Hello everyone,
 
I am having some weird problems lately. Dota 2 runs machine fovery smooth r the past year and recently all of a sudden, fps sometimes drops and stays at 20fps~, almost a slidshow i'd call it. I have EVGA Precision running when this happens, and it shows me that:

• Powe drops to almost idle (around 30%)
• GPU Clock drops from 1176 (max gpu clocl MHz) to 324 (which i believe is idle)
•  Memory Clock also dropping to almost idle MHz

I haven't overclocked either the 660 or the CPU.
 
When this happens, the temperature of the 660 is pretty much the same as it always used to run very well, around 65 Degrees, and therefore I dont believe it's an overheating effect. I tried rebooting the game and it still have a insanly low fps, definately not normal!
 
The only way so far i have figured to temporarily solve it is to restart windows and the fps will return back to normal (constant 60). Is there anything else I need to provide to find the problem?
 
Thanks in Advance!
 
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Mobo: MSI 970-G45
RAM: 8GB
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1065T @ 2.90 GHz
GPU: EVGA Nvidia GTX 660 TI
Nvidia Driver: 337.88 (Latest one)

rjohnson11
Your motherboard BIOS is up to date? What are your GPU temps at idle and under load?

Yep, BIOS all is up to date. Idle Temperature is around 28C , and when running very demanding games, 70C.

I would uninstall Precision, choosing not to save settings when prompted and then perform a Custom (Advanced) clean installation using the latest driver, selecting only to install the PhysX System Software along with the Graphics Driver (you can install any of the other optional driver components later if needed/wanted)..Reboot, install Precision and see how it works..If the problem still exists you can try using Display Driver Uninstaller to uninstall the driver and all the optional driver components using the Clean and restart (Highly Recommended) option before installing the Graphics Driver, PhysX and Precision again..You can try using MSI Afterburner (which has more features than Precision) if you want to..Always temporarily disable your antivirus software during the driver uninstall/install..Always reboot after the driver install even if not prompted to do so.

bob16314
I would uninstall Precision, choosing not to save settings when prompted and then perform a Custom (Advanced) clean installation using the latest driver, selecting only to install the PhysX System Software along with the Graphics Driver (you can install any of the other optional driver components later if needed/wanted)..Reboot, install Precision and see how it works..If the problem still exists you can try using Display Driver Uninstaller to uninstall the driver and all the optional driver components using the Clean and restart (Highly Recommended) option before installing the Graphics Driver, PhysX and Precision again..You can try using MSI Afterburner (which has more features than Precision) if you want to..Always temporarily disable your antivirus software during the driver uninstall/install..Always reboot after the driver install even if not prompted to do so.

 
Thanks Bob, i will try doing what you have said, will report back to see if i see any changes.

Gomez99
Under global settings in the NVidia control panel, set power management mode to "Prefer maximum performance"

Alright, i changed it to Prefer maximum performace, will see if it stops happening.

bob16314
Yes, after the clean install of the driver and Precision (to rules those out) you can apply the Prefer maximum performance setting either globally or game-specific in Manage 3D settings -> Program Settings..That will prevent the GPU from going below it's base clockspeed.
 
There's quite a few hits of "Dota 2 low FPS" you'll see if you search that phrase, like here for just one example..You might wanna browse through some for a fix if the above doesn't solve your issue.

After reinstalling a clean 337.88, with serveral retarts to separate the driver, PhySX, 3d Driver and HD Audio driveretc. And also changed the performance settings. FPS suddenly dropped after 2.5 hours after playing Dota 2. Had to restart to bring it back to normal.
 
EDIT: I will try and provide images of MSI Afterburner Graphs as it suddenly drops

I have captured what exactly happened with MSI Afterburner, here is the logs when it suddenly dropped from 60 smooth fps to 20 stuttering fps. 
 
http://i.imgur.com/jEOpcwY.png
 
I haven't been playing other games much recently, so i really do not know if it is only Dota 2 it is occuring in or in every other games or application which is somewhat demanding. However i forgot to mention that after it starts to drop in fps, it also affect other applications, even firefox when i am currently posting this, it causes everything to load slower and stutters.
 
Thanks.

Sounds like a driver/software related issue , if reinstalling graphics driver and  setting prefer maximum performance did not help , then you can rule out graphics driver for the most part. Does this only happen in certain games ? , have you tried to roll back to a previous graphic driver you may have been using at the time it ran normally?

Have you tried testing the card in another system to see if the issue follows the card? If not, try it.