Stealthy bitcoin miner malware or broken gpu?

[32VK]

Noticed my gpu usage was at 32% at idle, temp was 60 degrees and the fans were going, this is in MSI afterburner. Thinking I had a virus, after scanning with 4 programs, nothing was found, I formatted windows. Using it now, I'm on a fresh copy. All I've installed are the drivers and MSI, and still its at 30% use. The odd thing is GPUZ and process explorer say nothing is using the gpu at all, but agrees the temps are what MSI reports. Deleted MSI, and its still at the high temps indicating use where as before it would run at 30 degrees with no use.

On a fresh copy of windows and I'm out of ideas? PC feels a bit sluggish, despite being a fairly recent build. (Z170I, 6600k, 1060, NVME)

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Blaylock]

Have you tried that GPU in a different rig, or a different GPU in that rig?

 

[32VK]

I haven't yet, no, but I do have a 750ti I can try. Good call.

 

[32VK]

750ti runs at 1% use. 30 degrees idle.

The 1060 is only a month or 2 old. Faulty card then?

What I did notice is when plugging in a new DVI cable the other day (whilst the PC was on) it was sparking against the gpu cover plate as I tried to find the hole.

 

[Janus67]

Were you on any websites when you saw that happening? People have found a way to run javascript miners in the background of certain websites to make up for lack of ad revenue.

 

[32VK]

Probably, I'm pretty lazy closing tabs, but the issue continued after formatting windows on the 1060, now its been replaced with the 750ti, its running cool and 0 usage.

 

[Blaylock]

It's pretty doubtful you got any malware in your GPU's BIOS but a re-flash to the latest GPU bios may fix it even if it isn't malicious.


EDIT: Just remember to reset any Overclocks to default prior to flashing the BIOS. You don't want to end up with a brick.

 

[Soulcatcher668]

What I did notice is when plugging in a new DVI cable the other day (whilst the PC was on) it was sparking against the gpu cover plate as I tried to find the hole.

What was sparking to the GPU coverplate? Nothing should be grounding like that.