Game Performance Progressively Gets Worse Over Time

A New Guy

A New Guy

New Member
Whenever I start to play a game, it will run beautifully for approximately 30 seconds. After that time limit is up, the frame rate will progressively get worse until the game is pretty much unplayable. I discovered that if I were to press Ctrl + Alt + Del and then wait a while before getting back into the game, the game will run fine again for about another 10-20 seconds (depending on how long I wait before getting back into it). I've also noticed that as soon as I quit that game and start up a new game, it will start off with having horrible frame rates. This is true for any game I own. Regardless if it is Left 4 Dead 2 or Halo 1, the problem will persist. My setup should be able to run Left 4 Dead 2 greatly, and it laughs at Halo 1. Does anybody have an idea of what could be causing this? I recently purchased a new motherboard, processor, and RAM. I replaced the components of my computer by uninstalling pretty much anything relating to the motherboard on my computer (including network drivers, graphics card drivers, IDE controller, etc.) Upon replacing my components, I eventually was able to install motherboard drivers through a USB (since this new motherboard has one less IDE slot than the old one, and thus I cannot use my DVD drive any longer until I find a solution to that problem). I installed chipset, processor, internet, audio, and graphics card drivers. I reactivated Windows, and as far as I'm concerned, everything appears to run the same as before. The only differences are that I may not have BIOS currently set up (which I do not know how to install) and my computer has frozen twice. Both times, I was able to move the mouse while everything else froze, then mouse froze, then a noise started coming from my computer. Rebooted and everything was fine. Coincidentally, both freezes happened on the same web page. I presume that as long as I don't go on it anymore, I would be fine. However, it was a harmless youtube channel that my friend had, so I am still suspicious. Anyway, this is basically all I've done. My games ran fine before the upgrade. Immediately afterwards is when I started to encounter this problem. I'm not sure if it could be the motherboard, drivers, or if my graphics card is randomly starting to go faulty now. My computer is essentially a 5-year-old eMachines T6212 with a few upgrades.

Power Supply: Upgraded to 400 Watts approximately 3 years ago.
CPU: Upgraded to Athlon II X4 635 2.9 GHz this week.
Motherboard: Upgraded to MSI 760GM-E51 this week.
RAM: Upgraded to DDR3 4Gb 1600MHz this week. However, using CPU-Z, I've noticed it is running at 666.7 MHz instead of the 1333 MHz it should be running (since mobo supports up to 1333 normally, but 1600 with overclock [which I didn't do]).
Video Card: Upgraded to Nvidia GeForce GT 240 6 months ago. Using CPU-Z, I've noticed that under the profile named "Current", it shows that core is at 140 MHz, Shaders at 280 MHz, and memory at 140 MHz. However, in 3D applications, it shows 550 MHz, 1340 MHz, and 790 MHz. I'm not sure if this is a problem at all, but I decided to post it just in case.
 
Video cards have idle and load clocks, that's normal. I'm going to point the finger at the powersupply. 400 watts is not really a lot, especially if it's 3 years old as it would have degraded a fair bit.

Also, when you upgraded hardware did you reformat computer? if not that is the source of all your problems.

EDIT: RAM speed is doubled. thats what DDR is. double data rate 666.7mhz x2 = 1333.4mhz
 
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I'm not too sure if it's my power supply. All of my games ran fine before the upgrade. Unless the motherboard, new RAM, and 95 Watt Processor are really soaking up that much juice. My graphics card is only 69 Watts TDP. As for reformatting my computer... I hadn't done that. Right now, I currently don't know how to... I cannot connect my working DVD drive to my motherboard at the moment. My hard drive is currently taking up my only IDE slot available now. I bought an IDE PCI Controller to add two more IDE slots and connected my DVD drive to it. When booting it shows that it recognizes Drive 0 as a DVD drive, but it still doesn't work. I think I need to install drivers, which can only be installed through a disk... through a DVD drive that currently cannot interpret any disks at the moment. I wanted to keep all of the information on my computer. If I can just repair my installation, that'll be fine. However, I'm not sure how to do that without a working DVD drive. My USB devices work, so if there's a way to repair Windows XP through USB, I can try that.
 
I'd suggest buying a SATA hard drive and dvd burner. The HDD will show huge speed increases across the board.

You need to reformat when installing a new motherboard and processor. When i didn't it only recognised my quad core as a dual core and i got horrible performance.
 
Depends on the power supply....if its some no name-brand type of power supply (which I am guessing it is) then id easily say that is a problem if not the problem.
Wattage is not as important as amperage. Also 400w is really pushing that power supply and if/when your PSU dies from that overload your looking at a possible full system destroyed scenario as anything connected to the PSU could possibly be fried from the burst.
 
Unfortunately, I'm not able to get a new hard drive or DVD burner at the moment. I'd want to keep all of the data I have on my current hard drive anyway. However, I will try to repair Windows XP. I first need to get my DVD drive to work. If I connect my DVD drive to my motherboard and hard drive to the IDE PCI controller, and then put in the driver disk for the PCI controller, do you think that would solve my DVD drive problem?
 
I didn't realize that my power supply would be small for this computer. In a previous post, I asked if my power supply would be alright for the upgrade and I got a "Yes." I didn't realize that changing the motherboard, RAM, and processor would be such a burden on the power supply. I always thought that the video card was most important. If it is the power supply, what would you recommend? 500 Watt PSU? Also, my case is Micro-ATX and I won't be able to change cases. What form factor should I use for the power supply? Is ATX alright, or should I stick to Micro-ATX?
 
You seriously need to do a formatt reinstall of the XP... That will quite possibly solve all your problems...

LinKin is right... You need to switch to SATA, If you cant afford both a SATA HDD and DVD Drive, then just get the SATA HDD for now, and then connect your DVD drive to the IDE and install XP on the new drive...

Once the install and all drivers are done... Then turn your computer off, and swap out the DVD Drive for your old IDE HDD, then boot up your new computer, and then transfer all the data you want from your old HDD to your new HDD then turn off, and swap back to the DVD Drive on IDE.

This way all your data is now on your new HDD and you have a working DVD Drive for now untill you can get a SATA DVD Drive.

As for the powersupply, yeah what brand is it? 400w no name would be pretty low for that system.
 
I 'm not exactly sure who the manufacturer of my power supply is, but I'm pretty sure it is a 400 watt no-name. It's been running for the past 6 months with my new graphics card with no problem. Does a new motherboard, RAM, and processor really add that much? My old processor was an Athlon 64 Winchester, taking up 67 watts max. My new processor takes up 95... only 30 watt increase. I always thought that all motherboards take up about the same wattage, and I thought DDR3 RAM was less watts than DDR RAM. I would think it's only a 30 watt increase... is it really that bad, or are my calculations wrong? Also, I already bought an "Ultra ATA 100/133 IDE RAID PCI Controller Card" for the DVD drive. Is there any way I can make that work, maybe by inserting my IDE HDD to it and my optical drive to the onboard IDE slot? If that'd work, I would then do a repair of Windows XP, right?
 
Well once again thing you need to remember is it not all about the wattage but the amperage that is important. You can boarder line your PSU and the GPU can still work fine but drag when its performance is needed. Thus why you only notice it when your gaming for a bit. I have seen 500w PSUs that only give 25a where as a more quality 500w gives 35a not a major difference but you would be surprised sometimes. So we can't say it is or isn't the PSU till we get more then the wattage.


Pop open the side of your case and tell us the what it says on your PSU.
It will look something like this.
blackwidow-psu2.jpg
 
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