Low Activity From The NVIDIA GPU Of A Laptop

[SP4CEBAR]

When video-editing on my ASUS FX503-VD laptop, which has an NVIDIA GeForce 1050 graphics card, it usually uses 100% CPU and only like 10% GPU. The same happens with rendering on Blender. I've installed the NVIDIA studio drivers, but it didn't make much of a difference.

When benchmarking with UserBenchmark, my laptop wants to run the graphics tests mostly on the integrated graphics card (a laptop has two graphics cards). As a result, the benchmark says that my laptop is awful at gaming.

When I forced the tests to run on the NVIDIA graphics card, by changing the preferred graphics processor in the NVIDIA settings, the card reached some pretty high framerates, but eventually, it failed the tests.

When I forced the tests to run on the integrated graphics card, it worked nicely, but with the performance of an integrated graphics card (same performance as the first test).

Since the Furmark stress-test works fine (NVIDIA GPU 100% active) and pretty big games (like World of tanks) also run fine on the GPU I'm pretty sure the problem isn't caused by the hardware itself.

In the events menu of the device properties, Both graphics drivers keep saying "device install requested", is this normal? I've tried uninstalling the NVIDIA driver, restarting and updating my laptop, and reinstalling the NVIDIA driver, but still, it says "device install requested".

The problem of my GPU might be caused by another piece of software or a driver.
According to Malware Bytes and McAffee, I don't have any malware on my computer, so I don't think the problem is malware.

About a year ago, my GPU turned out to be disabled, I've no clue how that happened. I enabled it immediately after I figured that out.

A while before it was disabled, I tried to install a USB display driver (Fresco Logic FL2000-2.0.33043.0) to be able to connect a third display. This didn't go very well, because every time I tried to install it, my laptop rebooted. Months later I tried it again, and it worked without a problem.
It could be that the installation disabled the GPU, or the installation didn't go very well the first time because the GPU was already disabled.

I recently found the failed installations of the USB display driver in the device manager.

After uninstalling them, the problem with my GPU still wasn't fixed. So I disabled the working FrescoLogic Display Adapter driver, to see if that would help. After doing that the names of my GPUs changed from GPU0 and GPU1 to GPU2 and GPU3, but the problem was still there. After enabling it again, the names changed back to GPU0 and GPU1.
So this driver has some influence on the GPUs, but whether it causes the problem or not, I don't know.
Since disabling the driver didn't solve the problem, will uninstalling it help?

To summarize, the problem could be:
- GPU drivers
- An undetectable piece of malware
- The USB display driver, or other drivers causing problems

What do you think?

 

[Vayra86]

Your device is installed, the message you see there is not the most recent, but the oldest log event. Note the date/time.

It seems your GPU is not outputting correctly. It can render just fine, but the output channel is not on the correct display.

Go into Nvidia control panel and check what displays you have available and what is set as default, first. A screenshot would be good.

Specifically these two:

Next, check whether your GPU even gets assigned as the primary GPU. You can probably do that by right clicking on the program icon in taskbar. Alternatively set your power plan for maximum performance.

In addition, you can check what Windows has set up for you in Display settings wrt display selection. But usually the two are mirrored.

That Frescologic display adapter is probably the culprit. You will need to ensure there is only one display adapter in there, the one you need to feed your image to. Probably a good idea to completely erase all of the failed ones and maybe even just all of them and start over.

 

[Caring1]

Update drivers from the Asus website only.

 

[newtekie1]

What program are you using for video editing? And is the GTX1050 supported by that software?

Also, Blender needs to be setup to use the GPU, it doesn't just do it out of the box. The other thing with Blender is that Windows Task Manager by default doesn't show the load of Blender. You actually have to click on the little arrow next to "3D" in Task Manager and then select "Cuda" from the drop down. That will then show you the Cuda load on the GPU, which is what blender uses.

 

[StefanM]

Your driver 430.86 is out-of-date (actually R430 branch has reached EOL) .
Latest studio driver is 442.92

Review this document how to force a particular GPU

http://developer.download.nvidia.com/devzone/devcenter/gamegraphics/files/OptimusRenderingPolicies.pdf

In Blender, open edit/preferences/system/cycles render devices


EDIT:

The "utilization" value in task manager seems to show what HWINFO names "GPU D3D usage"
Check "GPU core load" in HWINFO or "GPU load" in GPU-Z.

 

[SP4CEBAR]

Your device is installed, the message you see there is not the most recent, but the oldest log event. Note the date/time.

It seems your GPU is not outputting correctly. It can render just fine, but the output channel is not on the correct display.

Go into Nvidia control panel and check what displays you have available and what is set as default, first. A screenshot would be good.

Thanks for the reply
In the NVIDIA control panel, I can only access the settings that are under "3D settings".

Could it be that the other settings on my laptop are only accessible via the intel graphics settings?

Next, check whether your GPU even gets assigned as the primary GPU. You can probably do that by right clicking on the program icon in taskbar. Alternatively set your power plan for maximum performance.

I'm not quite sure what program icon in the taskbar you are referring to. Clicking on the control panel or its tray applications won't give me the option to view what GPU is the primary GPU.

In the task manager, the integrated Intel GPU is called GPU0, and the NVIDIA GPU is called GPU1. So the Integrated GPU, which controls the displays of my laptop, is probably the primary GPU.

In addition, you can check what Windows has set up for you in Display settings wrt display selection. But usually the two are mirrored.

Is this the page in the display settings which you are referring to?

That Frescologic display adapter is probably the culprit. You will need to ensure there is only one display adapter in there, the one you need to feed your image to. Probably a good idea to completely erase all of the failed ones and maybe even just all of them and start over.

I uninstalled the Frescologic Display Adapter, the GPU names didn't change this time.

I ran the same benchmark again on my laptop.

It ran one of the tests (Cube) on the NVIDIA GPU and the other tests on the Integrated GPU. It says "unable to locate attached display".

Update drivers from the Asus website only.

What's the difference between the drivers from NVIDIA and ASUS? Aren't the NVIDIA drivers from ASUS the same as the NVIDIA drivers from NVIDIA?
Also, it looks like ASUS only has VGA drivers, I only have an HDMI port.

What program are you using for video editing? And is the GTX1050 supported by that software?

I'm using DaVinci Resolve, the GTX 1050 should be supported by it. Resolve is supported by the NVIDIA studio drivers.

Also, Blender needs to be setup to use the GPU, it doesn't just do it out of the box.

In Blender, open edit/preferences/system/cycles render devices

It seems to be fine.

The other thing with Blender is that Windows Task Manager by default doesn't show the load of Blender. You actually have to click on the little arrow next to "3D" in Task Manager and then select "Cuda" from the drop down. That will then show you the Cuda load on the GPU, which is what blender uses.

In the Task Manager, It doesn't give me an option to view the amount of "CUDA" processing.

The "utilization" value in task manager seems to show what HWINFO names "GPU D3D usage"
Check "GPU core load" in HWINFO or "GPU load" in GPU-Z.

I'll look into it.

Your driver 430.86 is out-of-date (actually R430 branch has reached EOL) .
Latest studio driver is 442.92

I've installed the 442.92 driver after I posted the image with the previous driver.

 

[Vayra86]

Oh shit, yeah... its a laptop and I always forget how every single one has its own ways to inspire suicidal madness

When all those options are not available, I think you are indeed stuck first with ASUS support and drivers before 'general' support on this subject. Asus' VGA driver is the one you want, make sure to get the right one though: the 'Creators' or the normal one, and whether or not you should have the DCH-version (which basically is the one offered through MS Store). If the laptop also started with a DCH driver, that is probably the only one Asus will offer up there, another confirmation you're stuck with whatever drivers they have on offer.

 

[SP4CEBAR]

Oh shit, yeah... its a laptop and I always forget how every single one has its own ways to inspire suicidal madness

When all those options are not available, I think you are indeed stuck first with ASUS support and drivers before 'general' support on this subject. Asus' VGA driver is the one you want, make sure to get the right one though: the 'Creators' or the normal one, and whether or not you should have the DCH-version (which basically is the one offered through MS Store). If the laptop also started with a DCH driver, that is probably the only one Asus will offer up there, another confirmation you're stuck with whatever drivers they have on offer.

Okay. So the problem is caused by the system itself? Also, how can I check whether or not my laptop has DCH drivers installed?

 

[Caring1]

What's the difference between the drivers from NVIDIA and ASUS? Aren't the NVIDIA drivers from ASUS the same as the NVIDIA drivers from NVIDIA?
Also, it looks like ASUS only has VGA drivers, I only have an HDMI port.

View attachment 155717

Most Motherboard sites refer to the display drivers as VGA drivers.

 

[SP4CEBAR]

Most Motherboard sites refer to the display drivers as VGA drivers.

Okay

 

[StefanM]

Also, how can I check whether or not my laptop has DCH drivers installed?

GPU-Z / advanced tab / general

 

[newtekie1]

In the Task Manager, It doesn't give me an option to view the amount of "CUDA" processing.

 

[SP4CEBAR]

View attachment 155751

How did I not see it.
It could be that it didn't appear the first time I looked for it.

GPU-Z / advanced tab / general

Thanks

I've installed the NVIDIA drivers from ASUS,

I ran the benchmark again

But still, it isn't using the NVIDIA GPU for all of the graphics tests.


I tested Blender again, and indeed it works just fine, but the task manager just doesn't display it.

But DaVinci Resolve still doesn't seem to use the GPU a lot

So, probably there's just nothing wrong with my gpu, but UserBenchmark and resolve just don't like using it a lot.

 

[SP4CEBAR]

Thanks for the patience, and replies.