Overview of the problem
I inherited a custom built pc that?s about a year old at this point. It seems to run perfectly until I try to play a game. The games I have tried playing suffer from extreme ?stuttering? and noticeable drop in framerate consistently and often. It?s not just an issue of the game performing less than perfectly, or standard variation in framerate. I?m talking about going from 60+ fps to around 3 fps for no reason. It makes the games completely unplayable and I am at a loss to explain what is going on.
Full description of the problem and symptoms
I see no problems with any aspect of the computer until I load up a game. I can browse the web, watch movies, type up a word doc, etc. When I try to game however, things go downhill. Thus far, I have tried Crysis and World of Warcraft. Both games suffer from the exact same problem. They start up and begin running just fine, but as soon as I hit gameplay (where I can move around) the framerate begins to stutter.
I will go from 60+ fps to <5 fps after about a few seconds for no discernable reason. This happens if I?m standing still, or when I try to move. Basically, the game will perform well for about 5 - 10 seconds, then it will experience 3-5 seconds of horrible framerate, and then go back to 60+ fps. This process continues indefinitely. It?s like I go from smooth sailing, to hitting a brick wall, then back to smooth.
The actions performed in the game seem to have no relevance to when the display stutters. I can?t control it in any way.
Did it work normally at one time, or has the problem always existed?
The PC has always suffered from this issue. It was built, loaded up with an OS and some basic software, and this problem was immediately noticed upon installation of WoW. Subsequent installation of Crysis verified the issue as being general rather than specific to WoW.
Is the problem consistent and repeatable, or entirely random, or semi-random?
The problem happens 100% of the time in either game. I have noticed no significant variation in terms of occurrence or duration.
I already tried these steps:
I tried a number of things in an effort to troubleshoot:
I changed all possible video settings in both games. Lowest settings, highest settings, and everything in between. I tweaked all the available video setting from within the games individually to ensure that it wasn?t anything small and silly that could be affected from within the game?s menu.
The system was originally set up for SLI, I tried taking the second card out and running with only one video card . I tried each of the video cards separately to make sure it wasn?t a physical problem with one of the GPUs.
I tried multiple different configurations of RAM, both 2Gigs (2 x 1gig sticks) and 4Gigs (4 x 1gig sticks). I tested different DIMMS individually to rule out bad physical RAM.
It was originally set up with a RAID 1+0 array, I broke it apart and tried running from just 1 single hard drive.
I ran the built-in NVIDIA video diagnostic program (from within NVIEW I think, or whatever the default NVIDIA configuration app is). The diagnostic completed with 0 errors and said everything checked out fine.
I tried multiple versions of NVIDIA drivers, old and new.
I ran memtest86 overnight and got 0 errors.
I ran Prime95 overnight and got 0 errors.
My software:
I?m running Windows XP (32 bit) SP3, though the problem was also observed on SP2.
I have all the latest suggested MS patches.
I have Norton Corporate Edition antivirus running, but I turned off the auto-protect feature for purposes of testing.
No other software should be interfering in any way. I have firefox and some other standard apps installed, but the machine is pretty empty right now.
My hardware
MOBO - MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130081
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail (Not overclocked at all)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819115028
Video - EVGA 512-P3-N802-A1 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail x 2 (Though I tested with and without SLI)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130303
RAM - G.SKILL 4GB (4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Quad Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail (I tried other RAM as well, though I don?t recall the exact make/model off the top of my head. All voltage and timing values for the RAM were left at default)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231136
PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139002
HD - Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive ? OEM x 2 (Though I tested both with RAID 1 and with only one HD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136011
Other information that might be relevant
The only things I can think of that I haven?t tried are as follows:
Swap to a different physical hard drive ? I didn?t want to test this mainly because it would require installing everything from scratch. Also, I didn?t think the symptoms the box is exhibiting could possibly be related to a bad hard drive.
Swap in a new PSU ? First, I don?t have a spare PSU to test with. Second, I assume that the 620W PSU that I have would be more than sufficient to run everything from a power standpoint. Especially once I brought it down to one video card and one hard drive. But if it?s a bad PSU, I have no real way of testing it short of purchasing a new one.
Play with RAM Settings ? I assume the default RAM settings for voltages and timings should work, as I?ve never had to change them before on any other build. Also, I?m not terribly familiar with how exactly to mess with RAM settings, so I didn?t want to change anything that could potentially damage the box.
That?s it, I?m not sure where else to go from here. I sincerely appreciate any help/suggestions people could offer.
I inherited a custom built pc that?s about a year old at this point. It seems to run perfectly until I try to play a game. The games I have tried playing suffer from extreme ?stuttering? and noticeable drop in framerate consistently and often. It?s not just an issue of the game performing less than perfectly, or standard variation in framerate. I?m talking about going from 60+ fps to around 3 fps for no reason. It makes the games completely unplayable and I am at a loss to explain what is going on.
Full description of the problem and symptoms
I see no problems with any aspect of the computer until I load up a game. I can browse the web, watch movies, type up a word doc, etc. When I try to game however, things go downhill. Thus far, I have tried Crysis and World of Warcraft. Both games suffer from the exact same problem. They start up and begin running just fine, but as soon as I hit gameplay (where I can move around) the framerate begins to stutter.
I will go from 60+ fps to <5 fps after about a few seconds for no discernable reason. This happens if I?m standing still, or when I try to move. Basically, the game will perform well for about 5 - 10 seconds, then it will experience 3-5 seconds of horrible framerate, and then go back to 60+ fps. This process continues indefinitely. It?s like I go from smooth sailing, to hitting a brick wall, then back to smooth.
The actions performed in the game seem to have no relevance to when the display stutters. I can?t control it in any way.
Did it work normally at one time, or has the problem always existed?
The PC has always suffered from this issue. It was built, loaded up with an OS and some basic software, and this problem was immediately noticed upon installation of WoW. Subsequent installation of Crysis verified the issue as being general rather than specific to WoW.
Is the problem consistent and repeatable, or entirely random, or semi-random?
The problem happens 100% of the time in either game. I have noticed no significant variation in terms of occurrence or duration.
I already tried these steps:
I tried a number of things in an effort to troubleshoot:
I changed all possible video settings in both games. Lowest settings, highest settings, and everything in between. I tweaked all the available video setting from within the games individually to ensure that it wasn?t anything small and silly that could be affected from within the game?s menu.
The system was originally set up for SLI, I tried taking the second card out and running with only one video card . I tried each of the video cards separately to make sure it wasn?t a physical problem with one of the GPUs.
I tried multiple different configurations of RAM, both 2Gigs (2 x 1gig sticks) and 4Gigs (4 x 1gig sticks). I tested different DIMMS individually to rule out bad physical RAM.
It was originally set up with a RAID 1+0 array, I broke it apart and tried running from just 1 single hard drive.
I ran the built-in NVIDIA video diagnostic program (from within NVIEW I think, or whatever the default NVIDIA configuration app is). The diagnostic completed with 0 errors and said everything checked out fine.
I tried multiple versions of NVIDIA drivers, old and new.
I ran memtest86 overnight and got 0 errors.
I ran Prime95 overnight and got 0 errors.
My software:
I?m running Windows XP (32 bit) SP3, though the problem was also observed on SP2.
I have all the latest suggested MS patches.
I have Norton Corporate Edition antivirus running, but I turned off the auto-protect feature for purposes of testing.
No other software should be interfering in any way. I have firefox and some other standard apps installed, but the machine is pretty empty right now.
My hardware
MOBO - MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130081
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail (Not overclocked at all)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819115028
Video - EVGA 512-P3-N802-A1 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail x 2 (Though I tested with and without SLI)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130303
RAM - G.SKILL 4GB (4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Quad Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail (I tried other RAM as well, though I don?t recall the exact make/model off the top of my head. All voltage and timing values for the RAM were left at default)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231136
PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139002
HD - Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive ? OEM x 2 (Though I tested both with RAID 1 and with only one HD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136011
Other information that might be relevant
The only things I can think of that I haven?t tried are as follows:
Swap to a different physical hard drive ? I didn?t want to test this mainly because it would require installing everything from scratch. Also, I didn?t think the symptoms the box is exhibiting could possibly be related to a bad hard drive.
Swap in a new PSU ? First, I don?t have a spare PSU to test with. Second, I assume that the 620W PSU that I have would be more than sufficient to run everything from a power standpoint. Especially once I brought it down to one video card and one hard drive. But if it?s a bad PSU, I have no real way of testing it short of purchasing a new one.
Play with RAM Settings ? I assume the default RAM settings for voltages and timings should work, as I?ve never had to change them before on any other build. Also, I?m not terribly familiar with how exactly to mess with RAM settings, so I didn?t want to change anything that could potentially damage the box.
That?s it, I?m not sure where else to go from here. I sincerely appreciate any help/suggestions people could offer.
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