Jasper
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:02 AM |
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PC stutters and jams during gaming
So I recently upgraded by PC, new decent motherboard, 6Mb Ram, and just waiting for the new graphics card to arrive - present to myself 
My PC runs a Quad core processors and has always been quite fast and reliable.
Recently, whilst playing Saboteur and Dirt, it has begun to stop/pause during gameplay and takes a while to get going again, which is a bit
frustrating if you're flying down a stage!
It's like it's running out of memory, but I've got plenty of that, and there's very little else running in the background -
tried turniing the AV off, didn't make any difference.
Any ideas computer guru's ?????
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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MkIndy7
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:05 AM |
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Are all the HeatSinks and fans clean for the CPU and Graphics Card etc.
Mine was stuttering playing Need for Speed the other week and the graphics card heatsink was completely blocked, its been fine since 
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Jasper
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:17 AM |
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They weren't till I replaced the MB a couple of weeks ago, the thing was full of dusk, but now it's all spotless.
I have left the sides off (waiting for the new GC to come) - do you think this would have affected airflow enough to cause it to overheat? I've
put them back on now.
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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Peteff
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:22 AM |
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I hope you mean 6 gig of ram. Shut some background processes down and see if that makes any difference.
yours, Pete
I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.
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flibble
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:22 AM |
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I had a similar problem where the cpu wasnt 100% seated properly once, made it overheat and step down in power to rescue itself, worth checking, and
that theres enough heat paste on there.
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gottabedone
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:23 AM |
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Did the same on one of my boys computers last night. It was overheating (artefacts in gaming) so I cleaned it out (small paintbrush and hoover) and
it works fine. Unfortunately the more vanes on your heatsink the more cooling but also the more chance of gathering dust.
One other option is your graphics driver. Nvidia and the Need for Speeds have always be buggy (so is the new Shift  )
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Jasper
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:35 AM |
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I've put the CPU onto the new MB without any new paste on the heatsink - is this necessary? Maybe I need to go get more paste?
(And yes, 6GB of Rram not Mb - doooh!!)
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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OX
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:55 AM |
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I'd try the paste ,,even though the surfaces look flat there not quite flat enough to mate perfect .
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Jasper
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:57 AM |
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From Maplins presumeably?
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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turbodisplay
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 10:58 AM |
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Best stuff is the top quality heat transfer pads. They stick in place and "MELT" to fill tiny viods.
Darren
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NOTE:This user is registered as a LocostBuilders trader and may offer commercial services to other users
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cerbera
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 11:06 AM |
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If it is a thermal paste problem, when you re-do it dont put too much on. have a look
here to see how to apply it correctly for a Quad core processor.
Make sure you clean all the old muck off properly first.
Also, are you running a 64 bit operating system? If not the maximum RAM that you can use is 4GB.
HTH
[Edited on 27/12/09 by cerbera]
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Jasper
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 11:14 AM |
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Yes, 64bit, so I'm running a full 6Gb.
Cheers chaps....
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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prawnabie
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 11:34 AM |
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The intel quad cores are not flat where the heatsink meets, they are concave. Most heatsink manufacturers are aware of this and produst their
heatsinks to fit. If you are using the standard intel fan setup then you really need some paste on there too!
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bigfoot4616
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 01:30 PM |
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paste should sort it but check your idle/load temps first then see what the difference is after.
if still using the stock cooler its worth getting something better then overclocking the CPU a bit. new coolers shouldn't need paste as most
come with a pad ready to fit.
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bigpig
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 03:20 PM |
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Check your heatsink, as bigfoot says, many have a sticky tape under them that acts as thermal paste. The thermal paste is just a thin skim over in
order to take into account the surface roughness and provide uniform heat transfer.
Stuttering in games can be due to many things, even something as daft as the CD being dirty or the drive failing causing IO stalls (my old read writer
suffers from this).
Run some CPU monitoring software (I think intel have some free downloads), preferably that you can set an audible alarm on a temperature threshold.
You should be able to tell if its the CPU overheating thats causing a speed step down.
If it didn't have a thermal pad and you didn't use paste then its pretty much certain you'll overheat it on game playing. At least
these days its a bit harder to fry a CPU doing this
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iank
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 03:40 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Jasper
I have left the sides off (waiting for the new GC to come) - do you think this would have affected airflow enough to cause it to overheat? I've
put them back on now.
Yes this can cause a problem with dead areas of air. A well designed case will rely on the sides being on for air flow management.
If it were a paste problem I'd expect it to overheat rapidly just starting the OS.
The problem does sound like the processor overheating when under high loads and throttling itself in order to survive.
--
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Anonymous
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rustyk
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 07:47 PM |
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Are you running the same resolution/level of anti-aliasing as before?
For gaming at high res, Vram is pretty critical and if it's pausing it could be loading textures into the memory on the graphics card.
Just another idea, as I've had artifacting with overclocked memory (on the graphics card) but overheating often locks the system up completely.
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rustyk
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| posted on 27/12/09 at 07:50 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by rustyk
Are you running the same resolution/level of anti-aliasing as before?
For gaming at high res, Vram is pretty critical and if it's pausing it could be loading textures into the memory on the graphics card.
Just another idea, as I've had artifacting with overclocked memory (on the graphics card) but overheating often locks the system up completely.
Or it could be drivers since you've replaced the MB and presumably not reinstalled windows?
I normally get away with that but video drivers can be a p.i.t.a.
You could try and reinstall graphics drivers and direct x as well....
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Jasper
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| posted on 29/12/09 at 11:41 AM |
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Did all the drivers, new Windows 7 install, and run the game from the PC, not the CD/DVD, so no problems there.... got some paste today, I'll
give that a go tonight.
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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Jasper
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| posted on 29/12/09 at 07:14 PM |
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Re-pasted the fan tonite, downloaded some cpu temp monitoring software, game stalled again, and the temp didn't go above 61 deg.
So is that temp ok, and if so, what else could be causing this?
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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bigfoot4616
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| posted on 30/12/09 at 12:26 PM |
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need to know what CPU you have to know what temps should be but i wouldn't of thought 61 would be a problem. mine is quite happy at mid to high
70's under load.
download coretemp or realtemp and then
prime95
monitor the temps while running prime95. options/torture test/small FFTs
that will max out all 4 cores and tell you what your full load temps are.
just checked mine, temps went up to about 98(throttles back at 100)
think i better try reseating my heatsink now
[Edited on 30/12/09 by bigfoot4616]
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Jasper
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| posted on 30/12/09 at 12:37 PM |
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Cool, I'll give that a go. Just ordered a £20 new HSF from Scan recommended by one of their techies so I can have a little overclock
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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bigfoot4616
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| posted on 30/12/09 at 12:41 PM |
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if the temps are okay you still want to look into the original problem before trying to overclock
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Jasper
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| posted on 30/12/09 at 01:20 PM |
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I've got a new graphics card coming next week, I'll see if that sorts it first, if not, I've got a local techie guy I'll call
in, and he can sort it all out
If you're not living life on the edge you're taking up too much room.
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bigfoot4616
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| posted on 30/12/09 at 01:46 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by bigfoot4616
just checked mine, temps went up to about 98(throttles back at 100)
think i better try reseating my heatsink now
cleaned of the old paste, applied new paste and full load temps are down to 70
old stuff had voids all over it, looked like it had dried out and shrunk.
what graphics card you using now, could be that or a driver issue causing the problems
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