Tech Support Forums - TechIMO.com - View Single Post - Overclockers, help me troubleshoot my new computer!

Aven · September 6th, 2008, 02:29 PM

I figured that if anyone knows how to troubleshoot hardware, it's got to be you. Thing is, I recently bought a brand new computer in parts, and upon hooking it up I've had issues with serious lag, even during boot. When testing games, I get from 0,1-3fps in periods of 25 seconds, then a 5 second break with smooth flow. I ran some benchmarks, and according to PC Wizard 06 (I think it was 06, not quite sure though) the parts that underperformed were CPU and graphics adapter. Some video tests ran utterly smooth, but one with alot of random pixels (there's an animation of sparks, I've forgotten what it's called) crapped out, and a complete test ran like syrup. This case could seem like there's an overheating issue, so I investigated that. I booted it up in a very cold room and felt the air coming from the CPU fan while I ran tests, and it never got particularly hot. The problem still persisted, even in a cold room when the computer had been off for a week. Then I figured that the motherboard could be the culprit, so I sent an email to ASUS and told them about my problem, and got a reply telling me to return it to the shop for a new one.
Time passes, I get a new motherboard, problem's still there.
There's an internal graphics adapter on the motherboard, so I tried using that instead of my GeForce8800, but saw no change at all.

I'll write out my specs now, by the way:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+
Mobo: Asus M3A78-EHM HDMI
Ram: GEIL 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC6400 800MHz (correct voltage and timings set in bios, also tried with auto)
OCZ 600W Power Supply (StealthXStream)
Samsung somethingsomething DVD-R

..I guess those are the ones that matter, as I've disconnected the hard drive and still managed to reproduce the issue.

Yesterday I whipped out The Ultimate Boot CD and started running tests. The plain CPU Benchmark there gave me a value of 1466, which told me absolutely nothing. I let CPU burn-in run for about an hour without noticing anything, but I don't really know how to use that properly. Then the System Speed Test benchmark showed a CD-read speed of 412kb/s, which is about 2,75x speed. That's very wrong, but I'm not sure if the DVD drive can be the culprit?
It also showed this about extended memory: L1 Cache: 1496mb/s, L2 Cache: 590mb/s, Memory throughout: 236mb/s. Is this low?

The QwikTest gave me some results as well: The memory bus/math coproc floating point yaddayadda speed test gave me a result of 16,58 seconds, where the reference 1800MHz AMD Duron took 2 seconds. How can I explore this issue further?

..oh, and I ran MemTest86+. It passed 3 times without any errors.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

September 6th, 2008, 02:29 PM	#1 (permalink)
Aven Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 4	Overclockers, help me troubleshoot my new computer! I figured that if anyone knows how to troubleshoot hardware, it's got to be you. Thing is, I recently bought a brand new computer in parts, and upon hooking it up I've had issues with serious lag, even during boot. When testing games, I get from 0,1-3fps in periods of 25 seconds, then a 5 second break with smooth flow. I ran some benchmarks, and according to PC Wizard 06 (I think it was 06, not quite sure though) the parts that underperformed were CPU and graphics adapter. Some video tests ran utterly smooth, but one with alot of random pixels (there's an animation of sparks, I've forgotten what it's called) crapped out, and a complete test ran like syrup. This case could seem like there's an overheating issue, so I investigated that. I booted it up in a very cold room and felt the air coming from the CPU fan while I ran tests, and it never got particularly hot. The problem still persisted, even in a cold room when the computer had been off for a week. Then I figured that the motherboard could be the culprit, so I sent an email to ASUS and told them about my problem, and got a reply telling me to return it to the shop for a new one. Time passes, I get a new motherboard, problem's still there. There's an internal graphics adapter on the motherboard, so I tried using that instead of my GeForce8800, but saw no change at all. I'll write out my specs now, by the way: CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Mobo: Asus M3A78-EHM HDMI Ram: GEIL 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC6400 800MHz (correct voltage and timings set in bios, also tried with auto) OCZ 600W Power Supply (StealthXStream) Samsung somethingsomething DVD-R ..I guess those are the ones that matter, as I've disconnected the hard drive and still managed to reproduce the issue. Yesterday I whipped out The Ultimate Boot CD and started running tests. The plain CPU Benchmark there gave me a value of 1466, which told me absolutely nothing. I let CPU burn-in run for about an hour without noticing anything, but I don't really know how to use that properly. Then the System Speed Test benchmark showed a CD-read speed of 412kb/s, which is about 2,75x speed. That's very wrong, but I'm not sure if the DVD drive can be the culprit? It also showed this about extended memory: L1 Cache: 1496mb/s, L2 Cache: 590mb/s, Memory throughout: 236mb/s. Is this low? The QwikTest gave me some results as well: The memory bus/math coproc floating point yaddayadda speed test gave me a result of 16,58 seconds, where the reference 1800MHz AMD Duron took 2 seconds. How can I explore this issue further? ..oh, and I ran MemTest86+. It passed 3 times without any errors. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Last edited by Aven : September 6th, 2008 at 02:33 PM.