Help, can't figure out slowness problem

H

hos

New Member
I have built myself a nice machine to run world of warcraft. It worked awesome for about 1 year. stats below...

3.0 ghz 800 socket 478
1 gig PC3200 ddr
250 gig 7200 rpm HD
ATI radeon 9250 256 MB Graphics

After 1 year something happened and the machine runs like crap. Game starts up slow and the graphics are terribly choppy on the lowest setting. Because the machine shows performance problems when I'm not even in the game I am assuming that it is not the video card. My 1.6 GHZ laptop runs the game twice as good. I reloaded Windows XP pro from scratch and upgraded the ram to 2 Gigs and still no change in performance. I guarantee it's not a software issue unless it's a driver deal because I reloaded the whole hard drive. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.
 
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I tested it to 1000% and had 0 errors on the memory. I have two 1 gig chips and I tried using each one 1 at a time and had no difference in performance.
I purchased a brand new Video card and there is no change. Benchmark tests say my processor is running at an average of 3.115 GHZ. I'm Starting to think it may be a problem with the motherboard. I have recently switched hard drives from a SATA drive to an IDE Drive. I kept the SATA drive for recording video to but I haven't started loading either drive with any large files. It takes forever for the game to load and then it is extremely choppy when other characters are around. it is decent when I am by myself in the middle of nowhere.
 
Before rushing to any conclusions have you tried updating the bios to see if that sees any improvement? The other thought would be a weak battery on the board now starting to fade away. That would cause a list of problems. Try using the msconfig utility to reduce all startup programs and see how it runs then. You could have a repeat bad install of one of them or a resource sharing problem in XP itself.
 
I will purchase a new battery for the motherboard and updating the BIOS to see how that works. Another thing I noticed is that the idle CPU temps are about 75 celsius. The computer has not been shutting off on me but I'm wondering if it's throttleing back the processor speed. I will reseat the heatsink with some new arctic silver tomorrow too. If anyone has any insight on whether or not the temperature could affect the performance/speed of the computer please let me know. I have ran all of the benchmark tests on every item in the computer and it seems to be performing awesome according to the benchmark program. My results in loading/playing games is completely different still.
 
75C IS HOT! even for a newer model Intel. I advise you shut it down until you can reapply the AS5 or put on a better cooler. Check to see if the fan(if there is one on that hsf) is running. Recently I found myself building a new case when a 3rd party cooler's fan went. The temp reached the 85C max on that one. A month later the memory timings had to be reduced from 400mhz to 333mhz just to run the old case. At 400mhz Windows would freeze upon reaching the desktop. Something went there!
 
I used an arctic silver knock off to reseat the heatsink properly and I got the temperature down to 37C for idling. What was there before was a hard crusty dried up paste that didn't seem to be transferring the heat. I installed a new battery and I updated the BIOS. I then tried to run world of warcraft to look for any improvement and I ended up getting a startup error #132 which I gues is common for a lot of reasons. I removed the game from the computer then reinstalled the game and still got the same error. I was going to reload windows onto a fresh hard drive to see if I could get World of warcraft to run properly and then computer stopped running period. It allowed me to shutdown one last time and would not power back up. I then went in and unplugged ever unnecessary piece of equipment and tried to power up again and still nothingm just a slight twitch in the fans. Any ideas? Is it possible that the motherboard could be destroyed from the overheating processor?
 
Ok, the machine is powering up now. I'm not certain what the problem was but when I unplugged the Hard drive and then plugged it back in it powered back up. I am loading windows back on now.
 
That is probably due to the cooling seen after shutting it down for a period of time. Hopefully you won't run into the same I had on the last board when the cpu just about cooked and saw that or the board failing some weeks after. The dried up and brittle compund is typical of stock HSFs with the pads of preformed paste there.

Let it run for just a few hours now and then let it sit for several. That will let the AS5 have a chance to start adhering. monitor the temps for a few days anyway. Hopefully there wasn't any damage done to the board.
 
Well all software is loaded. the temperature now idles at 35 celsius. After reseating with arctic silver, replacing the battery and reloading the machine from scratch again with an updated BIOS this machine Screams!!!. I never remember it running so fast and I cranked the graphics up on WOW all the way and not 1 bit of lag even in ironforge on a saturday. You guys rock. A truly happy ending.
 
PC eye said:
hos was having an overheating problem and needed to apply a new coat of thermal compund after cleaning the dried up and cracked old paste. This is a hardware problem not virus or spyware. :rolleyes:
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oh that was a comment before i read everything else about the overheating and what not
 
hos said:
Well all software is loaded. the temperature now idles at 35 celsius. After reseating with arctic silver, replacing the battery and reloading the machine from scratch again with an updated BIOS this machine Screams!!!. I never remember it running so fast and I cranked the graphics up on WOW all the way and not 1 bit of lag even in ironforge on a saturday. You guys rock. A truly happy ending.
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That's the way we like to hear things! :) Now get some alien blasting done and save the world! :P

Impr3ssiv3 said:
oh that was a comment before i read everything else about the overheating and what not
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That usually helps! I wouldn't worry about it however. You didn't do anything there that the rest of us haven't at one time or another. :P
 
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