PC performance kill from DC CPU or Mobo?

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james_k1988

james_k1988

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I have a friend in belgium and hes have major problems with his computer. He recently bought a system, the "Acer Aspire E360" , its specs ar

AMD x2 4200+
Acer FC51GM , BIOS version 1.40 , Chipset : nVidia 61x0 ICP
2g RAM
Windows XP
Nvidia 6600 GT PCIE / X800 GTO (ill explain this in a second)

The problem is performance. In game his fps is very poor, compared to what it "should" be. I said to him that Dual cores arent designed for gaming but he says he has a m8 who has the same processor and amount of ram, but he gets much better framerater than he does. I tried sending him my old card (X800) to see if it would help but it hasnt at all. When he formatted a while ago it didnt help at all either, and hes checked for spyware etc.

ANotehr weird thing is when he goes to play Medal OF Honor SH he has to run some dort of scanner (virus, adware etc) or the game lags horribly :S I think he can also fix this by setting the process to only use one core. He hasnt made any BIOS tweaks, and as far as he knows has all the drivers up to date (apart from mobo I think). I got him to put on sandra and it gave a few errors, there attached to this message. Im not sure if its the cpu or motherboard that causeing "poor" performance but I hope someone here experianced with dual cores can help us out (aint had much exp with dual cores myself). Cheers
 

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Based on the Sandra file, I'd say he has some CMOS settings to check. Namely the host controllers, and CPU vcore settings.

He needs to make sure all the settings match his hardware. He could have poor performace from a hard drive controller or some kind of buffering or cache turned off.
Tell him to go in the CMOS and just set it to "high performance". That might fix some of that.
 
check the Cmos settings, Update the drivers (and possibly the BIOS),Upgradeing to a new video card may also help but I'd wait for Direct X 10 cards before doing that.Test the ram to makesure it's good. Also since your using a video card make sure any onboard video is disabled in BIOS so it doesn't waste the memory.
 
His BIOS/CMOS settings are all fudged up.

It doesn't even have APIC mode enabled, so it's running like an older DOS/15 IRQ based system for Windows XP.
 
Sharkfood said:
His BIOS/CMOS settings are all fudged up.

It doesn't even have APIC mode enabled, so it's running like an older DOS/15 IRQ based system for Windows XP.
Click to expand...

Acer likes to use lagacy settings (includeing Fat 32 file system) in many of there machines to allow compatibility with older programs rather than useing the settings for best preformance. You oftan have to update these settings manually If you prefer preformance over compatibility.
 
Like I said...

lol

Actually I would just take the thing back and go buy a PC from a company that actually optimizes for performance. *cough*Alienware*cough*

Well they are to expensive, but wherever he's from, I'm sure there is a company that takes more pride in their system building.
 
Vigilante said:
Like I said...

but wherever he's from, I'm sure there is a company that takes more pride in their system building.
Click to expand...
Actually Acer uses good hardware (gigabyte motherboards, FSP powersupplies,Hitachi drives,etc.) But they are optimised for compatibility and stability so if you want High preformance you need to adjust the factory settings.
 
I can build you guys a kick *** gaming system out of parts from Newegg for under $500. I've got the parts ordered right now. They should be here by Tuesday. Cooler weather too. It's been a hell of a hot summer
 
MSI PM8M2-V box 350Watt Mid-Tower
Intel Celeron D 2.53GHz
1GB Corsair
Zalman HSF
Seagate 250GB SATA
NEC CD/DVD Burner
Lite-On CD/DVD ROM

$458.93
I'm building it for a friend's 16 year-old boy
 
Some games don't work well with dual core CPUs unless they're patched with updates or a BIOS update is needed or a combination of the two. Check the game maker's website.
 
That's a good enough box for the masses, but you've left out a video card. I'm not impressed with Celeron choice, and small power supply. And the lack of Windows, ehem.

Add a video card, bigger power supply, XP, and a better CPU, and then you can have a decent gaming box for more like $750-$850.
 
Yes Vigilante,
it will have a Sapphire Radeon 9600XT AGP 256MB card and XP Pro SP2. We won't be doing a 64 bit OS just yet, and this will be my first build using Intel dual core. I will update the MSI bios. That is the total price minus shipping. The boy is a great musician, a piano player. He doesn't game. He is into producing his own movies and of course music. The family has 3 children in college, so money is tight. I have been fronting the money so I just had to keep things under $500 for now. I wanted an Antec case but the cost was just over my budget...
 
Ahem going a little off topic here lads lol sorry for late reply.

Right there was no option in Bios for "high performance" , there was a option to "restore defaults" but that didnt help. Strangley enough once he went into the cmos the first time he said APIC was enabled, although sandra said it wasnt :S

As for the card, my 3200+ gets a SH*TLOAD more fps on the X800 than he does with the dual core. I think you are right though, iu think its BIOS settings. Anyone know specific settings to alter to perhaps rectify this problem, i obviously cant go over there and see it myself so i dont know what his Bios is like

I also went hunting to see if there was a new BIOS update perhaps with more "dual core support" but i cant find it anywhere with the model number sandra gave me, very odd. His specs are attached , alot of it is in belgium though but u can make the majority out (apart from the tips which are posted in english in a earlier post neways :))
 
Sounds to me like a proprietary motherboard. Or at least, the BIOS is. It might just NOT have certain settings, like Dell and other comps do.

Look for any "cache" settings and make sure their on. Make sure the PCI-E or AGP bus (whatever he's using) is on the fastest setting. Enable the highspeed settings of the hard drive system too.

Otherwise, hard to say.
 
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