Why would a non-active GPU be showing activity?

Ceph92

Limp Gawd
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I have a laptop (Dell precision 3510). Normally I used the integrated Intell HD530 video. However, in GPU-z I often see activity on the discrete Radeon R9 M360. It's not all the time - sometimes it's some constant nominal amount. But here it is using the GPU and increasing the GPU temp above the CPU.

If it's not in use, I'd think it ought to be clocked at zero with zero % utilization. Instead, it's doing this. What's the deal here? I'm suspecting some kind of GPU mining trojan, but... av scans find nothing. This is on a fresh win10 install, which I did to see if I could get it to not occur...

The clock speed and util% pulse up to some speed determined by power profile (or unplugging the laptop). You can see it change part way.
 

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Do you have a second monitor connected to your laptop? Some ports use the discrete GPU to drive them. My Dell G5se 5505 laptop, for example, uses the discrete 5600M GPU to drive the HDMI port. When I first got the laptop, I used the HDMI port to connect to a monitor. I discovered this added additional heat because both the CPU and GPU were active causing the fans to run almost constantly even when idle. I then learned that if I switched from using the HDMI port to the USB-C port, which supports display output, that port uses the integrated GPU inside the CPU instead of the 5600M, thus allowing the 5600M to go idle and basically shut off. This reduced heat so much that the laptop fans almost never run now except when I do something CPU-intensive.
 
Do you have a second monitor connected to your laptop? Some ports use the discrete GPU to drive them. My Dell G5se 5505 laptop, for example, uses the discrete 5600M GPU to drive the HDMI port. When I first got the laptop, I used the HDMI port to connect to a monitor. I discovered this added additional heat because both the CPU and GPU were active causing the fans to run almost constantly even when idle. I then learned that if I switched from using the HDMI port to the USB-C port, which supports display output, that port uses the integrated GPU inside the CPU instead of the 5600M, thus allowing the 5600M to go idle and basically shut off. This reduced heat so much that the laptop fans almost never run now except when I do something CPU-intensive.
Not since I reinstalled Windows, I'm just using the laptop screen. It shouldn't be doing this, afaik.

But before that it was docked and that has 2 monitors plus a third on a USB video adapter. It's possible that it uses both GPUs.... but the activity is still high.

Is it possible that GPU-z is actually triggering the behavior by reading the state of the M360?
 
If you show the GPU usage column in task manager that will show you what is using it.
 
If you show the GPU usage column in task manager that will show you what is using it.
Nothing is using it. According to TM. GPU0 is the integrated intel HD530
 

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Hello guys, im searching for similar information, have similar issues
 
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In my case (Laptop with optimus GTX 1060), when I load MSI afterburner (might be same issue with other software like GPU-Z), the discrete GPU show signs of activity. Shutting down MSI Afterburber resolve the issue. Note that MSI Afterburner does not officially (and never will ) support laptop GPUs. Do you have a software activating the GPU ?
 
Sounds like it, Afterburner would likely be activating the dGPU just to poll information from it.
 
In my case (Laptop with optimus GTX 1060), when I load MSI afterburner (might be same issue with other software like GPU-Z), the discrete GPU show signs of activity. Shutting down MSI Afterburber resolve the issue. Note that MSI Afterburner does not officially (and never will ) support laptop GPUs. Do you have a software activating the GPU ?
How do you know that shutting down afterburner eliminates GPU usage? If you're using another tool to verify that, which one?

If any tool that monitors the GPU causes the activity to increase (What Mchart says above), how can you know if there is no activity on that GPU?
 
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