Strange Choking/FPS Issue Recently

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Bodonicus

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Joined
Aug 22, 2006
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Hey, gang. I'm putting this in the Video Card forum because my GPU is what I consider to be the most likely culprit for this problem.

Basically, starting last week, my system started almost randomly choking out into low FPS stuttering in games I had been running fine before (e.g. Medieval II Demo, Hitman: Blood Money), on settings that my system had devoured without worry. This stuttering doesn't occur at the predictable times (i.e. lots of explosions, rendering, etc.), but even during minimally taxing play. In addition, FPS never returns to normal, and even the menus are unresponsive, as if they are "lagging." If I restart the games, they run fine for a while and then the same problem occurs. I haven't changed any of the hardware or added any software I can think of that would cause this... Checked the system for viruses and spyware... Heat doesn't seem to be an issue. The only thing I can think of is that maybe some drivers became corrupted somehow? Thanks a lot in advance for any ideas about this mystifying issue.
 
Welcome to [H]ard|Forum.

At first I thought it would be your power supply, but I noticed it's an Enermax, which is one of the best out there. It could be the drivers you have, or a small bit of bad luck. Did you have a different video card before that 7900GT? The menu lag you speak of sounds like a dual core incompatibility problem, but that'd be crazy. I don't think I have much to say, it sure is a mystifying problem :S
 
Anything in Window's Event Viewer for 'application' or 'system'? (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer) You shouldn't see anything buy white 'info' bubbles - any warnings or errors are BAD.

Also, when you get these issues, [ALT]-[TAB] out of the game, and bring up Windows Task Manager. On the 'Processes' tab, make sure "Show processes from all users" is checked. Sort by 'CPU', then 'Mem Usage', and take a look at the top results of each. Is anything taking up a large amount of CPU or memory unexpectedly?

Click the 'Performance' tab. What is the 'available' amount reading under "Physical Memory (k)"? How many processes are running at that moment?
 
Heat is my first suspect as thats the classic response from something overheating.
If not...

It could be one or more pieces of security software doing their thing.
Try disabling them to see what happens.

Do you have any other programs that you leave running while gaming? ie torrents...
 
Thanks for the replies, guys!

Mr. Stryker: This is a practically new build, so everything is my first (except the HDD, which I had to RMA the first time :p). The fact that the system was running these games fine at these high settings before does make me wonder if it isn't just a bum graphics card which is burning out in front of me.

dderidex: The Event Viewer just shows a few hangs of Firefox, which were mostly back from when I had a faulty HDD. Nothing from any of the games I'm experiencing problems with. My CPU usage never seems to be above 50% after I minimize out right after one of these episodes, and there is a gig of Physical Memory available at all times. Windows Task Manager looks pretty clean too as far as memory usage goes...

Chernobyl: SpeedFan clocks my core heat reading(s) during these to be just under 50, and even the GPU doesn't seem to hit 60. I thought heat a first too, and I even bothered to take off my machine's case door to air it out, but no help. I've disabled all programs while running these games now, including antivirus, except for Firefox... It helped slightly but the problem i still consistent.

Thanks for your advice, guys. Sorry this is such a mysterious issue. Incidentally, I've also reinstalled the latest Nvidia drivers, so I guess that wasn't the issue...

ANOTHER EDIT: Ack, only 3933 marks in 3dMark05, though I aborted the test eventually. Same choking issue shows up midway through the test and never goes away.
 
Could be your hard drive, but can you 'afford' to reformat? I know I shouldn't be saying this.
 
GO to run and type "msconfig" go unde rthe startup tab and see if you have a file called "DLLML" if so, this "COULD" be your issue. Uncheck the box and restart, then report back ;)
 
can you check the temp of the motherboard chipset and see if your memory gets excessively warm?
 
newls1 said:
GO to run and type "msconfig" go unde rthe startup tab and see if you have a file called "DLLML" if so, this "COULD" be your issue. Uncheck the box and restart, then report back ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks, but no go on that one. I did find, however, a few mysterious programs which I didn't recognize and which I disabled, so maybe something will help though.
 
Chernobyl1 said:
can you check the temp of the motherboard chipset and see if your memory gets excessively warm?
Click to expand...

I've been using the temperature sensors from SpeedFan, and no part of the chipset seems to get above 55C, so I'm fairly sure heat isn't the problem. Having taken the side door off my case, it's running in exactly the same circumstances as back when it worked fine (and, if anything, there is more cold air in my room than before :p) so I can't imagine that it's an issue there. Is there another temperature diagnostic I could try?
 
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