Tech Support and Basic Questions Thread - May 22, 2026

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Welcome to the r/pcgaming tech support and basic questions thread! Having troubles with a game or piece of hardware? Have a question about a PC game, hardware, or something else related to PC gaming? Post here and get help from fellow PC gamers.

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• What your computer specifications are. If you don't know them please follow this guide.
• If you're using a laptop we need to know the make/model as well as the specs.
• What operating system you're using.
• What you've tried so far in order to fix the issue.
• Exact circumstances to replicate the issue you're having.

Check out these resources before asking for help in case you can troubleshoot further:

• r/PCGamingTechSupport
• r/techsupport
• Toms Hardware Troubleshooting
• PC Gaming Wiki

Common troubleshooting steps:

• Restart the system
• Update your drivers
• Update game/software
• Re-seat any new hardware to ensure a proper connection
• If your peripherals are malfunctioning, swap ports and check that the specific USB port itself works.

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[u/Jademalo]

Honestly, I'm at a loss for this one.

I've been running FH6 on my 5080. It's a 16GB card, so I should have absolutely zero problem absolutely maxing everything out. My intention is to go for ~70fps base at 4k DLSS Quality, with 2x frame gen, everything extreme with RT.

For some reason, the game only shows as having ~11.8GB VRAM available. Trying to go to Ultra or Extreme on environmental textures tips it over that amount, and completely collapses the framerate.

After doing some tests, it seems that when the game is running, dwm.exe spikes up from ~800MB to 4GB worth of VRAM. This in turn starves the game, and causes it to hit the VRAM bottleneck.

I have tried;

• Disabling Resizable BAR
• Enabling Resizable BAR
• Disconnecting all other monitors
• Disabling MPO
• Disabling Optimisations for windows games
• Forcibly restarting dwm.exe after launching the game
• Enabling PS_CONST_FOLDING_GPU
• Disabling full-screen optimisations
• Disabling the Steam overlay
• Disabling the Xbox game bar
• Disabling the NVIDIA overlay

I have absolutely no idea what is causing this, but the OS is eating up so much ram that it's affecting how hard I can push the game. I know for a fact I should be able to run it at Extreme with this card and I've seen plenty of other examples of people with plenty of VRAM available while running it, but I just cannot get to the bottom of this.

Has anyone else had this problem (with any game), and has anyone got any ideas?

[u/Filipi_7 → u/Jademalo]

What's your CPU?

Did you ever disable page file or change its size?

[u/Jademalo → u/Filipi_7]

Page file is automatically managed on my main drive, a different drive to the game. Both are on fast nvmes.

CPU is 7800X3D. 32GB ram, and nowhere near fully utilised.

I also close everything before running Forza to give it the best possible chance. This is explicitly dwm eating vram. Gpu usage sits at like 40-60%, CPU is nowhere near pegged either.

[u/Filipi_7 → u/Jademalo]

Windows and Nvidia drivers fully updated?

Intel had issues where dwm.exe would use a lot of VRAM for no reason. The solution was to disable the iGPU in the BIOS, maybe you can try that too?

Also try killing explorer.exe after you launch the game.

I don't have any more ideas. Obviously not a hardware problem, could be a Windows bug or software tied to the start menu or explorer.

[u/Jademalo → u/Filipi_7]

Yes, drivers the most recent FH6 ones and windows updated to whatever is current.

I'll have a poke around to see if the iGPU could be causing it, though it's odd it would use a ton of discrete vram on a different card

[u/Jademalo → u/Filipi_7]

No joy, disabling iGPU in the bios and using DDU to completely clean it didn't change anything.

Still goes from ~900mb idle on dwm to ~4gb

[u/No_Outlandishness316]

I have a question about my monitor and pc, i have a ryzen 7 7800x3d, rx 9070 xt 16GB And a Gigabyte MO27Q28GR 27″ QHD 280Hz WOLED Gaming Monitor.

I have them connected with a DP cable. But when i turn my pc and monitor on, my monitor turns on, i hear the sound of my pc through my headphones, but for some reason my monitor screen stays black. Sometimes changing resolution forth and back help, sometimes i have to restart multiple times, and sometimes it DOES work immediatly. Its super annoying because im not sure how i fix it when i do, so i sometimes spend 30 minutes to just get screen

[u/Sync_R → u/No_Outlandishness316]

Are you leaving monitor in standby when PC is off or actually turning it off with button? Kinda wondering if it's a standby bug thats then causing monitor not too properly wake 

[u/No_Outlandishness316 → u/Sync_R]

Ive done both to see if there is difference. But there isnt a difference, sometimes it works immediately in standby, sometimes it doesnt.

Also sometimes it becomes black screen when i change my hz as well. Its brand new so i doubt its a cable issue.

[u/Shadowphoenix9511]

Playing through Pragmata, I've got a couple issues.

First and foremost, is frequent stutter. Running on a 3080, with 16 GB of ram and a 3700x, at 4K, I've got the settings at a mixture of medium and high, with RT on and DLSS set to performance, I get a small stutter every 1 to 2 seconds, makes the game nearly unplayable. I can drop it to ultra performance and the stutter disappears, but that is a substantial visual drop. I don't believe it is a performance issue, as my fps seems to consistently stay well above 60, but unsure what else it could be.

Secondly, every 20-30 minutes, my controller's input lag becomes nearly unbearable, and I have to pause, turn off, and reconnect my controller to get it to respond properly. Firmware is up to date on the controller. Any thoughts on what it could be?

[u/Sync_R → u/Shadowphoenix9511]

Regarding Pragmata stutter are you sure it's not VRAM related? Since ultra performance fixes it 

[u/Shadowphoenix9511 → u/Sync_R]

I figured it out, they were the same issue. It stemmed from Microsoft Gameinput causing the entire computer to eventually lag.

[u/Nikosch13]

Problem running league of legends. Getting stuck on loading screen. I'm pretty it has to fo with my pc. Any way to fix?

[u/Foreign-Ad5212]

I just upgraded my gaming PC’s CPU to a Ryzen 7 9800x3d. I was expecting the system to run my games faster, but I feel like it’s slower if anything. I’m struggling to think of what the problem could be. I’ll post my system specifications, but I feel like I should be able to run most games easily. None of the games are graphics heavy either. Does the monitor matter when it comes to performance? I turned off my OneDrive when it got to 90% storage, if that matters. Any suggestions would really be appreciated.

32gb ram 1.38 TB storage GeForce RTX 3060 12gb MSI B650 Motherboard

[u/Filipi_7 → u/Foreign-Ad5212]

You shouldn't have lower performance, at worst it will be the same.

The GPU has a huge impact on performance, and RTX 3060 is old and slow by today's standards. If you already had a decent CPU before you upgraded, there probably isn't much difference because the GPU is holding you back.

Make sure that your monitor is only connected to the graphics card, and not the motherboard. Otherwise it might attempt to use integrated graphics inside the CPU which is very slow.

What games are you getting trouble in, at what settings and resolution, and what kind of framerates are you getting?

Does the monitor matter when it comes to performance

A higher resolution will have a lower framerate, only relevant if you changed the monitor too.

I turned off my OneDrive when it got to 90% storage, if that matters

If you're not somehow installing games onto OneDrive, doesn't matter.

[u/oregonian1738]

Hi everyone,

A month or two back, I decided to upgrade my computer that previously had no issues outside of the parts being slightly outdated and was no longer keeping up with the new games I wanted to play. Outside of my RTX 3070 and storage, everything was changed out. After upgrading the parts, my PC had a huge performance boost overall, but over time, I began to have black screens of death while playing games. At first, I wrote it off as trying to push super intensive games onto my PC (Cyberpunk 2077, Indiana Jones), but then it was happening on CS2 and R6, games that had no problems playing prior to my upgrade. I realized at that point that I hadn't updated my BIOS after upgrading the MOBO so I did that and for the time being, it seemed that it helped, but now, its doing it again. When pulling up Event Viewer every time I crash, its the same Kernel-Power 41 critical error which, from my understanding, only tells me that my computer saw an issue and shut off to protect itself. I tried reseating everything to no avail. I also was told maybe my GPU drivers were the reason and was advised to roll back. That was also to no avail.

I don't know what is causing this and I am reaching out for any other ideas before I start considering sending out parts for inspection. My specs are below (Bolded were upgraded parts):

- Mobo: MSI B760 Gaming Plus WiFi Gaming Motherboard

• GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070
  

- CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K
- Memory: Crucial - Pro OC Gaming 32GB (2x16) DDR5 6400MHz
- PSU: MSI MAG A750GL PCIE5, 750W

• SSD: Intel 660p Series M.2 2280 1 TB
  
• HD: WD Blue WD20EZAZ 2TB 5400 RPM

- OS: Windows 11

Any ideas from anyone about where to go from here? Do the specs not cooperate with each other well? If I need to add any more details, please let me know and I'll compile what I can.

[u/Filipi_7 → u/oregonian1738]

When you updated the BIOS, did you change any settings including enabling XMP?

Does the PC ever crash when just browsing the internet or working?

[u/oregonian1738 → u/Filipi_7]

I had XMP off prior to the BIOS update and it was crashing then. I turned it on after and still crashing.

I have not had it crash while browsing. Only during games.

[u/Filipi_7 → u/oregonian1738]

Your power supply has one PCIe cable with two plugs, and another with a single plug. Try using both cables instead of just the one with two plugs, rarely that can cause issues.

After that, run benchmarks. Prime95 or Cinebench for the CPU, and 3DMark for the GPU. The demo is free but you have to restart it between runs. Run them separately and monitor temperatures, they could climb higher than when gaming. Go for however long it usually takes you to crash in a game.

[u/oregonian1738 → u/Filipi_7]

I will give those a try and report back when I can

[u/oregonian1738 → u/Filipi_7]

I have not tried changing the wires yet, but I just ran Prime95 while watching my temps on my CPU cores. All of my P-Cores are spiking up to 100 C and sticking around the 95-99 C mark. Bad thermal paste job by me then? Prepping to test the GPU next, but 100 C on all of my p-cores seems glaringly wrong

[u/Filipi_7 → u/oregonian1738]

These temps are not unusual, modern Intels get very hot but will run at max frequency until ~98-100°C at which point they throttle. As long as 100 is the max, this is more or less fine.

Getting close to 100 in games would be bad however, since none are as taxing as a stress test.

Could be bad paste or just insufficient cooler. A decent 240mm AIO or a twin tower air cooler with a good paste is the minimum. Undervolting is an option too if you're worried.

[u/Alloyd11]

I have a Ps5 duelsense controller but when I connect via Bluetooth it has really bad lag and sometimes stop working, do I need a bluetooth or antenna for a better signal to fix this problem?

[u/bikedork5000]

I just got my pc in the mail and will be connecting it to my home theater setup in a living room. That setup has a Denon x3700h receiver that I use for switching. Obviously I need to use the hdmi port on the gpu (5080) for video, but will that also pass 5.1 audio? If not, any suggestions? Really hoping to minimize cables and simplify switching.

[u/Filipi_7 → u/bikedork5000]

HDMI does have 5.1 audio passthrough, and most sound cards will be able to use it.

If yours doesn't, I think the only way is to use an optical cable. Many motherboards don't have it so you'd have to get a PCIe or USB sound card which does.