Newer computer = slower performance?

T

three_sixteen

Gawd
Joined
Feb 15, 2002
Messages
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So I just put together a formfactor PC
An EPoX ex5 Mini Me

System stats are:
AMD @ 1982.35 MHz AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2700+
1024MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
XP Home

For some reason when I'm playing World of Warcraft and try to play an MP3 it sounds like my processor is being completely worked over, the MP3 playback is very choppy for some reason.

I've tried playing MP3s in both Winamp and Winblows media player, both have the same result. I've updated both the nForce drivers and my video drivers but that hasn't seemed to fix anything. I've killed any strange background processes that might be running as well and that hasn't helped anything at all either. I'm out of ideas.

I can't seem to figure out where the problem lies, does anyone here have any ideas?

EDIT: Played with the BIOS and turned off AGP Fast Write, seems to have fixed it. Id rather have AGP Fast Write enabled..
 
fast write is buggy and oftentimes very bad for performance. if the only reason you want it enabled is because it has the word "fast" in it, then you must know that your logic is flawed. :p glad to know your problem is resolved.
 
Well, I'm actually not so sure it is.

Something just isn't settling right with Mp3s and WoW running at the same time, I still feel like theres some sort of slowdown or bottleneck happening somewhere.

Could it be a heat issue?

I'm running at ~60&deg Celcius while gaming
 
That seems a bit hot for an AMD, but ask the AMD guys on that (<-- Intel man)

Don't worry about the AGP fastwrite. If anything, you can try a BIOS update and see if that fixes it. ANywho, it's not a big deal...so if it fixes the problem, then use the solution.
 
hignaki said:
That seems a bit hot for an AMD, but ask the AMD guys on that (<-- Intel man)

Don't worry about the AGP fastwrite. If anything, you can try a BIOS update and see if that fixes it. ANywho, it's not a big deal...so if it fixes the problem, then use the solution.
Click to expand...
The AMD -should- be fine up to 70&deg Celcius
I'm not so sure it's heat.
 
My friend had a similar problem with choppy playback of audio files etc. It WAS the chipset drivers.

I realise you've said you've tried this, but I still think that's where the problem lies.

Once properly installed, make sure your hard drive IS set to DMA mode. Check this in device manager:

dma.jpg


Make sure the transfer mode is set to "dma if available".

If you're still stuck in PIO mode then you'll have to make sure things are setup correctly in your bios.
 
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