Technical help with my PC
Offline I've tried everything I know to do.
My rig has had this problem for perhaps a year and a half:
It runs just fine for maybe an hour or two (the time frame is pretty arbitrary), and then - *BAM* - her performance immediately immediately drops about 50%. It's important to note that this is not a precipitous decline in performance; it immediately just tanks, and then continues to hang at about half performance until reboot (warm reboot corrects the error for another 2-ish hours or so). It does neither continues to decline nor corrects itself if left running.
I have:
- Swapped-out numerous video cards. Same problem.
- Reformatted my hard drive, doing a clean Windows XP install. Same problem.
- Reformatted my hard drive, doing a clean Mandriva Linux install. Same problem (though not nearly as noticeable, if only because I wasn't doing any 3D gaming on Linux 
)
- Defragged the hard drive. Same problem.
- Checked the hard drive for errors & bad sectors. None to be found.
There are no obvious physical signs (the fans don't whine, the machine doesn't start cycling like mad, there isn't an unusual amount of heat) that accompany the slowown - it just hammers home, and if I want to game, I've got to reboot.
Has anyone had this problem before? If you did, do you know what will fix it?
It's not a real huge deal, but it really does grate on my nerves after a while.
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- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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Lighter fluid and matches.
I feel you bud, wish I could help you. Hopefully someone will drop buy to help you.
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I can't be sure but my computer was doing somthing similar when it was over heating. Perhaps try taking a side off and put a fan next to it blowing in. If it stops doing it hurray but I wouldn't hold my breath. Mind you Im no computer expert so i'm most likely wrong. For me what was causing it was a tiny case and my two hard drives right on top of each other.
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Kevin,
There are several different ways in which performance could drop. How do you experience the performance drop? Does the interface become sluggish, or do the framerates in your games drop? All of the above?
If the performance drop wasn't sudden, or if you had different symptoms under Linux than MS-Windows, I'd say it was a memory problem. But, with these two points, I'd have to go with a heat-related CPU or I/O problem. What kind of CPU are you using?
Here's some things to try:
Re-seat your memory (not that I expect it to fix the problem, but why not?)
Reset your BIOS to factory defaults.
Turn off ACPI.
Those are the only things I can suggest, with the information given. To me, it sounds like a motherboard or CPU problem, but it really could be any number of things.
Good luck.
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my 2c are that your cooling system is insufficent for your hardware
beyond that... it could be 1 of 1000 other less obvious things
What Would Kharn Do?
Seeing as hardware is covered, and not my specialty anyway, I do know that sometimes spyware can have such an effect. Do you have Spybot and/or Ad-Aware on your pc? Ad-Aware especially. I just mention both since I like to have at least two versions of defense for both virus' and spyware.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
OK Kevin, the first suspect here would be your cooling system. But before anyone can say that for sure, we are going to need some diagnostic information from you. First off, I need to know what the actual processor you have is.
Please Download a program called cpu-z from here:
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Post up a screen cap of the main tab so that I can know what processor you are using.
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That's all of the info from the proggie, AiG (and thanks for pointing me to said proggie. Very neat).
nigel: It's both issues (framerate hit and just general increase in sluggishness).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Have you considered it may be a PSU problem? I'm pretty sure when I had a similiar problem of my PC randomyl rebooting after short times it was fixed with a new PSU. If you've added anyway hardware lately it might be too much strain, or maybe it's cooling is just going?
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OK Kevin, from what I see, it may be an overheating issue. Your processor has a feature to prevent it from going over a hardware defined temperature and if it does, then the system will slow it down quite a bit to allow it to cool off.
Now one problem here is that the sensor is not always accurate. So it can trip at the wrong temperature and when it does, it may not reset until you clear it with a reboot. That seems to be what you are describing.
One thing that you can do (assuming that you use windows) is to check your power management scheme. There are a few levels of sensitivity and if you set your system to be home/desktop, that is the least likely to cause it to trip.
Past that, it would be helpful to know what temperature reading is tripping your system. There are a a few programs that will read your sensors and create a rolling log file that can be opened in any spreadsheet program. The one that I am currently using is this:
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
You will want to use the right version for your version of windows. If you have an older copy of XP or Vista Home, that will probably be the 32 bit version. However, you could try the 64 bit version if you are not sure. Worst case is that the 64 bit version will not run on your system and then you just switch back.
You may end up having to remount your heat sink but do not do that right away. You will need to have a product known as a TIM (thermal interface material) on hand before you do that and possibly a cleaner to remove the old product. Also, if you have to do that, I would quite like to see a couple of pics of your motherboard before going that route. The fact is that if you have a stock heat sink on there, then an inexpensive upgrade part will be a good idea as that can make this less likely to happen again.
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Kevin,
One of my computers I built uses the Intel 3.2 version of the Pentium D cpu you have. It's rate at like 85 W and shuts down at 75 C or so. It is very sensitive to overheating and becomes very sluggish when it does. This especially occurs when very cpu intensive processes occur such as video reprocessing. My problem was corrected by reapplying thermal compound on the cpu and heat-sink and replacing the cpu fan with a more powerful heat-sink/fan assembly.
Things you can try first: In your Bios set the fans to run at full power not letting the system regulate the fan speed. Install speedfan or equivalent (shareware at download.com) to monitor temps. Verify the fans are not clogged with dirt and if so blow them out including the PSU. Insure the airflow is flowing through the computer and it has adequate intake. I did all this first and found it would run better with the cover off. This brought me to the conclusion that the cpu wasn't shedding it's heat. I also installed an intake tube to draw air to the cpu on the side. Prior to these changes I was running a cpu temp near 50 C at idle, after it dropped it to 35 C.
PSUs can also overheat but usually they just shut everything down.
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Actually, his processor is rated for 135 watts TDP.
Even so, it is of course a good idea to keep the inside of a computer clean. Heck but I like to remove the heat sink and wash it in the kitchen sink like 2 to 3 times a year and replace the thermal compound.
Also, I personally do not like to connect any of my fans to the motherboard. I power the one for the heat sink directly from the PSU so that it always runs at full speed. Then I run my case fans through a PWM controller like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999171
Basically, each channel puts out a rectangle wave oscillation that switches the fan connected on and off several times per second. Done that way, you can control case noise because each fan is pretty much always in either spin-up or spin-down and only runs at full speed if the knob is all the way over. The more expensive ones will also monitor your case air temperature at the inlet and outlet or you can buy another drive bay unit that does that separately.
Also, PaulJohn, 50c idle hitting 75c load is really bad. You should have stability issues doing that and you will shorten the life of your processor. Granted that ducting your case seems to have fixed that issue but that should not have been necessary. If I were you, I would consider remounting your heatsink as well. You can probably get your idle temp down to like 28c to 30c that way.
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Pentium D 900 series such as Kevin's 945 is actually rated 95 W while the 800 series was rated 135 W, I have one of each.
See this article from 2006 that reviewed the 940 version: See here.
I agree that washing or cleaning the heatsink is a good idea depending where you live 1 or 2 times a year. Dust and humidity can cause much buildup.
The computer I had that was overheating had a heatsink that poorly transfered heat from the chip to the heat sink, round Intel copper surface heatsink mount not really intended for the harsh environment I gave it. I replaced it with a large Cooler Master heatsink. It originally had a thermal Silpad which I replaced with silver oxide thermal paste. It now runs cool in the 32 to 35 range at idle.
I agree that the best way is to run the fans at full speed to keep everything cool.
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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
Well damn. I sure know where to go when I start plans to build a PC. You guys are great.
Provided noone minds helping a fellow who loves his games but doesn't know his hardware anymore.
Particularly useful would be a way to get a new PC without Vista. XP would be nice, 98 would be nicer.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Just something to note. If you build a computer, your choice in case can be just as important as your CPU and heat sink as far as temp control goes. I run a stock heat sink on an overclocked CPU, but my case has two 250mm fans. CPU temp is a constant 30c
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Oh, damn.
58-62c. Idle. And I'm not overclocking or anything.
Ouch.
Yeah, I need to re-mount that Heat Sink, or maybe find a new one. Shame I don't have any king of thermal transfer agent around (also: kind of ironic that, when it comes to computing, one always needs to find a way to waste all of that excess energy their CPU generates.
)
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
OK, do not buy the generic stuff if you can avoid it. It comes from China and the main importer got caught a while back for not doing ongoing inspections of the shipments (at least that was his story after being caught selling a product that had no business being on the market at all).
I would reccommend that you go with Arctic Silver 5. Although I will disclose that I am friends with the two guys who own the company and I have a box in my kitchen with enough of each of thier products to build a few hundred computers. Even so, that is realy the best stuff to use.
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Yeah you really need to remount the heatsink as you are 25 to 30 C hotter than you should be. What kind of fan cpu cooler do you have? Stock Intel or what?
You can use the waste heat to keep you warm in the winter in Canada as well as Korea.
I also agree with Gene that Arctic Silver 5 is the best. If you can't find it as he said beware of Chinese made product.
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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
I love AS 5...but not long ago i found a compound that beat AS 5 by 2-3 C in everything and it is WAY cheaper...its called TS-001 and i bought a 50 gram tub of it...like 15 bucks (or about 150 if you got the same amount of AS 5)...i would have to hunt down the website i got it from , its a small and new company but this stuff kicks ass.
http://RagingRev.com
See if this video helps out your tech problems:
http://www.alightonforus.com/news-1/onion-news-network-tech-trends
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OK, every time that I see the onion in a URL, I know that I am in for a treat. I have already shared the link (from their youtube account) with my guitarist.
For some reason, he is incapable of burning any disc successfully. He has had the computer for three years. I have given him two different FOSS burners and someone else gave him another last week. He still can't manage to get a single working burn. The subject line is loaded to make him think that the link will solve his problem.
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