$50 For Whoever Fixes My Problem

[berger103]

Let me start by saying i think i've exhausted all possible solutions besides buying a whole new mobo, cpu, and ram. I play three games WoW, and more recently Call of Duty 4, and TF2. I'm pretty sure the problem I am currently having has been happening for a while, but its not as noticeable in WoW. When I hop on any FPS its very difficult to play with. My computer will run fine for 10-20 mins after start up, around 70 FPS in TF2 and COD4 at max setting. Then all of the sudden I can watch the graphics get super choppy. It becomes unplayable and I just get frustrated. My computer specs are currently...

 

AMD Dual Core 1.8Ghz

2 GB Kingston Ram DDR2 (i believe its DDR2)

GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB (BRAND NEW, literally 3 days old)

Abit KN8 SLI motherboard

80gb western digital 7200rpm SATA HD

ULTRA 750W X2-Connect Power Supply ( http://www.xoxide.com/ultra-750w-x2-ps.html ) (something similar to this but its a 550W, the fan is making a weird clanking noise)

28" Viewsonic LCD Monitor

 

I have made several attempts to fix this problem. Three days ago I had a GeForce 7600GT 256MB PCI-E graphics card in my computer and was experiencing the same problem. The logical solution to me is that I had a bad graphics card. Many friends told me that Geforce x600 series is a below par card. Some of the steps that I've tried to take to fix my problem after putting the new one in and experiencing the same problems were.....

- Installing different versions of graphics drivers

- Making sure that my computer wasn't overheating (which it is not, i've been monitoring the temps)

- Running tests on the ram to see if it was faulty

- Installing all possible Windos XP updates

- Making sure the power supply is giving all the parts adequate power

- Trying diffrerent resolutions and graphics setting in game

 

I'm really not sure what else there is I can do at this point. Im beginning to think that it could possibly be the motherboard. That is pretty much the only thing that I could see it being at this point

 

Your help is greatly appreciated, I am willing to Paypal or Moneyorder the cash to you. You can contact me at [email protected]. Thanks!

[nVidia_Freak]

How are the temps?

[wevsspot]

Since the games play well for 20 minutes before things start going to hell in a handbasket I'd suspect one of two problems

 

Heat related (process, memory, power supply or motherboard overheating) - since you're video card is brand new and does the same thing as your previous video card then we can rule that out

 

Power supply related

 

To rule out heat related issues, turn your a/c down to 68F, pull the side panel off your case and point a house fan inside the case and see what happens after some extended gaming.

 

If that didn't do the trick, I'd take that $50 bucks you want to give away, add another 70-80 to it and spend it on a new power supply.

[berger103]

I just stopped playing COD4 2 minutes ago becasuse the graphics become choppy. My currents temps are

CPU 34C

Motherboard 37C

GPU 62C Ambient 51C

HD 42C

 

I have turned the A/C down and pointed a house fan into it. I've gotten the GPU down to 50C (after extensive gaming...lawl@20mins) which is very low for this card considering they built it to run on the hot side.

Edited June 6, 2008 by berger103

[nVidia_Freak]

It's likely not heat then.

 

Reboot and check your bios for the rails for your power supply. (Should be under something like performance monitoring or similar)

 

Let us know what they are.

[Zerox12]

I had the same power supply before I replaced it with my StealthXStream. The thing is utter junk and almost assuredly the cause for your problems. Replacing your power supply should be the fix, especially considering all of those temps are fine.

[Waco]

Get a non-crappy power supply to start. They can cause *very* wonky problems if rails start dipping under load.

 

 

EDIT: Be sure to apply the dual-core driver from AMD.com for your CPU.

[PeterStoba]

The ammount of replies now money is involved

 

I'd also go with it being down to the PSU

[Puck]

Restart the PC then cntrl+alt+delete to task manager, and check the performance tab. Write down everything under the "Commit charge" section.

Start up the worst/most intensive of the problem games and play until it gets choppy. Exit the game and immediatly check the "Commit Charge" numbers again and write them down.

Check your "Peak" value and see if it is above your "Limit" value under the "Commit Charge" section, and check the "Total" Under the "Physical Memory" section.

If your peak has skyrocketed to above either value check processes during the lag for any program using huge amounts of ram. Maybe spyware or a program/driver with a memory bug.

If no obvious program is causing the problems, then subtract your "Total" value under the "Physical Memory" section from the "Peak" value under "Commit Charge". Remember this number(it is in K).

Now go to control panel, Performance and Maintanence, System, and click the "advanced" tab. Click "settings" next to performance and then click the "Advanced" tab.

Next to "Virtual Memory" click "Change".

Click "Custom Size" and input the value you got from subtracting the total memory from peak usage, plus ~128mb, in both the min and max fields. This will set your pagefile to a bit over the max value reached when the stuttering happend.

Close everything out and restart the computer, then try the game again and play to see if it stutters again.

 

Just a thought, but sounds to me like maybe windows has screwed up your pagefile and your system runs out of ram(for whatever reason...you using vista? 2gb may not be enough). Once out of ram the computer tries to use the pagefile - which is already slow - but it is too small. The computer then has to resize the pagefile and then move around the information needed, all which takes up a lot of cpu time.

 

It also may be something simple like driver conflicts, but this is something often overlooked and doesnt hurt to do even if you are not having any problems.

[red930]

take any hard drive and plug it in, unplugging your current hard drive.

 

load windows, all your drivers, etc, and then the game(s) that you want to play.

 

If you experience the same issue, it's a hardware problem. If you don't experience the issue, it's a software problem. Easier to go from there if you can get rid of 50% of the potential problem right off the bat.

 

hdd's are extremely cheap now...$50 can buy you up to 3 of them if you know where to look.

[ir_cow]

i put my money on the ram overheating. you could just add more memory since Vista eats up 2gb before you even browse the web.

 

 

also another thought...

 

28' LCD = 1920x1080 with a 8800GTssss with COD4 max settings + AA and 2gbs of ram. thats your problem, get another 4gb for like $50.

[radodrill]

I'm with A_G; trying it out on a clean install of Windows will really narrow down the cause of the problems.