. Persona 5 initially refused to launch, and after restarting, it launched but stayed around 30 FPS. Other games have the same issue, while Chrome and Steam also feel unusually slow. Heaven Benchmark only reaches about 25–35 FPS per scene. I have already reinstalled the graphics drivers, reinstalled and factory-reset Windows 11, cleaned the dust and fans, disconnected unnecessary cables, and checked the power-plan settings. The system has an Intel i7-12700K, RTX 3070 Ti 8GB, and 32GB of RAM. During Heaven, the CPU runs at about 4.87 GHz with 7% usage, memory runs at 3200 MT/s with 36% usage, and the GPU is around 55°C at 74% usage, but performance remains very low. What should I check next?
3 Answers
Since the issue survived driver reinstalls and a Windows reset, hardware or firmware is worth investigating. Test the RAM with Windows Memory Diagnostic and, if possible, MemTest86. You can also use HWiNFO in sensors-only mode to look for CPU, GPU, VRM, or memory errors and performance-limit flags. If Windows was reset without fully wiping the system drive, a clean installation could still be worth trying, but the monitoring results should come first.
Use Task Manager or a hardware-monitoring tool while the benchmark is running and check the actual GPU clock, core and memory temperatures, hotspot temperature, CPU usage and clocks, RAM usage, and any thermal or power-limit indicators. The GPU temperature you reported is not especially high, so it would be useful to see whether the card is running at an unusually low clock or reporting another performance limit.
Try checking the NVIDIA performance overlay for GPU usage, clocks, and temperatures during the benchmark. If the card is thermal throttling or being restricted by a power or voltage limit, that should help identify it. Also verify that the monitor cable is connected to the graphics card rather than the motherboard.
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