GT80 (i7-4980HQ) - Downloading slows the laptop down

Hi guys and gals!

I was wondering if you can offer any advice here...

I have got the GT80 with the i7-4980HQ (the "2QE" model); upgraded from the GT70 Dragon Edition 2 Extreme with the i7-4930MX CPU.

The issue I have (which I never experienced on the GT70), is that downloads slow down the machine. Whether the download is performed in Chrome, Steam, or the battle.net client....... boom. Essentially, the FPS in a game will drop to a stupid level (from 60FPS to about 9FPS), and the mouse will be very sluggish. If I am not playing a game, the mouse will sometimes be laggy on the Windows desktop.

I have noticed that Thread 1 of the CPU is between 90 - 100% throughout the entire duration of the download. But seriously guys... why is a download maxing out a CPU thread... and why on this laptop but not the other, when this beats it in every possible category?

The Steam client has games installed on both the SSD and HDD... the battle.net client is installed on SSD... and the Chrome downloads take place to the SSD.

I was using the Norton Antivirus suite that came with the laptop initially, then I switched it over to Avast. The issue occurred for both of these antivirus suites.

My broadband runs at about 100 mbit, and my downloads from battle.net and Steam are between 40 mbit and 80 mbit per second..... so the data comes in pretty quick.

My router was a "wireless n" router; I have switched to a "wireless ac" now and still get the same issue.

I am running the latest chipset drivers, nvidia driver, and Killer DoubleShot Pro drivers.

I really appreciate any advice you can provide, or whether other users are also experiencing this same issue.

Cheers.

 

Hi

This issue is very strange...

Have you reinstall Windows properly ?

Have you chech your SSD/HDD connections ?

 

It could be a corrupted driver definitely. do you have any system interrupt process running?

 

Something similar to what you describe has happened to me once with steam. I was downloading and installing games and assumed something was using my cpu. I will see if I can reproduce the situation.

 

Have you tried a different browser?

 

I found out, that at least for me, the issue was with Avast antivirus. I noticed that when I played borderlands, the computer was always getting hot, and afterwards when closing it, utilization remained in thr 10 to 20%.

At some point, the CPU went full 100% utilization, and it was the avast web service or something like that. After uninstalling it, I can play borderlands 2 with 5 to 10 degrees less, and I don't currently experience the utilization issue when not gaming.

 

I had serious problems using AVAST also so everyone keep this one on your radar.

 

I always use AVG free... never a problem for about 5 years.

 

Does this happen with all games or just online games.

 

Sorry for the "missingness"... but I just wanted to confirm my findings before I posted. I seem to have solved this by changing the driver of the Killer DoubleShot wifi card. When I change the driver, it gives me two different drivers to choose from:

1. Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1525 Wireless Network Adapter
2. Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4 Wireless Network Adapter

Option 1 is the driver that is present already... but for some reason, switching to 2 (in my case) solved all the slowdown. The best test was downloading GTA V from Steam, which I was able to do at 14 Mbytes per sec, all the while playing World of Warcraft with full 60 FPS and an 80ms ping.

So for now... I will say this is closed.

Thanks for your suggestions guys.

 

Glad to hear your finding. I am inclined to test your same findings and see if I get any different experience when downloading games.