PC issues

[Khorvis]

I make no claims to be a PC expert, but I do generally get by through trial and error, manuals, and basic information. At this point, I have exhausted all of my knowledge and need some help with optimizing my machine. The Grim has a number of much more competent PC users, so I am coming here first before hiring a tech (I did the latter once before, and it was not cheap).

This PC is only about 14 months old and is running MUCH slower than I think it should, given the money I put into it. I am having to run WoW on the generic "Fair" settings to avoid debilitating lag. I purchased the computer from Micro Express, after reading a great review in PC World. Here are the specs:


Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 534
Power Supply: 500W Power Supply
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600 3.40GHZ
RAM: 4096MB (4GB) DDR3 Memory (That is what my order read. System in Windows says I have 8GB)
Internal Hard Drive: 500GB Serial ATA WD 7200RPM 16MB Cache
25 in 1 card reader supports CF/MD/SM/SD/MINI SD//MMC/MS/XD (No Floppy)
20X Dual Layer (8.5GB)Multi Format DVD Burner
On Board 10/100/1000 Network Card
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce GT520
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

The machine came with an Nvidia EN 210 video card which I upgraded on my own because WoW did not like it. I also have two external hard drives connected via USB, one external sound interface device (M-Audio Profire2626) connected via firewire400, and a logitech webcam.

My thoughts: I may have too many drivers running simultaneously or too many peripherals plugged in (that might be the same thing?). Also, my monitor is not the best and is using a VGA cable plugged into a DVI converter at the video card port. Ultimately I am worried that my video card still sucks .. but "Fair" ? That seems like something else.

I attempted to post by DxDiag but it made the post too many characters long!

Any help from anyone would be appreciated. I can pay in gold!

[Yrzuli]

I attempted to post by DxDiag but it made the post too many characters long!

Nothing horribly useful to add about your situation (I did a quick check on the wattage needed for the video card, and you seem fine there), so I'll merely add this, in reference to the quote above: Pastebin, for when you need to link up something horribly long.

[Grainger]

You don't say what resolution you are playing at so it's hard to say if the card is up to the task or not. It should be, my setup is 2 years old and it still runs wow fine so nothing has changed that much in how hard wow pushes the system.

You do need to figure out if its gpu bound, CPU bound or hard drive bound.

wow and windows do get fragmented over time due to all the patches and that'll make the hard drive thrash. With windows being the pain it is I wouldn't be surprised if its something like that combined with the two USB drives that's causing the slowdown.

If you've got good bandwidth I'd do a fresh install of wow, make sure it's using dx11 (that card should support it) and disconnect the USB drives. And I'd turn off windows trying to index every drive.

[Duskheron]

1. Are you running a virus/malware scanner/cleaner? If not, get one.
2. Get a registry cleaner. Windows likes to save some stupid crap.
3. See if you have a temperature gauge for your internals. Your computer may be running hot, which will slow everything down. Clean off all of your fans, especially the one for the video card. If it's still running hot, you may need to apply fresh thermal paste to the heat sink contact.

[Khorvis]

Resolution: 1680x1050 both for Windows and WoW.

I have decent bandwidth, so the reinstall is an option.

I recently ran Malwarebyte's full scan and I came back clean. I usually just use Windows Defender. I will try running a free AVG and a registry cleaner.

Thank you all, I'll post results.

[Ashenfury]

Hey I have a very very similar setup. What is your memory clock and CPU multiplier at right now? If you're not overclocked and you're using automatic settings I've seen them clock RAM below par. Chances are it's not your processor but with an i7 we have to take a turnkey approach to tuning since the QPI is variable. IF none of this makes sense to you just do this:

Restart your computer and hit f10 or f12 (usually) to bring up the bios
Navigate to your CPU settings and take a picture of the clock rates, multipliers, and voltages (upload)
Also make sure that your bios is seeing 8gb of RAM just for grins

That's the first step just to make sure your shit is setup to run well. Nothing like banging your head against the wall tuning something in windows that is only fixed in the bios. Moving on

Once you've established that you need to also confirm you aren't pushing your thermal limits for your hardware. You said you have a coolermaster case and that's what I have as well. They're usually really good about creating a negative airflow. Check the temp of your CPU, GPU, and motherboard if possible (for ambient/baseline) under heavy load artificial or not. Check documentation for thermal limits.

Ok so now you've determined it's not some hardware crap misconfigured or overheating. Let's dig into the fun stuff now! Boot into windows and open the task manager CTRL+ALT+DELETE. Then navigate to performance and at the very bottom there is a 'resource monitor' button. Say 'ello to my li'l frien'. Keep this up and get familiar with it while we continue.

Ok so now let's do a quick and easy test to see if it's MAINLY your GPU which I suspect is the case since mine is a bit beefier and it still gives me a rage inducing stutter every blue moon (560ti overclocked 2gb onboard). Just bump your graphic settings to low and run around. If you're still stuttering just as bad let me know but I'm going to assume that it runs smooth as butter with your shit turned down. We've proved good configurations (as soon as you upload those cell pics of your bios for me), thermal limits, nothing strange in resource consumption, and that the problem goes away when the program lowers it's demand for GPU resources.

If you were very well below thermal limits after 20 minutes of gaming then overclock the card IMO. I can help with that as well. Let us know!

[Ashenfury]

If you think it's your hard drive and you still have your windows7 CD and a spare hard drive the fastest test is to just reinstall on your spare hard drive without putting in a cdkey and see if things run smoothly. In my experience using windows defrag tool is a joke compared to sector level formats.

EDIT: I do this regularly just the way Grainger explained above. If you create good directory structures when installing things this shouldn't be a problem. Backup your 'My documents' folder. If you're on a network create a homegroup and just dump it all there. If you're not grab DropBox or Google Drive.

EDIT EDIT: It's normal to see your disk consumption very high on the monitor. Even on a fresh install. This is a natural I/O bottleneck that is only resolved with SSD or a nice raid configuration if your Google Fu is strong and you have spare hard drives. I have over 10 spare hard drives laying around that work fine and I still don't raid so that is something I couldn't help with. Dem can though.

[Khorvis]

BIOS homepage



Fan Speed



Voltage



Temperature



CPU Settings




The only thing that I could find that looked slightly weird was that the Intel Virtualization Technology option was disabled under the CPU settings. I didn't touch it. Everything else seemed set for maximum performance.

[Khorvis]

Some stats in WoW:

Latency
37ms (home)
38ms (world)

Framrates standing in the center of Shrine of Two Moons
Fair settings: 41 fps
Ultra settings: 10 fps

Addon Memory: 56.43MB

[Pincus]

When did you record that 58C? That's a pretty high temp if it was idle... For a point of ref, I'm hovering around 33C at idle on my i5 quadcore.

[Khorvis]

It was not exactly idle - I had just ran a full scan on AVG and rebooted my computer.

[Grainger]

Run the windows performance index for shits and giggles. Don't expect 7.9's (hell, my twin 2GB ati 5870's only score 7.6 at 2560x1600 ;) but a good number will show its something very wow specific that's the problem, a low number will point to the machine itself.

58C on the processor isn't too bad as I bet its just running the OEM cpu heatsink and Intel's run hot anyways.

Re-reading your post though you don't explicitly say that the machine was working perfectly with WoW from day one. Was it good to start and then degraded or has it always been crappy ?

[Khorvis]

Processor: 7.6
RAM: 7.6
Graphics: 4.2
Gaming graphics: 6.3
Primary hard disk: 5.9

Edit: When I had the Nvidia 210 in, WoW wouldn't even start. Something about no 3D acceleration. Only once I stuck in the new video card was I able to run the game.

[Pincus]

58C is still on the higher end of the spectrum. My worry is if that's roughly idle (which it sounds like it was), he'll be hitting the thermal trip when running something real. May want to check to see if the heatsink is installed properly (I had a loose lug on my first install, kept tripping at the high cutout).

The build is roughly the same as mine, except I have the 460GTX, and I have 8 gigs. The low framerate may also hint at a bad driver. If you have Steam, it has a way of checking the video card driver...and will show you where to get an update.

[Pincus]

Graphics: 4.2
Gaming graphics: 6.3

Again, check your nVidia driver version. The 520 is still a crap card compared to the 460GTX, but you should be better than that.