15 minute stutter??

davemk7 · **15 minute stutter?? -** 07-29-2006, 20:44 | posts: 36

Hi, I have been having trouble with my pc for a little while now and have been looking for the right place to ask so far with no luck in fixing it.
I bought a new system a few months back (Athlon 3700+, 1gb ram, 250gb hdd, nVidia 7800gt 256mb) not to bad and it should certainly be better than my previos system and it was. About 2 months back it developed and in game stutter. This was a series of little skips while playing games (I tend to play driving sims which makes this a lot worse) I eventually fixed this by updating the graphic card drivers. However once I started playing again I got a different problem where it would virtually stop after about 15 minutes in game my fps drops to single figures and stays that way for about 30 seconds to a minute and then goes back to normal, before repeating the trick a few minutes later.
So far I tried running various anti-spyware programs thinking it was a background process, I've tried Spybot, Hitmanpro, and one or two others. Then I tried Malware scanner and Spyware Doctor both of which came up with stuff nothing else did (and different from each other). So it tried to replice the results with other software looking for specefic things they had found and got nothing again.
It has also been back to the shop where I got who found nothing wrong at the time.
I have also tried turning off all the processes in the windows process tray I dare and still nothing.
I am all out of idea and any help would be gratefully received.

Thank you
Davemk7

TenderSurrender · 07-29-2006, 21:22 | posts: 257 | Location: Suffolk, UK

I would think theres a chance of something (GPU or CPU) overheating and thus throttling back and causing the slowdowns. It then cools down during the 15 minuites or so and then goes back up to full FPS before droppping again.

Im sure the other gurus will be able to help better!

Download a program called Speedfan and report back your temps after gaming. To do this start the program and then play a game, exit back to windows and however the mouse over the CPU temp etc and it will tell you the hottest the CPU reached =]

Good luck solving the problem

~~ TS ~~

anticitizen013 · 07-29-2006, 21:41 | posts: 3,450 | Location: Toronto, Canada

It could also be your hard drive, try doing a defrag to see if that helps. I had a similar issue which defragging has fixed. Stupid file fragments...

davemk7 · 07-29-2006, 22:25 | posts: 36

I've done a defrag, thanks but unfortunatly no different.
As for the temperature when it happens temp1 goes up to 43C and then falls away quite quickly.

Andrés · 07-30-2006, 01:39 | posts: 4,294 | Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakazar

It could also be your hard drive, try doing a defrag to see if that helps. I had a similar issue which defragging has fixed. Stupid file fragments...

A disk defragmentation only helps on hard drive performance, that is, when you are reading or writing data, not when you are in the middle of a game.

Davemk7: I´d bet you are running an antivirus solution that regularly scans the hard drive in the background. This process can drag the system a lot. Is this your case?

Dr. Vodka · 07-30-2006, 06:39 | posts: 3,801 | Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Downclock your rig (both the HTT -CPU, memory- and the GPU). If the stutters go away, you found your problem: heat. Add more cooling if you need to.

Reinstall windows... damn I've run out of ideas.

davemk7 · 07-30-2006, 11:28 | posts: 36

sorry but I bit slow when it comes to understanding by downclock you mean the opposite to overclocking in which case it currently running at Core Clockspeed Frequency is 450 Mhz and Memory Clock speed is 1.05Ghz but they are the defaults, just turn them down?
Interestingly if I pause the game I get interfearence until after I unpause it again.

I'm using Avast anti-virus at the moment.

Andrés · 07-31-2006, 10:06 | posts: 4,294 | Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

See if the antivirus is configured to make automatic scans, and temporarily disable them to see if the stuttering goes away.

Cycloid · 07-31-2006, 12:16 | posts: 828 | Location: South Africa

You might have a situation where a disk-read happens as something in memory triggers Windows to swop-out! A IO operation usually brings the nicest and brightest of systems to their knees!

Check if the Hard Disk LED is burning proviously when this happens!

To fix it up, get more RAM and/or remodify your Swopfile.

Also, If you happen to play NFS:U or NFS:U2 I think there was a problem with these games specifically (or one of the two) that caused this invariable hitching. Someone please correct me if I am wrong...

Andrés · 07-31-2006, 12:34 | posts: 4,294 | Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cycloid

To fix it up, get more RAM and/or remodify your Swopfile.

Hey, he already has 1Gb of RAM, give him a break!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cycloid

Also, If you happen to play NFS:U or NFS:U2 I think there was a problem with these games specifically (or one of the two) that caused this invariable hitching. Someone please correct me if I am wrong...

Mmmmmm I only played NFS:U2 but never had this problem. Maybe it´s hardware specific.

Andrés

davemk7 · 07-31-2006, 16:10 | posts: 36

it seems to happen consistently when temp1 gets to 43C (sometimes it makes 44) and as soon as it cools back down again its fine until it heats back up.

However that begs the question what do I do now???
Do I 1)take it back to the shop and ask them to fix it again (it is still under warranty, but this would be the third time its been back)
2)do I fix it, void the warranty and like Cycloid said get more ram (the goal is to fill it to the 4gb maximum for no good reeason) It would also mean I could fiddle with the clocking as I didn't dare until I decided what to do
3)demand my money back and buy something else (although something tells thats not much of an option)
or 4)i will take any sudjestion

I think it should also be noted there is nobody in the shop right now (and I won't be buying the next one from them)

Thanks for the all the help
Davemk7

Cycloid · 07-31-2006, 16:28 | posts: 828 | Location: South Africa

1) I am assuming temp1 is the CPU temperature. For AMDs, even the newer chips 43c ain't that hot to be honest. I live in a "hot" country (South Africa) and my CPU constantly goes close to 50c without too much of a fuss in the Summer. I do not think that may be the issue. It could be processing under full load when this stutter happens explaining the temperature spike.

Have you installed the AMD CPU drivers? There is problems with the Cool'n'Quiet technology and Windows that could be attributed to this problem as well.

Go here for Windows XP/2003 x86 and x64 versions direct download:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...mdcpusetup.exe
or browse this page for your OS version:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...1_9706,00.html

2) Well, I always wonder how on earth will anybody prove that some component has been overclocked? Find the answer to that and you will find the answer to your question....

3) Would be an interesting and probably fruitless battle imho!

4) Check point 1 above!

Hope this helps...

Fill in your Specs in your User profile as this will negate us browsing to the top all the time to figure out what you have under the hood in your rig each time we post!

oh and yes... I am lazy!

davemk7 · 07-31-2006, 22:35 | posts: 36

Do I need to change any settings with the new driver? I have installed it but hasn't helped. Thanks anyway.

It brings me to think if I have changed anything, The only think I can recall doing was getting a new monitor a 19in tft to replace an old 17' crt, although I can't see any way that would affect it???

I updated my system a bit for you, no need to scroll any more!

Animatrix · *Last edited by Animatrix; 08-01-2006 at 00:54.*

Seems like a low temp to get throttling from.

Try running a tool which can report the CPU/FSB speed to see if this is the case or not. http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

I believe you can disable Cool 'n' Quiet in the BIOS.

speedswitchxp as some powermanagement
http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html

RMClock
http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

lol ok this about using Cool 'n' Quiet and underclocking but maybe there is some info you can use
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article231-page1.html

davemk7 · 08-01-2006, 10:57 | posts: 36

I tried the old monitor and it still did it although not quite as bad. It seems to get worse the more demands I make of it, if I turn the settings down it gets less frequent.

Thanks Animatrix I will try those next.

Interestingly (or worryingly) I can't get in touch with the company I bought it from, the last time I spoke to them, they said they do a lot of business calls. I really really regret using them now.

davemk7 · 08-01-2006, 11:26 | posts: 36

As far as I can tell everything seems normal, I'm assuming its ok to upload this here?

iRkuN · 08-01-2006, 12:06 | posts: 475 | Location: Greece

I think the problem is GPU related. You dont mention anything about OC the card, but probably it cannot handle even the the stock frequencies.

A simple way to check, is to download AtiTool and run the artifact scanning test for a few minutes. If it starts artifacting then you know where the problem is.

davemk7 · 08-01-2006, 12:29 | posts: 36

you'll have to excuse my ignorance but i can't find it and would it work correctly on an nVidia card? I don't have any overclocking as that is suppose to cause a conflict with the game anyway. I should also say this happens on all 4 of the games I tend to play on.

*edit*
ok, found it I see what you mean thanks

davemk7 · 08-01-2006, 17:17 | posts: 36

ok, I running the atitool and it says the temperature is up to 65C so far and its only been going for 5 minutes.
So far it error free and more stable but still at 65 (8 minutes)

Should i be more worried about 65C?

15 minutes no errors still at 65C though

25 minutes no errors

Animatrix · *Last edited by Animatrix; 08-01-2006 at 23:19.*

Use RMClock and log the CPU (tick on Save log file). If it's not showing any CPU throttling then that's not it.

About the GPU

65C should not be a problem for the GPU, after all the auto protect don't kick in before 115 C

Edit:

Was the cpuz log made when the game stalled ?

davemk7 · 08-02-2006, 13:44 | posts: 36

foolishly no it wasn't but this one is.

it looks to me like the hard drive it writing constantly? I'm assuming its the hdd (little red light on the front of the tower) flicks on and off every couple of seconds, when I run the game (and only one of them the others are fine, gtr) it skips slightly seemingly when the light is on (but if I turn the settings down it seems to go away and it goes away anyway after 2 or 3 minutes. It only happens with gtr though and none of the other (all of them have the stutter though)

Animatrix · 08-02-2006, 23:03 | posts: 6,852 | Location: Denmark

Im not seeing any throttling nor do i see much of a load on the CPU/OS load.
But it makes sens with the information you just gave.

If your only having this problem when running the one game then it's not your system, it's the game.

1. There is no reason for your system to have interfering hard disk activity only when running one particular game, unless it's related to the game (well if you play that game 99% of the time it will look that way no matter what, but thats obvious).

2. Hard disk activity although bad when gaming, should not bring a system to a halt but cause hiccups. Most game data is loaded into memory and won't use the HD until loading new content. This is not including very heavy I/O operations in the background which may require large amounts of system resources. This would however show up on a log and as you can see the load is not that bad considering the system is running a game.

Hard disk interference may also be a result of paging. In some cases making static page files and if possible spreading them out over hard disks, or just using a hard disk not used either by the OS and/or the program running, may improve the situation. There is also a registry setting with may prevents some paging.

You can have a look here at both the links on page file and the info on tweaks has the before mention setting (DisablePagingExecutive)
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=155424

davemk7 · 08-03-2006, 12:32 | posts: 36

just to be clear only one game (gtr) skips
all games I've tired stutter every 10 or 15 minutes

thanks for the reply I will look at that.

davemk7 · 08-03-2006, 16:32 | posts: 36

that does seem to help, the skins are less frequent and so is the stutter but it is still there unfortunatly

Robbie Man · 08-03-2006, 18:54 | posts: 1,518 | Location: Steamboat Springs, Co

Maybe you have some sort of spyware? This happened to me and I had to reinstall XP and the spyware was deleted.