audiodg.exe High CPU usage
- Thread starter EvilGrins
- Start date
It just has a much higher usage than the other tasks that I see so I was just wondering if that's a normal thing or if something else is causing it?
Also another question. When I'm playing games my fan blows out warm air, not necessarily cool air but not hot either it's just a warm flow. Could that mean my PC is overheating?
Also another question. When I'm playing games my fan blows out warm air, not necessarily cool air but not hot either it's just a warm flow. Could that mean my PC is overheating?
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Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
Well, I can't tell you specifically what it's doing with 0.2% of your CPU and 16MB of RAM, but I'm pretty sure it's entirely normal.
It's a tiny fraction of what watching a youtube video would require of your system's resources.
I wouldn't worry about it in the slightest.
It's a tiny fraction of what watching a youtube video would require of your system's resources.
I wouldn't worry about it in the slightest.
Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
No.
It's supposed to blow out warm air, or else all the heat would be stuck in your case. If you think that room temperature is going to be 19-23 degrees and your CPU is going to be running at 30-40 degrees even on pretty light loads, it's going to be warm air coming out.
Plus your GPU may well be getting used a bit as well by various programs that use hardware acceleration. E.g. browsers and windows apps like Film and TV, the News app, even the calculator. Even if you're not running those apps they can run in the background and use the GPU. That's not a problem, but it can cause the GPU to not be entirely idle even if under a very low load, and produce a bit of heat too.
You can monitor your temperatures with something like Realtemp.
Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
What might put your mind at ease would be to download and run Valley benchmark / stress test: https://benchmark.unigine.com/valley
and/or 3dmark's Firestrike or Timespy benchmark. Run those while logging temps with Realtemp.
Check the temps and if they're all alright, then your system can probably handle anything that's thrown at it Since they're designed to produce maximum loads on your PC, beyond what you might often expect from general gaming.
GPU temps of around 83 degrees or below are fine for a 1080. CPU temps below around, say, 80 are fine. The odd spike higher into the 80s is also fine. Though I'd be surprised if a stock 7700k got that high with a NH U14S cooler.
and/or 3dmark's Firestrike or Timespy benchmark. Run those while logging temps with Realtemp.
Check the temps and if they're all alright, then your system can probably handle anything that's thrown at it
Since they're designed to produce maximum loads on your PC, beyond what you might often expect from general gaming.GPU temps of around 83 degrees or below are fine for a 1080. CPU temps below around, say, 80 are fine. The odd spike higher into the 80s is also fine. Though I'd be surprised if a stock 7700k got that high with a NH U14S cooler.
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Hey I tried to message you about something else but I can't so I'll just ask here. Should I unpark my CPU cores? You already know my specs from the last thread that I made so I'm wondering if I should unpark my CPU cores since I didn't yet. Are there any downsides to doing that? Could it increase the load on my CPU or reduce lifespan?
I ran the Valley benchmark and inside the Valley the temperature peaked at 75 on ultra, but during the test I was looking at Realtemp and that stayed at around 45 :S
This is why I hate buying new PC's my mind is just constantly worrying because of the amount of money I spent on it
This is why I hate buying new PC's my mind is just constantly worrying because of the amount of money I spent on it
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keynes
Multiverse Poster
I ran the Valley benchmark and inside the Valley the temperature peaked at 75 on ultra, but during the test I was looking at Realtemp and that stayed at around 45 :S
This is why I hate buying new PC's my mind is just constantly worrying because of the amount of money I spent on it
Are you concerned about the temperatures? 75 degrees seems fine at full load. Why do you want to unpark your cpu? Are you having issues running games?
I just feel distressed about playing games for extended periods of time and potentially ruining my PC. I don't go outside much so as you can imagine my PC is pretty much going to be in use alot. I'm just worried about playing games for lets say.. 8 hours a day? If I'm to repeat that process for example, 3 months, AFTER my warranty has ended and then something goes wrong because of the amount of load being put on my hardware I feel like I've wasted so much money and I don't want that to happen!
I also had an issue with my sound jack. When I plugged my headphones in the sound was all muffled and loud. I seemed to have fixed it now but I'm scared to remove my headphones incase it does it again and then there's the implications of having to potentially send the PC back for repair which could get damaged in transit and then it would be my fault and I wouldn't have a PC anymore.. Just so many thing that I'm worried about
I also had an issue with my sound jack. When I plugged my headphones in the sound was all muffled and loud. I seemed to have fixed it now but I'm scared to remove my headphones incase it does it again and then there's the implications of having to potentially send the PC back for repair which could get damaged in transit and then it would be my fault and I wouldn't have a PC anymore.. Just so many thing that I'm worried about
keynes
Multiverse Poster
Which warranty do you currently have? If you got standard warranty you wouldn't be able to upgrade your warranty. If you got silver you can contact PCS to upgrade to gold or platinum
keynes
Multiverse Poster
Usually silver warranty is recommended as it is £5. With standard warranty you are covered by 1 year for parts but you need to send the pc at your own expense. With silver warranty shipping cost are included and you have 9 months to upgrade to gold (2 years parts) and platinum (3 years parts). You could try contacting PCS if they could be flexible with the timings, they don't have any obligation to upgrade your warranty but they may be a bit lenient with their T&C if you ask nicely
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Stop worrying! Yes, you paid a lot of money for it because you need it to perform. Will using it on a high load for 8 hours a day every day shorten the lifespan compared to using it only lightly for one hour a day? Probably...but by how much nobody can really tell you. The lifespan of integrated circuit components is not an exact science and stuff breaks, sometimes sooner that you'd have expected. That said, you bought the PC to do a job and it would truly be a waste of your money if you then didn't use it to do that job, so if 8 hours a day gaming is what you bought it to do then do that and stop worrying about it.
The one thing I would say is that the single biggest enemy to electronic components is heat, hopefully you have decent cooling on your CPU/GPU and in the PC case. Be sure that the exhaust air can get away from the components and out of the case, so don't keep it in an enclosed cupboard for example and ensure it has a good space for air movement all around it. Open it up every few months and see how dusty it looks inside, especially on the fan blades. A dusty fan is much less effective at removing hot air than a clean one (read up on turbulence if you want to know why) so dusty fans mean your PC runs hotter. If you can see dust inside anywhere get a soft brush and a can of low pressure compressed air (made for cleaning computers) and use the brush and the air to tease the dust off the fan blades, and from anywhere else you can find it, but especially away from finned heat exchangers, vents, and the like. You want it spotless inside.
If you keep the insides clean and you ensure that air can flow freely around and away from the case there is no reason why you shouldn't expect it to run well gaming for 8 hours a day for a good many years.
One more thing, and you won't thank me much for saying this, but you do need to get out. Eight hours a day every day on a PC whether gaming or not isn't good for your eyes, your heart, your fitness, or your social skills. Gaming is great fun (so I'm told, I don't game myself) but like everything in life, it needs to be used in moderation. I don't know how old you are but it's vitally important for your future career prospects (whatever they are) that you develop good interpersonal skills, and you can only do that by getting out and interacting with people.
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Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
1)
If you don't have a specific need to apply a particular solution or modification to how your PC runs, then don't do it
2)
This is what the various values on Realtemp mean: (apologies if you already know this)
You said the temp was lower on Realtemp? If you alt-tabbed out to realtemp while running Valley in fullscreen, then the GPU's load will instantly drop as you alt-tab out (because it's no longer producing the Valley) and the temp will drop because it's suddenly idling. To get around this you can click "Settings" in Realtemp and tick the Log File box. This then records temps to a file.
The CPU temps will generally be lower in Valley as well, since Valley behaves like a game and stresses the GPU more than the CPU. If it was the CPU temp you were looking at and that stayed around 45 degrees that is very low for a CPU on gaming load.
3)
Remember too that this is a desktop, not a laptop. In the absolute worst case scenario where something like the motherboard fails outside the warranty, you can just replace it, and keep all the rest of your components.
The 3 year warranty costs £135. A Z170/Z270 motherboard costs ~£100-£150 at the moderate range of the spectrum. Obviously without the Platinum warranty there's the faff of having to do it yourself, but on the other hand there's the greater-than-99% chance that the motherboard isn't going to die and you don't need to replace it. Also for that £135 to do you any good, you'd need the mobo or whatever to fail between months 13 and 36 of the PC's lifespan. You're already covered for the first year, and even the Platinum warranty doesn't cover you for the time after the 3rd year anyway.
Also, while replacing something like the mobo is a lot of faff and I could see someone wanting PCS to do that for them, if your RAM, or an HDD or something failed PCS would probably just post you a new item for you to fit yourself (assuming you were agreeable to that) so that you didn't have to ship your PC off and be without it for 2 weeks.
So you'd have paid £135 for someone to post you a 1TB HDD, which you could just buy for £40 on Ebuyer anyway.
Furthermore, the components all have manufacturer warranties as well as the warranty from PCS. The terms of these may vary, and I'm not sure if some would claim these only apply to retail rather than parts in assembled systems, but there may also be some recourse there that doesn't involve you having to buy a new component at full price.
TL-DR: The platinum warranty isn't necessarily worth it when most of your components individually cost less than it does anyway.
4)
It sounds to me like your PC is fine.
- It runs Valley without crashing
- the temps you're quoted are well below the maximums of what those components are comfortable with,
- other than a sound output issue that you resolved by tweaking some settings (so it probably wasn't faulty hardware causing it) it's all been 100%.
I would say load up some games and take it out for a spin.
I've seen unparking CPU cores hailed as some kind of bizarre mystical voodoo thing that everyone "should" do to enhance their gaming experience. Whereas 99.995% of people don't need to do this and never have a problem because they didn't. Probably more than 99.995% since I doubt even 1 in 20,000 gamers do this.
If you don't have a specific need to apply a particular solution or modification to how your PC runs, then don't do it
2)
Valley only displays the GPU temp, whereas Realtemp monitors the CPU and GPU temps. However, 75 degrees in Valley is more than fine for a GTX 1080.
This is what the various values on Realtemp mean: (apologies if you already know this)
You said the temp was lower on Realtemp? If you alt-tabbed out to realtemp while running Valley in fullscreen, then the GPU's load will instantly drop as you alt-tab out (because it's no longer producing the Valley) and the temp will drop because it's suddenly idling. To get around this you can click "Settings" in Realtemp and tick the Log File box. This then records temps to a file.
The CPU temps will generally be lower in Valley as well, since Valley behaves like a game and stresses the GPU more than the CPU. If it was the CPU temp you were looking at and that stayed around 45 degrees that is very low for a CPU on gaming load.
3)
Remember too that this is a desktop, not a laptop. In the absolute worst case scenario where something like the motherboard fails outside the warranty, you can just replace it, and keep all the rest of your components.
The 3 year warranty costs £135. A Z170/Z270 motherboard costs ~£100-£150 at the moderate range of the spectrum. Obviously without the Platinum warranty there's the faff of having to do it yourself, but on the other hand there's the greater-than-99% chance that the motherboard isn't going to die and you don't need to replace it. Also for that £135 to do you any good, you'd need the mobo or whatever to fail between months 13 and 36 of the PC's lifespan. You're already covered for the first year, and even the Platinum warranty doesn't cover you for the time after the 3rd year anyway.
Also, while replacing something like the mobo is a lot of faff and I could see someone wanting PCS to do that for them, if your RAM, or an HDD or something failed PCS would probably just post you a new item for you to fit yourself (assuming you were agreeable to that) so that you didn't have to ship your PC off and be without it for 2 weeks.
So you'd have paid £135 for someone to post you a 1TB HDD, which you could just buy for £40 on Ebuyer anyway.
Furthermore, the components all have manufacturer warranties as well as the warranty from PCS. The terms of these may vary, and I'm not sure if some would claim these only apply to retail rather than parts in assembled systems, but there may also be some recourse there that doesn't involve you having to buy a new component at full price.
TL-DR: The platinum warranty isn't necessarily worth it when most of your components individually cost less than it does anyway.
4)
I'd agree with this.
It sounds to me like your PC is fine.
- It runs Valley without crashing
- the temps you're quoted are well below the maximums of what those components are comfortable with,
- other than a sound output issue that you resolved by tweaking some settings (so it probably wasn't faulty hardware causing it) it's all been 100%.
I would say load up some games and take it out for a spin.
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keynes
Multiverse Poster
1) I've seen unparking CPU cores hailed as some kind of bizarre mystical voodoo thing that everyone "should" do to enhance their gaming experience. Whereas 99.995% of people don't need to do this and never have a problem because they didn't. Probably more than 99.995% since I doubt even 1 in 20,000 gamers do this.
If you don't have a specific need to apply a particular solution or modification to how your PC runs, then don't do it
2) Valley only displays the GPU temp, whereas Realtemp monitors the CPU and GPU temps. However, 75 degrees in Valley is more than fine for a GTX 1080.
This is what the various values on Realtemp mean: (apologies if you already know this)
View attachment 10259
You said the temp was lower on Realtemp? If you alt-tabbed out to realtemp while running Valley in fullscreen, then the GPU's load will instantly drop as you alt-tab out (because it's no longer producing the Valley) and the temp will drop because it's suddenly idling. To get around this you can click "Settings" in Realtemp and tick the Log File box. This then records temps to a file.
The CPU temps will generally be lower in Valley as well, since Valley behaves like a game and stresses the GPU more than the CPU. If it was the CPU temp you were looking at and that stayed around 45 degrees that is very low for a CPU on gaming load.
3)
Remember too that this is a desktop, not a laptop. In the absolute worst case scenario where something like the motherboard fails outside the warranty, you can just replace it, and keep all the rest of your components.
The 3 year warranty costs £135. A Z170/Z270 motherboard costs ~£100-£150 at the moderate range of the spectrum. Obviously without the Platinum warranty there's the faff of having to do it yourself, but on the other hand there's the greater-than-99% chance that the motherboard isn't going to die and you don't need to replace it. Also for that £135 to do you any good, you'd need the mobo or whatever to fail between months 13 and 36 of the PC's lifespan. You're already covered for the first year, and even the Platinum warranty doesn't cover you for the time after the 3rd year anyway.
Also, while replacing something like the mobo is a lot of faff and I could see someone wanting PCS to do that for them, if your RAM, or an HDD or something failed PCS would probably just post you a new item for you to fit yourself (assuming you were agreeable to that) so that you didn't have to ship your PC off and be without it for 2 weeks.
So you'd have paid £135 for someone to post you a 1TB HDD, which you could just buy for £40 on Ebuyer anyway.
Furthermore, the components all have manufacturer warranties as well as the warranty from PCS. The terms of these may vary, and I'm not sure if some would claim these only apply to retail rather than parts in assembled systems, but there may also be some recourse there that doesn't involve you having to buy a new component at full price.
TL-DR: The platinum warranty isn't necessarily worth it when most of your components individually cost less than it does anyway.
4)
I'd agree with this.
It sounds to me like your PC is fine.
- It runs Valley without crashing
- the temps you're quoted are well below the maximums of what those components are comfortable with,
- other than a sound output issue that you resolved by tweaking some settings (so it probably wasn't faulty hardware causing it) it's all been 100%.
I would say load up some games and take it out for a spin.
I see the warranty as providing peace of mind not as a way of measuring how much value for money you can get as failure with components is unexpected. First desktop I got I had the gpu, cpu cooler and SSD replaced under warranty. For a laptop just the keyboard. In my case is more to do with the speed of replacement (next day delivery of a PSU or hard drive) and to avoid the hassle of emailing the manufacturer directly, proof of purchase, troubleshoot, etc.... for me it is not essential but if I am spending £1500+ I want to feel I am protecting my purchase.
Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
There certainly is the peace of mind element.
Under my warranty I had both CPU cooler fans replaced, the CPU replaced, and the PSU replaced. But that was all within the first 12 months and was covered under the £5 silver warranty. The Platinum warranty would have made no difference.
The replacement PSU developed an issue after that expired but my RM850i was still a lot cheaper than the platinum warranty, and was an upgrade in terms of quality, wattage, noise, and supporting Corsair link.
As for troubleshooting issues and arranging RMAs I've had no worse or slower a time dealing with EVGA directly for other components than I have PCS. Obviously that's a YMMV thing.
Edit: It also occurs to me that if debating hassle, it can be simpler as well as cheaper to just buy a new component. If my HDD develops the click of death it's quicker to buy a new one in a few mouse clicks than it is to phone up PCS, wait in a queue, explain the situation, do any troubleshooting they want, and then arrange delivery of a new item. They'd probably also want to collect the defunct one so I'd need to factor in wiping it first. Whereas if I buy a replacement I can deal with the dying one in my own time. Obviously that's just one scenario, but I do think the reduced hassle argument swings both ways to some extent.
The point is that while it can provide peace of mind, it can also unnecessarily waste your money, and that's a decision the OP would need to weigh up.
Under my warranty I had both CPU cooler fans replaced, the CPU replaced, and the PSU replaced. But that was all within the first 12 months and was covered under the £5 silver warranty. The Platinum warranty would have made no difference.
The replacement PSU developed an issue after that expired but my RM850i was still a lot cheaper than the platinum warranty, and was an upgrade in terms of quality, wattage, noise, and supporting Corsair link.
As for troubleshooting issues and arranging RMAs I've had no worse or slower a time dealing with EVGA directly for other components than I have PCS. Obviously that's a YMMV thing.
Edit: It also occurs to me that if debating hassle, it can be simpler as well as cheaper to just buy a new component. If my HDD develops the click of death it's quicker to buy a new one in a few mouse clicks than it is to phone up PCS, wait in a queue, explain the situation, do any troubleshooting they want, and then arrange delivery of a new item. They'd probably also want to collect the defunct one so I'd need to factor in wiping it first. Whereas if I buy a replacement I can deal with the dying one in my own time. Obviously that's just one scenario, but I do think the reduced hassle argument swings both ways to some extent.
The point is that while it can provide peace of mind, it can also unnecessarily waste your money, and that's a decision the OP would need to weigh up.
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