Some games on Windows slow down when the computer powers off.
Some games on Windows slow down when the computer powers off.
While I let my PC rest for the night or during work, all games behave poorly. The GPU performance fluctuates heavily in MSI AB, causing irregular stutters and frame drops. Audio and video from platforms like YouTube also freeze and sound quality suffers. This issue appears on both internal speakers and USB headsets. After restarting, everything normalizes. I’m using powercfg -h off. The hardware specs are Crosshair X670 Gene, 9800X3D at PBO +200 (5.425) with -30 CO, 32GB Corsair Dominator Titanium at 8000C34, Zotac SOLID OC RTX 5080 with 450w Apocalypse BIOS running +210 (3292) cores and +3000 memory. It also occurs when I completely turn off all CPU and GPU optimization settings, just using the default optimized mode without PBO and the stock GPU. After stress testing for extended periods, the system remains stable for months. Even after a full reboot, it works perfectly again. I’m running the latest Nvidia drivers, but this problem persists on my rig. The BIOS is somewhat outdated due to improved memory optimization, yet it happens with other older BIOS versions too. I’m using Windows 11 Pro 25H2 without any modifications or disabled features. In terms of peripherals, I have a Keychron V3 Max (wireless 2.4 and wired USB-C), a Logitech G305 mouse (wireless), and a HyperX Cloud Alpha S wireless headset. I also use a wired Ethernet connection, but WiFi and Bluetooth remain active. A PS5 controller is connected but not currently used. It seems the cause might be a simple power profile setting, registry change, or something similar—hard to pinpoint now.
I’m not a big supporter of overclocks, but I get that some people want maximum performance from their systems. Likely the issue comes from a driver that isn’t functioning correctly—possibly related to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet. The typical fix is to update the driver and adjust the power-saving setting in Windows (enable/disable the option that lets the system turn off the device). Since you didn’t experience problems after overclocking, it probably isn’t the cause. If a driver is the problem, you can test reinstalling it one at a time. Also, verify whether Fast Startup is turned on; changing its state might help. This should resolve the concern, though it’s hard to say for sure. Good luck!
Are you setting it up yourself to shut down? Since XP, the issue hasn’t improved, so no updates are likely to help soon! If it’s supposed to power off after a certain period, it probably isn’t functioning correctly right now.
Windows issues could be resolved or may relate specifically to Windows.
I turned it off using the shutdown menu’s sleep option, correct? My power settings don’t have sleep enabled, and I only lock the screen after ten minutes. I tend to keep drivers current—WiFi, Bluetooth, chipset updates are always fresh. Perhaps the simplest fix is avoiding sleep mode altogether. EDIT: I had to disable this device because it would cause my PC to wake up instantly from the LAN card. It’s an Intel I-225V model, which has many problems. Plus, Lenovo has installed custom firmware to stop frequent disconnections that other systems experience.