Hi guys!
Some part in my computer is clearly evil and corrupt and I can't figure out which one it is since my technical knowledge is not that great. I write hoping that you could help me point which one I have to substitute.
1. Problems
The basic problem is that despite the rig being decent, the performance is dreadful and it's getting worse every month. Something was probably wrong right from the start, but because I had Radeon 5450 I didn't play any games to really test it out and I attributed its horrible performance to poor graphics card. When I bought Radeon 6950, it became clear. Despite operating on a 1280x1024 monitor (so all games set to that resolution), framerates were terribly low and I know for sure that similiar rig should max everything and still produce 60fps+. Not only that, but there was a pattern in it: significant drops came when there was more action on screen, but sometimes they triggered randomly and the cut was about half fps of what my base fps in these games was. Bulldozer's stock cooler is a complete ass and my processor temperatures were getting high, so I thought that's the problem and bought a highly praised 212 Evo. Unfortunately, nothing's changed so I took my computer to the shop I bought it in and asked them for help. They tested it for 2 weeks and first wanted to give it back to me saying everything is ok and I had to install San Andreas to show them that no, frequent drops to 20fps in a 2005 game on a 6950 may not be ok by some standards. After one more week, these experts gave the computer back to me, saying that they can't find a solution and don't know what's wrong...
I didn't have money (and needed some), so I decided to leave it be and sold my graphics card and get back to 5450. Outside games, the system worked flawlessly and I didn't have much time anyway so no biggie. After some time though, the system started loading awfully slow, every operation started to take ages, ie. today unpacking of 1 file in a 1gb rar file took 15 minutes. When moving files in between partitions, I get like 1mbps speed at best and I can't even watch a low quality movie while files copy, nor do anything else because everything just freezes. Blue screens started appearing in random moments, my internet download speed now tops at around 2.4 megabytes per second (my max is 4 megabytes and it NEVER goes below the limit so computer is to blame for sure).
2. Here are my specs:
motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M LX3
processor: AMD Bulldozer FX-8120
memory: Patriot 4GB RAM DDR3
power unit: OCZ ZS 550W
hard disk: irrelevant (see below)
graphics card: irrelevant (see below)
3. What I did to find what's wrong, nothing on that list helped
- some problems described above may be due to my harddisk being old, but I have another one, so I installed system and games to test it, exactly the same problems emerge so despite occasional slowdown my harddisk is not the issue here
- I had Radeon 5450, 6950 and now I got a really cheap 6770 - same problems, just obviously different average framerates
- many different graphic cards drivers tested on each card
- programs that test graphic cards performance show framerates that you would expect from those cards. a friend told me that it loads those tests entirely into cards (no ram and hard disk used). I guess this means the PCI-E slot in my motherboard is not to blame
- no viruses, malware of any kind etc.
- few system reinstalls, all Windows 7 but few different versions. tested fresh and with installed programs, same issues.
- disabled energy saving on cores/threads and disabled energy saving in general
- reduced devices to 1 hard drive; disconnected second hard drive and dvd in case the power supply didn't provide enough power
- played around in BIOS with Bulldozer's unique features, played with few general values with help of some good guides, but since I am not an expert, I didn't want to mess anything up and stopped at that - nothing helped anyway, I have put all values to default. absolutely no change on any setting
4. Read outs
During today's slowdown while moving files from one partition to another, here is the read of voltages on HW Monitor. I thought the stressed read could be more valuable.
http://imgur.com/8Td1KV0
Cpu-Z reads (not during stress, just mp3 player working):
http://imgur.com/9jP7TR8
core speed jumps between two values: 1400mhz and 3400mhz
http://imgur.com/8sBSt90
http://imgur.com/lVOfZmO
http://imgur.com/xo4rf3j
I would be super grateful if you could find the source of the issues I'm having with my computer, as the clock is ticking until GTAV finally sees the light of day on PC and I have.... to play........ this game............
If you need any other reads or benchmarks, let me know and I'll provide screens.
Thanks in advance!
Some part in my computer is clearly evil and corrupt and I can't figure out which one it is since my technical knowledge is not that great. I write hoping that you could help me point which one I have to substitute.
1. Problems
The basic problem is that despite the rig being decent, the performance is dreadful and it's getting worse every month. Something was probably wrong right from the start, but because I had Radeon 5450 I didn't play any games to really test it out and I attributed its horrible performance to poor graphics card. When I bought Radeon 6950, it became clear. Despite operating on a 1280x1024 monitor (so all games set to that resolution), framerates were terribly low and I know for sure that similiar rig should max everything and still produce 60fps+. Not only that, but there was a pattern in it: significant drops came when there was more action on screen, but sometimes they triggered randomly and the cut was about half fps of what my base fps in these games was. Bulldozer's stock cooler is a complete ass and my processor temperatures were getting high, so I thought that's the problem and bought a highly praised 212 Evo. Unfortunately, nothing's changed so I took my computer to the shop I bought it in and asked them for help. They tested it for 2 weeks and first wanted to give it back to me saying everything is ok and I had to install San Andreas to show them that no, frequent drops to 20fps in a 2005 game on a 6950 may not be ok by some standards. After one more week, these experts gave the computer back to me, saying that they can't find a solution and don't know what's wrong...
I didn't have money (and needed some), so I decided to leave it be and sold my graphics card and get back to 5450. Outside games, the system worked flawlessly and I didn't have much time anyway so no biggie. After some time though, the system started loading awfully slow, every operation started to take ages, ie. today unpacking of 1 file in a 1gb rar file took 15 minutes. When moving files in between partitions, I get like 1mbps speed at best and I can't even watch a low quality movie while files copy, nor do anything else because everything just freezes. Blue screens started appearing in random moments, my internet download speed now tops at around 2.4 megabytes per second (my max is 4 megabytes and it NEVER goes below the limit so computer is to blame for sure).
2. Here are my specs:
motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M LX3
processor: AMD Bulldozer FX-8120
memory: Patriot 4GB RAM DDR3
power unit: OCZ ZS 550W
hard disk: irrelevant (see below)
graphics card: irrelevant (see below)
3. What I did to find what's wrong, nothing on that list helped
- some problems described above may be due to my harddisk being old, but I have another one, so I installed system and games to test it, exactly the same problems emerge so despite occasional slowdown my harddisk is not the issue here
- I had Radeon 5450, 6950 and now I got a really cheap 6770 - same problems, just obviously different average framerates
- many different graphic cards drivers tested on each card
- programs that test graphic cards performance show framerates that you would expect from those cards. a friend told me that it loads those tests entirely into cards (no ram and hard disk used). I guess this means the PCI-E slot in my motherboard is not to blame
- no viruses, malware of any kind etc.
- few system reinstalls, all Windows 7 but few different versions. tested fresh and with installed programs, same issues.
- disabled energy saving on cores/threads and disabled energy saving in general
- reduced devices to 1 hard drive; disconnected second hard drive and dvd in case the power supply didn't provide enough power
- played around in BIOS with Bulldozer's unique features, played with few general values with help of some good guides, but since I am not an expert, I didn't want to mess anything up and stopped at that - nothing helped anyway, I have put all values to default. absolutely no change on any setting
4. Read outs
During today's slowdown while moving files from one partition to another, here is the read of voltages on HW Monitor. I thought the stressed read could be more valuable.
http://imgur.com/8Td1KV0
Cpu-Z reads (not during stress, just mp3 player working):
http://imgur.com/9jP7TR8
core speed jumps between two values: 1400mhz and 3400mhz
http://imgur.com/8sBSt90
http://imgur.com/lVOfZmO
http://imgur.com/xo4rf3j
I would be super grateful if you could find the source of the issues I'm having with my computer, as the clock is ticking until GTAV finally sees the light of day on PC and I have.... to play........ this game............
If you need any other reads or benchmarks, let me know and I'll provide screens.
Thanks in advance!
Last edited:
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