Quirky graphics, could it be CPU?

[foycur]

I have an ASUS P4C800 deluxe mobo with a 128 MB sapphire radeon 9800 pro and a 2.8 GHZ pentium 4 processor with 2 gigs of PC2700 kingston memory. lately I've notice some of my games running a bit choppy. Madden '05 would get a little quirky after a while with chop and 'blurred' legs now and then, and MOHAA was acting a bit funny. I reinstalled directx 9.0c, and made sure I was running the most recent catalyst drivers too. No change. so I downloaded 3dmark03 and ran the standard tests that come with the free version. my CPU tests were incredibly slow. I entered BIOS and hyperthreading is enabled and it's running at the standard speed, not overclocked or anything special. My computer has spontaneously rebooted a couple of times a while back, I removed some software I had put on and it seems to have stopped, but I wonder if this is related.

Is there any other way that I can 'stress' the CPU to test it without having to take it out and test it with another chip? It's annoying me and I don't want to have to go through the whole replace one part at a time bit.

 

[zephead]

download prime95 and run a stress test. read the options carefully, you can stress test a lot and run benchmarks. also useful for detecting overheating. your card runs very hot, try running the machine with the case panel off, so the case will be open and hot air can freely escape. if the problem persists, you'll know that your case temp is fine. if the problem goes away, you need better case ventilation. good luck.

 

[foycur]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm currently running it, and according to ASUS Probe the CPU is maxing out around 51-52 degrees celsius. The system seems to be stable, but I've only been running it for about 15 minutes. I was reading about Sisoft Sandra, would that program give me any additional information? I thought about leaving the side of the case off, but I have two dogs and a cat and I'm afraid the dander would be a problem (I did clean out my case just a week ago, as well).