My friend is having problems with his Alienware...

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Sonicks

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 24, 2005
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My friend has been having quite a lot of problems with his alienware lately and I have been trying to help him, but this just has me really stumped.

The computer came with an x850xt and he was very happy with it for a while. Months later he decided he wanted to get a 7800gt. He had never done any computer upgrades before but I walked him through it and eveything went fine....or so I thought. Of course, him making the switch from an ATi card to an nVidia card I told him to use driver cleaner and all that. Fast forward a little bit and he is playing Counter Strike like usual, except he is noticing lower FPS than usual. Not by a little either, it was about 20-30fps difference. So I helped him as best as I could, he ran driver cleaner over and over uninstalled drivers/reinstalled drivers and nothing really worked. He then decided to overclock it to see if it can improve his performance. He claims he was getting higher FPS (don't remember eaxctly how much) and he was satisfied....


Or so I thought. A week later he tells me he went out and bought an x1900xtx. He pretty much knew what to do now, so he driver cleaned, installed the XTX, and did everything a normal person would do. I told him to run 3D Mark 05 and to tell me what he got so I can get somewhat of an indication as to whether or not its running fine. He ends up getting somewhere in the 8,400-8,500 range, which is just 200 points over what I get. I know the XTX is able to do WAAAY better than that. So here I go again trying to help him solve the problem. Hes tried everything, he has even used that "respawn" thing (I think its kinda like formatting, but not quite). So he's tried everything short of a full format and I'm not quite sure what the problem is here.

He has plugged in the power to both cards correctly and everything on the hardware side seems to be fine. I'm quite positive this is a software issue. He also has a P4 3.46 EE, and 2gb RAM, so I don't think any of that is holding him back.

Any help is much appreciated, sorry to make you read through all this, and sorry if there are any spelling/grammar mistakes. Thanks in advance.
 
The guranteed way to try to fix the issue is a reformat.

Maybe the PSU is not supplying enough amps?
 
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the power supply. During the 7800gt run, he upgraded his PSU from the stock 430w to a 600w BFG power supply. Looking at the BFG PSU specs, it seems fine, but I could be wrong. Do you guys think this PSU is good enough?
 
Does not sound like a hardware issue at all, sounds like a software/driver problem. I suggest a clean OS.
 
Is it just in CS, Cause the fact that the Ati runs CS better isnt too uncommon. Do other games run slower or just that.
 
That doesn't explain why the x1900xtx is running slower than his x850xt. And no, its not just Counter-Strike, in BF2 (the only other game he really plays) he notices slower performance.

I already told him that he should do a clean format and that would surely fix his problem. When he does I'll give an update to see if it solves the problem.
 
Sonicks said:
That doesn't explain why the x1900xtx is running slower than his x850xt. And no, its not just Counter-Strike, in BF2 (the only other game he really plays) he notices slower performance.

I already told him that he should do a clean format and that would surely fix his problem. When he does I'll give an update to see if it solves the problem.
Click to expand...


oh I miss read your post i thought you said he got the 7800GT as an upgrade to the x850, i didnt see the 1900xtx menchined, in that case yes a reformat as most have pointed out should fix the problem.
 
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