Avast causing Nvidia GPU Clock Speeds to spike on 30 second intervals?

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1

So i noticed this the other day as i just got a new Nvidia Video card and i monitor such things. Avast is causing the video card ( Nvidia GTX 1070) which has a dynamic clock speed function called Boost 3.0 built into the card that allows it to change the clock speed of the GPU, Memory, and Voltage applied to the GPU depending on the demands put upon it, to fluctuate on basically exactly 30 second intervals.

At full idle the card GPU will sit at 164Mhz, however Avast is causing it to spike from 164Mhz to around 1560mhz pretty much on exactly 30 second intervals.
Like this.

http://i.imgur.com/zejkVPG.jpg

When i completely shut down Avast - not pause it but kill the AvastUI process, it stops happening every time.

http://i.imgur.com/USEGCzJ.jpg

And when i restart Avast, it starts happening again.

2

I think it’s MSI Afterburner ( video card utility ) /Avast actually.
In Avast Settings/General, scroll down to “Exclusions”, on the “File Paths” tab add the path to your Afterburner.exe folder.
It’s seemed to work.

3

Thanks for “solution” – it sounds like a process in MSI Afterburner folder generates operations Avast scans (file I/O, network, …). Is it possible to save some logs?

  1. download process monitor tool (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processmonitor.aspx)
  2. remove the folder from exclusion, run process monitor tool for some time when you see those spikes in MSI Afterburner
  3. save log in PML format (compress & upload it somewhere; or you can use our FTP: https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB160)

Thanks!

4

I have similar spikes after playing a particular game (Mafia II). After a reboot it is gone and the GPUs stay at idle.

This has been this way for a few years at least. I never thought of relating it to Avast. I figured it had something to do with running SLI on this specific game. On many other games this doesn’t happen afterwards.

I just tried adding the MSI Afterburner folder to the Avast exclusions but that made no difference.

https://s31.postimg.org/5un7sc357/nvidia_spikes.png

5

@Rundvleeskroket
Yep it’s back today. It did not work. Hmnn, well that’s weird because it flat lined when i did that for some time at least yesterday. Perhaps after i started gaming again it came back. Again totally Killing Avastui.exe seems to stop it, but i guess i will see how long that lasts. Avast is my only form of protection though. :-\

@pk
Thanks for the suggestion. Will get process monitor. That is exactly the type of thing i was looking for actually.

6

How did you kill Avastui.exe?

Maybe I can confirm on my machine if that stops the spiking.

7

Ok so after like 5 hours.

First thanks to pk above, i got process monitor ( knew something like this was out there, i think i used it back in Xp days )

So this is what i have figured out so far.

For me it is basically Avast/SKYRIM/Explorer.exe/NvidiaDriver. For some reason when i run Skyrim this starts happening.
I tried other games (Alien Isolation/Doom ) and it doesn’t happen, only with Skyrim ( for me ).

So i got Process Monitor and sat for hours messing with this in every combination imaginable, and what happens is - when i run Skyrim - after exiting, Windows Explorer keeps trying to load nvd3dumx.dll - which is Nvidia driver. It does so at pretty much 30 second intervals. I tried it without Afterburner, no RSS server - killed all those processes ( so no Afterburner at all ) and I used hardware monitor (external program like gpuz, cpuz ect) to correlate each time that Explorer tries to load the nvidia driver with the gpu spikes. Which turns out is consistent. Later i tried Afterburner and HW monitor together when i realized Afterburner has nothing to do with it.

I started thinking Avast is just doing what it’s supposed to and it was just Skyrim and or the Nvidia driver. However while perhaps not exclusively it is actually Avast that is causing it to occur, or a combination of those two, but without Avast it doesn’t happen. One thing we do not have in common is Nvidia driver version, if the screenshot you posted is current. I am running the newest 368.69 Gtx 1000 series drivers.

If you reboot, with everything running as normal and you haven’t played a game yet, it doesn’t happen ( to me ).
Only after i load Skyrim and exit… It may happen with other games but the only one that it happens that i tried is Skyrim, which is why i noticed it all of a sudden because i’d been playing it again.

In Avast i have put exclusions for everything in all areas that there were exclusions available to put! lol. Even is “special scan” ( Where there is an option for Screensaver and one for Explorer specifically ) including Skyrim, Nvidia Driver, Afterburner, System32 all to no avail. So not sure why that doesn’t work. Well, the only one i haven’t tried to exclude yet was explorer.exe itself but i will try it. Also i should try to turn off .dll scanning. Of course none of these are ideal and some are not even recommended at all. This is just for testing this.

So however when i do kill Avast completely, it stops happening. When Avast is not running and i start the entire process of playing the game, exiting ect, it does not occur after exiting Skyrim in process monitor. The kicker is, if you restart Avast without rebooting, it starts to do it. Which is weird. There’s a hook somewhere. Which might be the AvastSvc service, because you can’t just kill that in Task Manager.

So i have no solution but to reboot at the moment. You might try all this yourself - or not. But at least check what games you are playing when this starts to happen. I’m going to assume it only happens after you play some game, but not all games.

All you have to do is download process monitor - from the link pk posted above ( thanks again pk ), it’s a legit program. To make it easier to see what’s going on you want to filter it to show “processes and threads” only. At the top there’s like 4 little buttons for showing threads, registry actions, network activity. Just make it shows processes and threads, leave it open and play whatever game you think it’s causing it and watch to see if EXPLORER.EXE is trying to load NVd3dumx.dll like every 30 seconds.

Oh to kill Avastui.exe - Go into Avast Settings Trouble Shooting Disable “Self Defense Monitoring”

Do all this while off the internet of course ( close web browser ) you should be fine.

You might have to wait a minute or two for it to show up as if your pc starts doing other things there might be some delay in between when it shows. But if you have Afterburner up, you can see that the spikes happen when process monitor shows Explorer tries to load the Nv driver. Then Kill Avast and watch it all go away. Then restart Avast without reboot, and it comes back.

Incidentally i thought i might have something to do with Steam as well. But i tried another game in Steam and it didn’t occur. I only have 3 Steam Games loaded at the moment as Doom took up 50GB of HD space. :o
Here’s a screen shot.

http://i.imgur.com/4nlCxb3.jpg

8

Ok so i tried drastic measures.

I disabled ALL shields in Avast, all scans and protections, left all exclusions enabled including adding explorer.exe to the exclusions, but left Avastui.exe running.
Tried the game, exited, still happening in proc monitor.

So then i went into services and disabled Avastsvc completely, then killed it in task manager, also killed Avastui.exe.
Started game, exited. No issue.

Then i restarted Avast Service ONLY, and watched proc monitor, no issue.

Then i restarted Avastui.exe still with all shields disabled, self protection disabled all exclusions still enabled, everything unchecked in all scans and yes, the issue started right back up in proc monitor.

At this point i’m going to assume Avastui.exe does not like certain games or whatever and how they take or release the display driver.

Does Avastui.exe need to be running to have real time protections? It seemed like just enabling the Avast service looking at proc monitor that the service is what does all the work, and Avastui.exe is quite literally just the interface?

9

I can confirm the behaviour.

I played Mafia II for a couple of minutes and exited the game. Spikes in GPU power every 30 seconds or so afterwards. Killed Avastui.exe, spikes are gone. Restarted Avastui.exe, spikes started up again. Repeatable.

I don’t think the exact driver version is that important. As I’ve said: these spikes have been this way for years. But only after playing Mafia II, or I believe I once saw the same when I was futzing with a benchmark tool and SLI. Other than that, no spikes after all kinds of games over the years. GTA, GRID, Bioshock, etc. By the way, none of these games are Steam games. I don’t use Steam.

10

I’ll try with GPU-Z. Can you test with GPU-Z as well if it does the same GPU spikes?

11

My results. Two windows because two cards. Both spike after playing the game.

https://s31.postimg.org/kvgd5kbuj/spikes_gpuz.png

12

Can you please download Process Explorer (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx), right click on column title and add GPU usage? The only Avast process which uses GPU is AvastUI.exe and it is only active when UI is visible. When you run Task Manager (or Process Explorer), you’ll see that one AvastUI.exe process is always running (responsible for tray icon, etc) and the second one is initialized only when UI is visible (and this one could generate GPU usage). Thanks.

13

I just figured out my problem with GPU Shark: http://www.ozone3d.net/redirect.php?id=501

Use “Detailed mode” and look at processes at the bottom. In my case, after fiddling with listed processes, I figured out GOG Galaxy client was causing repetitive but small GPU usage spikes.

Actually, pk’s option is even better, it actually shows what process exactly is doing that.

14

Well last night i was in and out of Skyrim and photoshop all night and nothing was happening. I almost lost my mind with this so i decided to relax, but keep and eye on it. But i was thinking as it wasn’t happening, what did i do? Nothing. I did nothing to change it. Was it some bad code in the game? Is it a image viewer? Photoshop?

So i am about to go to bed and i’m thinking, well at least i don’t have to reboo…what…what’s this!.. It’s baaaack!, lol. And i had stopped paying attention like an hour before, lol. But i did nothing different really. In and out of the game creating textures, so literally in and out dozens of times andit wasn’t doing it for hours.

I have copied and attached a text log to this post the process and stack when Explorer calls the nv driver/dll.
Here is a snip of it though. Also understand that i did not open the avast ui at all, like i didn’t open it from the tray or anything, this is just the machine at idle.
Also i don’t see a way to show gpu usage in proc monitor? Right clicking on the columns title does not give me that option.

Description: Windows Explorer
Company: Microsoft Corporation
Name: Explorer.EXE
Version: 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255)
Path: C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
Command Line: C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
PID: 1444
Parent PID: 1412
Session ID: 1
User: This PC
Auth ID: 00000000:00022428
Architecture: 64-bit
Virtualized: False
Integrity: High
Started: 7/13/2016 1:17:51 PM
Ended: (Running)

Modules:
ashShA64.dll 0xa780000 0xfc000 C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\ashShA64.dll AVAST Software 12.1.3076.0 6/20/2016 4:51:55 AM

imageres.dll 0xd7d0000 0x13d5000 C:\windows\system32\imageres.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:28:21 PM

imageres.dll 0x53cc0000 0x13d5000 C:\windows\system32\imageres.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:28:21 PM

imageres.dll 0x5b1b0000 0x13d5000 C:\windows\system32\imageres.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:28:21 PM

nvshext.dll 0x5cdc0000 0x13000 C:\Windows\system32\nvshext.dll NVIDIA Corporation 368.69 6/29/2016 11:29:46 AM

FXSRESM.DLL 0x68980000 0xe3000 C:\Windows\system32\FXSRESM.DLL Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:28:06 PM

sfc.dll 0x6dd60000 0x3000 C:\Windows\System32\sfc.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:33:11 PM

ksuser.dll 0x6dd70000 0x6000 C:\Windows\system32\ksuser.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:31:21 PM

imagesp1.dll 0x6f6b0000 0xae000 C:\Windows\system32\imagesp1.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:28:23 PM

ashShA64.dll 0x72be0000 0xfc000 C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\ashShA64.dll AVAST Software 12.1.3076.0 6/20/2016 4:51:55 AM

MSVCR90.dll 0x74ca0000 0xa3000 C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft.vc90.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.6161_none_08e61857a83bc251\MSVCR90.dll Microsoft Corporation 9.00.30729.6161 4/18/2011 6:27:03 PM
USER32.dll 0x76f10000 0xfa000 C:\Windows\system32\USER32.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7601.17514 (win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850) 11/20/2010 6:15:29 AM

kernel32.dll 0x77010000 0x11f000 C:\Windows\system32\kernel32.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7601.18015 (win7sp1_gdr.121129-1432) 11/29/2012 10:43:54 PM

ntdll.dll 0x77130000 0x1a9000 C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 11/16/2011 11:32:46 PM

normaliz.DLL 0x772f0000 0x3000 C:\Windows\system32\normaliz.DLL Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 6:32:18 PM

PSAPI.DLL 0x77300000 0x7000 C:\Windows\system32\PSAPI.DLL Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 7/13/2009 4:26:21 PM

Explorer.EXE 0xffae0000 0x2c0000 C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 2/24/2011 9:24:04 PM

aswWrcIELoader64.exe 0x13f190000 0x1b000 C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWrcIELoader64.exe AVAST Software 12.1.7.0 6/15/2016 2:59:10 AM

aswWrcIELoader64.exe 0x13f310000 0x1b000 C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswWrcIELoader64.exe AVAST Software 12.1.7.0 6/15/2016 2:59:10 AM

peerblock.exe 0x13f690000 0x26e000 C:\Program Files\PeerBlock\peerblock.exe PeerBlock, LLC 1, 2, 0, 693 1/14/2014 8:24:48 PM

winrar.exe 0x13ff40000 0x1c9000 C:\Program Files\winrar\winrar.exe 2/17/2012 7:54:50 AM

RTSSHooks64.dll 0x180000000 0x6c000 C:\Program Files (x86)\RivaTuner Statistics Server\RTSSHooks64.dll 11/23/2015 9:44:01 AM

zipfldr.dll 0x7feea240000 0x5d000 C:\Windows\system32\zipfldr.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 11/20/2010 6:16:36 AM

NetworkExplorer.dll 0x7feea6e0000 0x19c000 C:\Windows\system32\NetworkExplorer.dll Microsoft Corporation 6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255) 11/20/2010 6:09:49 AM

StructuredQuery.dll 0x7feea880000 0x7b000 C:\Windows\System32\StructuredQuery.dll Microsoft Corporation 7.00.7601.17514 (win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850) 11/20/2010 6:14:47 AM

nvd3dumx.dll 0x7feef690000 0x1078000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\nvd3dumx.dll NVIDIA Corporation 10.18.13.6869 6/29/2016 10:12:10 AM

nvd3dumx.dll 0x7fef0710000 0x1078000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\nvd3dumx.dll NVIDIA Corporation 10.18.13.6869 6/29/2016 10:12:10 AM

15

In Process Explorer AvastUI.exe does not show any GPU usage. Not even when the spikes are happening in Afterburner. Also, it only shows one copy of the executable running, not two. Even with the Avast window open and running a scan, there is just one AvastUI.exe. Both in Process Explorer and in Task Manager.

16

Process Explorer is not the same piece of software as Process Monitor.

17

Ah ok, i missed that, thank you.

18

Well, I have moved to a different AV and this problem is gone. Unfortunate as i been using Avast for 10 years and really like it. May check back at a later date.