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- Aug 18, 2006
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- 11,624
Hello everyone. Back in April, I built a cheap computer for school and games. One of the issues it has had is that it always seems to stutter in games. Frankly, it's driving me nuts. Brace yourself, a long block of text is about to come. But first, here are my specs:
Core i3 2100
8GB Ram (4x2GB sticks)
HIS Radeon HD 7750
Sound Blaster Audigy SE (I bought it because it has a better LINE IN jack than my onboard - which is noisy)
Crucial M4 128GB SSD
Western Digital 320GB IDE to SATA
LiteOn External DVD burner drive
Biostar TZ68k+ (I think this is what it is - going off the top of my head here)
Enermax 550 watt Naxn PSU (which is now discontinued for some reason)
Next, I'll try my absolute best to describe the situation. What happens is that whenever I begin to play the game in its 3D world, the game stutters and then plays. This happens in the first five or so seconds of game play. Every time. Guaranteed. For example, I load a save on Skyrim, and I decide to look around, the screen pauses for a brief second, and then continues to play. Same thing with Halo 2, same thing with Halo, Oblivion, etc. It always happens.
The game then continues to play smoothly (or as smooth can be expected from a 7750), and then it pauses again. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen on a regular, intervalic basis (that is, it doesn't stutter every five minutes or so). Halo 2 stutters like no one's business. And so does Halo. Come to think of it, I even tried Unreal Tournament 2004 and I experienced stuttering from that too.
Now, I know that my HD 7750 is no powerhouse, but it SHOULD be able to handle every game I've mentioned at 1440x900. Lowering settings, for what it's worth, doesn't have an effect on performance. I also tried the Darkness 2 demo on Steam, and even though the game ran at a constant 60 fps, it still paused and hitched, as if it was loading stuff.
Here's what I've tried. I've replaced the PSU with some Thermaltake I bought at Best Buy and then returned (yeah, I know - what an asshole I am). No change. I uninstalled my graphics card and ran integrated, and on Halo I saw the same thing. Pauses. I put in an old Radeon HD 3450 and also experienced the same thing with that. Yes, I'm aware that I don't have another video card that's as powerful as my current one to really test, but it's what I had. Oh yeah, and all this was done on multiple reformats. Hell, I even removed 4GB of RAM and installed Windows XP on there! Same thing (with the exception that Halo 2 would no longer work - damn you Microsoft!)
My CPU passed the intelburn test on its most extreme setting. My RAM, though the two pairs of sticks aren't identical, has been eliminated too. With only one pair, I still experience issues. At this point, my finger wants to point to the motherboard. Prior to this, I experienced weirdness with my wireless card. Like sometimes, it won't show up on the device manager, and sometimes it would (I remember rebooting three times once to get it to show up). I tried a different wireless card with it, and while it did get detected, it caused bad latency on the whole system. Playing music, for example, skipped like crazy because of the high system latency. At this point I'm not sure what to do. I just contacted Biostar to see if I can get an RMA going. I do have an old Dell laptop, so maybe that can tide me over. Or, I can just get an Intel board. From what I've heard and read, solid but boring. Reliable but not the best performing. Honestly, I'm not an overclocker, and I could care less for those features. What do you all think? This problem is driving me nuts, because at my resolution, my video card should be more than enough to play the games I want to play.
Core i3 2100
8GB Ram (4x2GB sticks)
HIS Radeon HD 7750
Sound Blaster Audigy SE (I bought it because it has a better LINE IN jack than my onboard - which is noisy)
Crucial M4 128GB SSD
Western Digital 320GB IDE to SATA
LiteOn External DVD burner drive
Biostar TZ68k+ (I think this is what it is - going off the top of my head here)
Enermax 550 watt Naxn PSU (which is now discontinued for some reason)
Next, I'll try my absolute best to describe the situation. What happens is that whenever I begin to play the game in its 3D world, the game stutters and then plays. This happens in the first five or so seconds of game play. Every time. Guaranteed. For example, I load a save on Skyrim, and I decide to look around, the screen pauses for a brief second, and then continues to play. Same thing with Halo 2, same thing with Halo, Oblivion, etc. It always happens.
The game then continues to play smoothly (or as smooth can be expected from a 7750), and then it pauses again. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen on a regular, intervalic basis (that is, it doesn't stutter every five minutes or so). Halo 2 stutters like no one's business. And so does Halo. Come to think of it, I even tried Unreal Tournament 2004 and I experienced stuttering from that too.
Now, I know that my HD 7750 is no powerhouse, but it SHOULD be able to handle every game I've mentioned at 1440x900. Lowering settings, for what it's worth, doesn't have an effect on performance. I also tried the Darkness 2 demo on Steam, and even though the game ran at a constant 60 fps, it still paused and hitched, as if it was loading stuff.
Here's what I've tried. I've replaced the PSU with some Thermaltake I bought at Best Buy and then returned (yeah, I know - what an asshole I am). No change. I uninstalled my graphics card and ran integrated, and on Halo I saw the same thing. Pauses. I put in an old Radeon HD 3450 and also experienced the same thing with that. Yes, I'm aware that I don't have another video card that's as powerful as my current one to really test, but it's what I had. Oh yeah, and all this was done on multiple reformats. Hell, I even removed 4GB of RAM and installed Windows XP on there! Same thing (with the exception that Halo 2 would no longer work - damn you Microsoft!)
My CPU passed the intelburn test on its most extreme setting. My RAM, though the two pairs of sticks aren't identical, has been eliminated too. With only one pair, I still experience issues. At this point, my finger wants to point to the motherboard. Prior to this, I experienced weirdness with my wireless card. Like sometimes, it won't show up on the device manager, and sometimes it would (I remember rebooting three times once to get it to show up). I tried a different wireless card with it, and while it did get detected, it caused bad latency on the whole system. Playing music, for example, skipped like crazy because of the high system latency. At this point I'm not sure what to do. I just contacted Biostar to see if I can get an RMA going. I do have an old Dell laptop, so maybe that can tide me over. Or, I can just get an Intel board. From what I've heard and read, solid but boring. Reliable but not the best performing. Honestly, I'm not an overclocker, and I could care less for those features. What do you all think? This problem is driving me nuts, because at my resolution, my video card should be more than enough to play the games I want to play.
