Severely Underperforming PC

[Overslop]

I've been having troubles with my PC for some time now...


LOW FPS IN GAMES


Call of Duty 2 - Often 30-40 FPS when there's fighting taking place.

Maximum in-game and Control Panel settings - 1920x1080 res.



Warhammer 40k: DoW: WA - 30-40FPS when there's a lot of enemies on screen or constantly on some levels.

Maximum in-game and Control Panel settings - 1280x1024 res.

(Original DoW ran rock solid 60FPS on my 8800GTX)


Age of Empires III - 20-25 FPS when there's a lot happening on screen (I'm not sure any cards can handle this game yet though)

Maximum in-game and Control Panel settings - 1920x1080 res.




BSODS


Quite often get BSoDs at random times - usually browsing web. Though only have 1 since reinstall of Windows, which happened a week ago.

The ones I used to get were (exact names unknown):

nvlddmkm stopped responding

Bad Pool Caller

Page File Error



RANDOM CHOPPY PERFORMANCE


DreamScene fails - either stopping completely or splitting Desktop into 4 sections

System becomes very unresponsive

Mouse pointer animations cease

Keyboard input lag



POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS ATTEMPTED


Reformatting hard drive

Using 1 stick of RAM

Resetting BIOS settings

Updating BIOS

Trying other graphics card (ATi Radeon HD4870)



What could be causing my issues? Bad PSU? Dodgy motherboard? Ditch Vista 64 for XP?

If someone could help me sort this out I would be very grateful.

 

[Overslop]

You say nvlddmkm stopped responding... sounds like dodgy graphics drivers.

I've tried several sets, including the latest ones.

I'm currently using the latest ones on a fresh Vista install.

I've Google'd a lot about that specific BsoD and it seems a significant number of people get it. There is no known cause or fix, but many workaround solutions.


EDIT: Since reinstalling Vista I haven't had this BSoD anyway. Perhaps in my case it was a driver issue.

 

[Overslop]

Checked all 4 but only a couple of tests.

Also ran a Prime 95 memory stress test for a couple of hours and they came up fine.

 

[Overslop]

Something else I should mention is that I have both hard drives as well as my optical drive all powered off of 1 cable to the PSU. Could this be causing the issues?

 

[Overslop]

nvlddmkm errors are rarely actually a driver issue even tho thats what would seem obvious... more often its a sign of unstable RAM or NorthBridge...

To the OP do you have a creative X-Fi in that system? as some of the symptoms are consistant to issues related to that.

Nope, my sound card is a Asus Xonar DX.

 

[Overslop]

im assuming its running at stock settings after the bios reset and if ram passes memtest it should be stable.

How long do you need to run memtest to be sure?

I've let it run 2 full tests before and it came up clean. That was with all 4 sticks plugged in at once.

 

[Overslop]

Try the program in my sig.

It should generate lots of stats for you to look at, low voltages etc.

To my eye, I would say RAM or Motherboard. Especially the instability running certain apps in windows.

OK, I've installed OCCT - what should I be looking for exactly?

Based on your hypothesis, what should I do to sort my problem?

 

[Overslop]

Was just browsing this site and it BSoD again.

This time a big range of numbers was all I could see before the comp rebooted. Where can I find what the BSoD records?

 

[Overslop]

I have a GTX280 and dawn of war Soul storm (same engine as WA) i have a 3.16 GHZ dual core (wolfdale) while SS is normally around the 60FPS mark, in larger player multiplay maps, when there's loads of units onscreen i do get around 30 to 40 FPS aswell, although it's still very playable to be honest, i too was a little surprised at this (although i am using the widescreen camera mod which does up the system requirements) as it is still an old game, overclocking the cpu to 3.8 and the card had little noticable effects

I don't have call of duty so can't comment but i will say that while reviews may show FPS as being 70 or 80, that is an average and in game FPS can vary, you can easily get 200+ walking down a feature less corridor and then drop to around 40 in a high detailed enviroment with lot's being rendered on screen

Thanks for a detailed and lengthy post. I agree with what you say and know about average versus minimum FPS.

But this is just from my single player experience and it could be just 10 units causing low FPS. Aside from being 30FPS it's very chuggy.

 

[Overslop]

Another problem to add to the list - just started experiencing pretty bad keyboard input lag...

 

[Overslop]

It could well be your PSU is dying I'm afraid. It certainly sounds like your components are not receiving a stable power supply.

How can I check?

 

[Overslop]

You can't really unless you have a spare psu. Unless you have specialised testing equipment, testing a PSU is very hit and miss.

Try and run the pc with the absolute minimum of components. Motherboard, CPU (stock), 1 stick of ram, basic GPU and single hard drive. This is to put the minimum of stress on the PSU. Perform a clean install to eradicate the possibility of driver/OS issues. Only install the drivers for the hardware you have installed then perform a few basic tasks.

It's basicly a process of elimination I'm afraid when troubleshooting. Start off with the basics then add one component at a time to see if you can pinpoint the problem. In your case I had similar issues which was indeed a PSU problem.

I was afraid you might say that!

I've just performed a clean install within the last week though. I installed only the essentials and it has the same errors, more or less.

Only thing is that although I tried a single stick of RAM for gaming, and performance was still crap, I didn't keep it in long enough to see if it caused the other problems I've had. I think I will give the system a long run with 1 stick and see what happen.

It could well be that the poor game performance in these games is normal for Vista 64, and the other issues are unrelated.

I will try 1 stick, then a full reinstall of XP (on the most basic setup as you described), and if both of those fail then I don't know!

 

[Overslop]

maybe a volt meter or swaping another in and see if it helps?

its going to be hard with out it under load

Don't have a spare PSU and dont' have a volt meter. Would be prepared to buy a volt meter if it can determine for sure whether or not my PSU is smoked. Can it?


It's just occurred to me that the BSoDs (all 30 or so) have all happened when either browsing the net, installing or just idle on the desktop.

NONE have happened when watching a video or playing a game. How significant is that?

 

[Overslop]

arent those fps about right for a system using vista ?
u say its when there is a lot of action on screen and vista does use a little more cpu power than xp.

If what you are saying is correct then it proves that Vista is unsuitable for gaming. But I've read a lot that points to the contrary. It would be really useful if I could find comparisons with other people for those games for both Vista and XP.

I'm going to try a newer game as well as 3DMark 06 to see what happens there.

 

[Overslop]

Nope just do as w3bbo says. Failing that you may need to go to a local specialist in order to determine exactly which part is the cause of your issues.

But if the system works fine in XP then that would save me a lot of unnecessary hassle (it's still hassle getting that far, but less so).

I would rather do it this way personally, though appreciate the advice.

 

[Overslop]

Hmmm, it might not be your psu then if it dosn't normally happen underload. Thing is it could be any number of things and it's hard to pinpoint from afar m8. Having all four slots of memory occupied certainly puts a lot of stress on the NB and P35's can be a little but iffy in that configuration. Have you tried with just one stick?

Like I said try it with the bare minimum and then build up from there. It could be anyone of your components leading to the BSOD's. Is your CPU getting the correct vcore (download CPU-z and report back).

I've read about 4 sticks being problematic also. It would certainly seem to be the wisest place to start, especially as testing is relatively easy with RAM.

I have tried with 1 stick, but so briefly that it wasn't a fair test. I just wanted to see if the gaming performance changed and it didn't. But that doesn't mean that the RAM isn't causing other issues. I will go 1 stick for a few days and see what occurs.

I have been running CPU-Z already and yes - it does appear as though the vcore is correct as I have set it.

Thanks for lots of suggestions btw.

 

[Overslop]

Probably a dumb question but have you installed the latest updates for vista (inc SP1) prior to installing the extra memory?

I had all 4 sticks in before installing all the updates (I'm completely up-to-date on Windows Update). Is that a big no-no?

 

[Overslop]

What CPU speed?

I'd try XP they will help you rule out a driver/operating system conflict

Normally run at 3.4 Ghz but have experienced all mentioned problems at 2.4 Ghz as well.

Agreed on the XP install - I will dedicate my secondary drive to that and see how it fares.

 

[Overslop]

No, but it can cause issues until you install the updates. As you have already installed the updates we can rule that out.

Great, something ruled out = less time wasted fiddling!

 

[Overslop]

Did the Antec Quattro 850 not originally have a few problems with high power GPU's?
I'm sure I remember a few people having large issues with 8800's, low power warnings, drivers failing, low FPS, etc...

Maybe not an issue with new cards but I'm sure there were large threads on it.
Edit: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17830178&highlight=antec+quattro+problem

That one has a decent post by an Antec rep explaining the issue.

Thanks for that. However, I think that problem seems to be just with the 8800GTX thankfully (though my 8800GTX performed fine with this PSU, as far as I could tell).

Maybe I didn't Google well enough, but I couldn't see any evidence of problems with other cards.