Users who own Nvidia GeForce graphics cards have reported a bug that causes a slight drop in GPU memory speed when running the instant messaging application Discord. According to the report, the memory speed drops by 200 MHz.

While this is not a major blow, it is still not optimal, especially since the memory frequency drop is undesirable. It is believed that this problem was first identified by a user on the Linus Tech Tips forum.

On Monday, this poster noticed that the memory speed of the RTX 3060 Ti LHR (low hash rate) board dropped from 7,000 MHz to 6,800 MHz when running Discord (open in new tab). Further investigation revealed that the application was inadvertently triggering the "CUDA - Force P2 State" low power state of the graphics driver.

Other elements of the Nvidia graphics card, such as the GPU core clock speed, are not believed to be affected; numerous posters on Reddit (opens in new tab) have confirmed this issue.

The drop from 7,000 MHz to 6,800 MHz is not likely to be of much concern in terms of gaming performance. However, many gamers use Discord in the background during gaming, and the memory clock speed drop is an unintended behavior that needs to be corrected.

Fortunately, Nvidia has already addressed the issue. In a Knowledge Base article published yesterday, Nvidia said that an "over-the-air update" will be pushed to PCs at a later date, but in the meantime, GPU owners can download NVIDIA's program GeForce 3D Profile Manager, here ( open in new tab) and follow the instructions to fix the problem.

Given the complexity of modern PCs and the enormous size and scope of driver software, it is perhaps surprising that such a minor glitch is not more common.

At any rate, this issue appears to have been quickly identified and fixed. However, we recommend that you keep an eye on your scanner to ensure that similar problems do not occur. Also, background applications not in use during gaming should be shut down. You never know what can degrade GPU performance.