Within the last few months I've noticed quite a drop in gaming performance. While framerates stutter every few seconds, and yet between stuttering, they are consistent with normal levels. I've ruled out most things, I'm left with a few possibilities.
Specs:
P4 1.5 Ghz
Radeon 9550 250/200 core/mem, OCed to 465/227
2 GB PC133 RAM
Gigabyte 8IDML mobo
250 watt PSU
160 GB 7200 RPM Maxtor IDE HDD
Several things happened around the time that I started seeing this:
1. I upgraded from 512 MB of PC133 RAM to 2 GB
2. I installed SP3
3. I noticed that I no longer had a fan on my Radeon 9550, it had stopped working. A few weeks later, I found it hanging from the heatsink, a burn mark in the middle. I don't know if this is from heat caused by the card or my an electrical failure. This is no longer a problem, I got a new copper heatsink, and OCed my card which lead to no performance increase. (core/mem from 250/200 to 465/227
4. I majorly cleaned my case.
5. I tried to add a new CPU, found it DOA, and put the old one (P4 1.5 Ghz) back in.
Now 1 should be beneficial, could faulty RAM be the cause of this? (I assume it would stop working altogether if that was the case) unfortunately, my dad gave the old stuff to a friend, so I can no longer test.
2 Was suspected, however I reinstalled Windows yesterday, and the problem persists even with a basic XP Pro install (order of install, XP Pro, SP2, SP3, Catalyst 8.9 [drivers only, no CCC]). This leaves me to believe that it's a hardware problem, however I did plug in my external HDD, which could have carried a virus. I doubt this, since I'm meticulous in protecting my system (and have NOD32 installed), although I have plugged it into a friend's PC, and a virus could have jumped. (he has enough of them)
Also, just to see what it looked like, I opened the task manager and then started HL2. I minimized it and printscreened it, and explorer.exe was running at about 30%.
TL;DR
explorer.exe starts to run high whenever I run HL2 (and presumably any 3D app) and I get stuttering every few seconds. This is on a brand new install of XP Pro SP3 (with 8.9 ATi drivers) however a virus may have carried over on my external HDD.
Specs:
P4 1.5 Ghz
Radeon 9550 250/200 core/mem, OCed to 465/227
2 GB PC133 RAM
Gigabyte 8IDML mobo
250 watt PSU
160 GB 7200 RPM Maxtor IDE HDD
Several things happened around the time that I started seeing this:
1. I upgraded from 512 MB of PC133 RAM to 2 GB
2. I installed SP3
3. I noticed that I no longer had a fan on my Radeon 9550, it had stopped working. A few weeks later, I found it hanging from the heatsink, a burn mark in the middle. I don't know if this is from heat caused by the card or my an electrical failure. This is no longer a problem, I got a new copper heatsink, and OCed my card which lead to no performance increase. (core/mem from 250/200 to 465/227
4. I majorly cleaned my case.
5. I tried to add a new CPU, found it DOA, and put the old one (P4 1.5 Ghz) back in.
Now 1 should be beneficial, could faulty RAM be the cause of this? (I assume it would stop working altogether if that was the case) unfortunately, my dad gave the old stuff to a friend, so I can no longer test.
2 Was suspected, however I reinstalled Windows yesterday, and the problem persists even with a basic XP Pro install (order of install, XP Pro, SP2, SP3, Catalyst 8.9 [drivers only, no CCC]). This leaves me to believe that it's a hardware problem, however I did plug in my external HDD, which could have carried a virus. I doubt this, since I'm meticulous in protecting my system (and have NOD32 installed), although I have plugged it into a friend's PC, and a virus could have jumped. (he has enough of them)
Also, just to see what it looked like, I opened the task manager and then started HL2. I minimized it and printscreened it, and explorer.exe was running at about 30%.
TL;DR
explorer.exe starts to run high whenever I run HL2 (and presumably any 3D app) and I get stuttering every few seconds. This is on a brand new install of XP Pro SP3 (with 8.9 ATi drivers) however a virus may have carried over on my external HDD.
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