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Help me find my FPSs!

EndlessSky

EndlessSky

EndlessSky

Associate
Joined
19 Dec 2010
Posts
511
Location
Staffordshire
Hello and thanks for reading :)

Well there I was all happy with my FPS in games like TF2, Civ5 and BC2 when all of a sudden they upped and left! From smooth and silky FPS to no more than 20 fps in TF2 and turning BC2 into an unplayable jerk fest.

I made no changes to my system in terms of software installed but between Sunday and Monday something must have happened. But god knows what.

I'm running a Radeon HD 6950 (original BIOS) VTX brand on a Q6600 @ 3.2ghz.

So what have I tried? Well yesterday I removed 11.2; Installed 11.4 no change. Removed 11.4 and installed 11.1 everything worked just fine! Hurrah! But tonight, no dice, every-thing's slow again :(

Any ideas collective brain of OCUK?
 
Do you have any software which changes the CPU from a power saving mode to a high performance mode? make sure nothing like that is stuck in power saving mode.
 
I don't have any software installed that does that, but I've checked the control panel and my power settings are "high performance" and my bios seems ok too.
 
I have a hunch it might be completely unrelated to your GPU / CPU and could be something else...

What hard drive you using? In-fact, just list the rest of the specs if you so would.

Might be worth monitoring the GPU and CPU usage whilst doing all this as well (task manager would do for the CPU, Afterburner for the GPU).
 
Okay, thanks for the replies.

Specs.
HD1 - WD6400AAKS
HD2 - WD5000AAKS
GFX - HD 6950
CPU - Q66000 @ 3.2Ghz
MBD - Abit IP35 Pro
MEM - 2*2Gb Corsair CM2X PC2-6400
O/S - Windows 7 64bit

No indexing running on either HD.

Just had time for a quick test on TF2 and GPU usage varies in game depending on the scene, doesn't anywhere near max out at 100% though more like floats around 30%. CPU usage is pretty much 100% on core 1, nothing much happening on the other cores...

Any help appreciated.
 
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As funny as this is going to sound check to see if your pagefile on your pc has changed / you have changed it. I once had a problem like your's and it was related to my pagefile ( was on vista)
 
Okay so I've tried installing the new 11.3 drivers and I'm still getting the same issue, huge fps drop off down to the low teens in tf2 anywhere near action. In BC2 it's almost sideshow like sometimes.

I've checked the pagefile as suggested and that all seems fine, i've even disabled hardware acceleration in FF4 just in case it was that!

Any ideas? Anyone, help!!!

Edit: So I've installed afterburner and on TF2 the GPU usage isn't getting over 20% temps @ 57 degrees. I'm going to try BC2 now...

Edit2: Right! The moment BC2 ran sweet for 5 minutes then turned slideshow like, and in afterburn the GPU usage dropped from pretty much 100% down to 20% and back up to 100% like a lag spike but for graphics. After this "spasm" the game didn't feel as fluid as on loading and the graphics usage continued to spike up and down.
 
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If your card has the bios switch, have you tried using the other bios just to see if it makes any difference ?

Does gpu-z show the specs & pci-e speed being ok / correct ?
 
cpuz.gif


I'll try the switch now...
 
Well, well, well. MoodyB, one internet cookie for you!

Switching from bios 1 to bios 2 has fixed it. It seems somehow that bios 1 must have become corrupt. Anyone got any idea how that might have happened?
 
:) Glad it worked.

I'd put it down just one of those things / a fault in the card I guess.

You could always reflash the dodgy bios again, or do the shader unlock on it.

Either that or rma the card.
 
Well after a couple of days of faultless performance Bios 2 started to give terrible fps. Aghhhhhh! So, I flashed bios 1 to the 6970 software, and wow! All fps back plus some more too! I wonder however, if they'll last, I'll update the thread to show if I get any degradation.
 
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Booted this evening, FPS have crashed again, but to a not so low a level as pre-flash.

Re-flashed, rebooted, everything back to great again. I cannot keep re-flashing every-time I switch on for the day. Anyone got any ideas?
 
They will as the card will have at least a 1 year warranty.

You'll need to contact whoever you bought it from to get an rma number to return it.

They'll then test it to try & reproduce the fault / check it.
 
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