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.
double check the multiplier on your HT bus and the stock Multiplier on your processor and double check your ram speed all in Bios. Also, benchmarks mean nothing when trouble shooting laggyness, We need to know what speeds everything is running at first. use Core Temp to give you a correct readout of your system in windows.
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Originally Posted by pullmyfoot
Aha. Well that was a waste of time I feel quite stupid now
What are you running for an operating system? Vista could cause you performance problems.
Also check that your processor is running at the right speed. For what you specified it should be 3.2GHz. I used to use WCPUID to show me processor and bus speeds.
Well, the CPU is indeed running at 3200MHz (3208 to be exact), and RAM timings are set to 4-4-4-12 as is inscribed on the sticks, voltage 2,1v as also inscribed.
For the rest of the things you told me.. Uh, how do I do that? Some kind of software?
..oh, and right. I'm running Win XP Pro. But when this problem persists even when I disconnect the hard drives, it can't be software-related, can it?
Last edited by Aven : September 7th, 2008 at 10:09 AM.
Temps, both in BIOS and from Windows, what are they?
Maybe download CPUZ and GPUZ.
Alos, try abandoning the drivers that come with the mobo and D/L ones from Asus.
Try these usuals, too: One stick of RAM at a time. Run some stress tests like OCCT or Prime95. Run memtest86. Run PCMark or Sandra. These can help pinpoint the specific area that's hanging up.
I'm sorry that it took so long to get back to this. I've done further tests now, and while I'm not sure what HT bus is, I found something that said HT Link Speed in one of the benchmarks, which said 1000MHz. In BIOS, my system started with mobo-temperature 24 (which gradually rose to 28, not a big deal) celsius, and CPU 36, which gradually rose to 44. There's a FSB multiplier of 16x, which is also maximum. The CPU overview in BIOS is greyed out, by the way.
Anyways. I read out similar temperatures in Windows with the tools you suggested, HDD at 19c, mobo at 36c and CPU at 34. I'll attach the outputs from the different tools here. I suppose the screenshots are the most interesting parts. I have nothing to compare any of the results with, so please help me out.
[Edit] I couldn't even load PCMark05. For some reason it hangs at the loading screen. When it comes to Sandra, it's currently working on the "Cache and Memory" test, but it's been working for 15 minutes straight. What can this mean? Does this help pinpoint my problem?
Last edited by Aven : September 11th, 2008 at 06:37 PM.
The HT will be (number) x the bus speed. Actual HT would be 2x that. So, if you have the 'Hammer' multi (I think it's called in some BIOS) set to 4x and you have your bus at 300 your HT will be 1200 (2400). As for it being correct, check the specs on your CPU. I know some of the AM2's have 2400HT, but it's probably not going to be lower than 2000. Only AM2 chips I seen with less than 2000HT were the BE's, (low-low watters).
Another thing you might consider, OP, is have you tried a different Hard Disk? Maybe run HD Tach on that one. You may have a failing drive or some problem with the interaction of the HDD and the mobo.
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