TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

for some reason in games, such as cs, my fps drops from 100 all the way from 60 - 20.

my fps is from constant 100 to 60 - 20. This has been happening for a month
now and i'm at the point where i want to smash my computer.

and also one thing, its hitting constant 100, then every minute or so it does that fps drop.

Computer Specs:
Windows Xp SP2
Intel Pedium D 2.66ghz
1.00gb of ram
250gb hard drive
ATI Radeon X1600 PRO 512mb

So thats pretty much all i know about my computer so if you could help me fix this problem that would be awesome or you need more info about my computer and such please let me know

*bubble-a3roXD@hotmail.com

what changes have you done to the system in that month period?
software, hardware, etc. Try undoing them..

Sounds like an infestation of some sort. What AV and anti-spyware programs do you use? Have you tried running a virus scan? Also, are your drivers up-to-date?

i'm gonna go with Rage on that one. go to yahoo.com and download their virus scanner. that things is pretty good. and check up on your drivers. visit the amd website and download the latest for your x1600.

if all else fails, you could try adding some RAM, or cleaning out your hard drive/registry.

hey thanks for replying, what i've done during these several months is one was reformat, not sure if reformatted properly or whatever. I have installed the lastest drivers for my video card at
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_ca...=xp/radeonx-xp.

Also i've tried reformatting several times and etc.

oh and also im using nod32 anti-virus 2.7

give this a go, might help in the process.:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic53669.html

check your temps etc. read my sig.

Thanks for helping but, that talks about if you dont want to reformat your computer. I reformatted and scanned with spy bot and stuff several times found nothing. I'm pretty sure i dont have a virus or whatever. I've tried defragging and **** didn't help. I'm pretty sure its a wrong driver installation or i did something some wrong while reformatting. And router and modems should have nothing to do with fps drop right?

there really isn't all that much you can do WRONG when reformatting unless you made partitions and stuff like that. generally when you reformat, you can specify that you want the whole drive to be one gigantic partition, and that's generally the best way to clean it out. multiple partitions would be for dual booting your machine, installing multiple operating systems.

so you can rule out reformatting for the most part.

so you're saying that you installed the latest driver, and it hasn't improved?

if anything, try rolling it back to the previous driver. try uninstalling and reinstalling the game. check for patches and software updates for the game. make sure that your RAM isn't the problem. there is some really simply software you can download that helps. RAMBooster 2.0 is decent. it tells you your CPU speed, the percentage of free RAM, and offers an option to clear out a given amount of RAM which you can set with a scroll bar at the top.

the only other thing i can offer is for you to try to set a bigger page file on your hard drive. i'm not sure if you know how to do that or not. but here's the basic walkthrough just in case. start-->control panel-->system-->click advanced tab-->click Settings under the Performance section-->click advanced tab-->Virtual memory settings

Set "No paging file" first. then Reboot. once you've rebooted, go back to the same place and set a manual page file of about....2560 MB. that's about 2 gigs of hard drive space. more than enough for modern games.

that covers a bunch of the problems that might be software related. once those are out of the picture, then you have to start looking at hardware issues. failing RAM, failing video card, over heating, and a few other key issues. i'm not really sure what else to tell you because apart from that, there isn't very much you can do that doesn't involve buying new parts.

Thanks for helping link =]

so i have 2 drives, c and d, they've been split from one hard drive, and its been fine and really good untill i reformatted. And yes i've downloaded the lastest video card and i got it here:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_ca...=xp/radeonx-xp

i've tried using the cd from my ati box, no difference.

Ok so i've tried the ram thingy and i have a screeshot of this below



i am interested in knowing about the bigger page file on the hard drive, so please tell me more about it

also i've checked my temperatures and got this

well, lets start with what it is. the page file is a little piece of the hard drive that gets used like RAM. occasionally, the OS and games and other things will throw information onto that piece of the hard drive to improve response times and the like. it's just like RAM...just...hard drive space. it's important to have an adequately sized page file, just as it is important to have enough RAM on the system. ever get a message that said the application ran out of virtual memory? virtual memory is the page file. i used to get one of those messages all the time when i tried to play Halo back when it first came out. but back then, i didn't know all that i know now.

i also, unknown to you, did you a favor. the way i had you reset your page file size made it reorganize itself on your hard drive =D. what it does is, it erases whatever page file you used to have, which by now is fragmented to high hell, and it starts a brand new, unfragmented page file right at the START of the hard drive. and it will NEVER fragment again. at least as far as i know.

so yeah. having a huge pagefile at least 2 gigs in size will help in small part to improving frames. i currently try to play call of duty 2 on this hunk of crap i call a machine. and i used to get maybe 15-20 frames max. then i cleaned out my hard drive, my registry, got a Ram booster, reset the page file, and presto. i now get 25-30 frames. on a resolution of 800x600, in some places it gets as high as 40-60 frames. occasionally it sky rockets if i look at a bland piece of texture to like...110 frames a second. but as soon as i look away it goes down again. either way, its playable.

right now, you've done 90% of the things i would have done if i wanted better frame rates. just about the only thing you haven't done is clean out the registry, and that barely does anything anyhow. i just did that for the sake of doing it and learning.

from what it looks like, i don't think its the RAM or the temperatures. they look fairly normal to me. and having that much RAM free is just about average. it's not the same program i used, but it's close enough.

not sure what else to tell you in order to improve the frames. its not spyware or viruses, its not the RAM, its not...anything really. its abnormal. and i'm honestly unsure what to do about it. i'm trying to avoid telling you to buy more RAM because you said it worked fine before. the only other thing i can think of is some sort of a hardware failure with your graphics card. and i'm not an expert on what to do with that. try cleaning any dust and whatever might be on it. make sure it isn't bent, cracked, or cracking, and see if there is any visible physical damage to the card. aside from that, i've done all i can to help. try running another game and see if the frames do the same thing. that might help to tell if its the card or not.

if you want to know more about something, i'll do my best. just ask. but from here, with helping the frames, i can only wish you best of luck.

ok my problem is, im hitting constant 100, like no matter what, all of a sudden it drops to 60-20. 10 to 20 seconds later it would rise back up. And it happens every minute or so. It used to hit constant 100, like no matter what its just ... please if you can continue to help me fix this problem that would be great. and thanks for helping me this whole time. i apreciate you taking time to help me with this problem.

hey would this problem be like my computer slowing down or something, cause its happenning every minute from constant 100 to 60-20. would my hard drive be ****ed or something or what. should i buy a new hard drive?

IF ANYONE ELSE PLEASE CAN HELP ME WITH THIS PROBLEM THAT WOULD BE GREAT IM STARTING TO GET PISSED.

Your +12V rail voltage is way above normal values. What brand and wattage is your PSU? Post the details on ur PSU sticker.

the slowing down wouldn't be because of the hard drive. your hard drive is fine from what i can tell. don't worry about that. if you started getting blue screens of death, then you'd have to worry about something happening with your memory or hard drive. so rule that out.

my guess is it would be processor related, or as Rage seems to suspect, a power supply problem. you might have overloaded the power supply and it's struggling to keep a constant flow of power to all your computer components. counter strike is somewhat graphics intensive, and it might cause your video card to have to work really hard. and that draws on the power. so if anything, the outcome of this might be that you need a new power supply. and those aren't too expensive. but it's still a pain. a brand new 550 watt supply might cost you upwards of 60 dollars-90 dollars depending on the brand/quality. i saw a very nice one that cost 99.99. it supplied 630 watts of power. which on your rig would be like attaching a power plant to a toy car. but hey...at least you wouldn't have to worry about power problems. search around on newegg for one BUT ONLY IF WE IN FACT FIND IT TO BE YOUR POWER THAT'S THE PROBLEM!

we're not saying it is. its a conjecture. either way, i'm throwing in some extra information just in case.

at this point we aren't sure EXACTLY what the problem is. we can only suspect. post your details for your power supply, and it might help us pinpoint. if that doesn't work, we'll look at another potential problem. so keep the info coming.

i'm subscribed to this thread, so...i'll keep on reading the posts. i'll try to help. but i'm warning you now, i'm no expert on hardware related problems. i'm still learning about this aspect.

hey guys, once i again i appreciate how you guys are taking your time to solve this issue.

so i took a took inside my computer and i found out my power supple is 400w and the brand was Rion. im guessing thats not enough?

also one thing, i just realized that my power button, the switch thing for my power supply thing is jammed. i wouldn't say jammed or whatever but you can turn it off. like you press it and the button just flings back. would this be something too?

i wouldn't be too worried about the power button. maybe clean it out and such and make sure it doesn't get stuck. that would suck.

as for the power supply, i'm not sure. with the specs you've got, it should be kinda ok. but i know next to nothing about the power consumption idea...no idea how it works really...maybe Rage knows more than I do.

It isn't anything to do with the processor because the SpeedStep technology only slows down the core when it's idle, not when under load. So that only leaves your PSU. It's enough, but most crappy PSUs like yours aren't able to output a steady 400W at normal temps at all. It'd probably be putting out only about 350W. It's the only part of your system that doesn't check out and before it dies, I think it's better you replace it. This is a good-quality, inexpensive PSU if you're willing to take avail of the heavy rebate.

the only thing to watch out for with the rebates is the time it takes and the constant hounding you have to do when you want your rebate money back. most cases, it takes a month to get the money back.

...why didn't you recommend the same one to me, rage? =D i kinda want that one now. it's lookin better and cheaper than that OCZ you showed me before. i won't take the rebate...but wow. i'd buy it.

nosebleed, you can have it...unless i get to it first! HA!

well the power button its like broken i guess you can say. like you cant turn it off. you press it and the button flies back, its really hard to explain. so would this be the problem? any other problems possible to cause this bs

...unable to turn it off through the power button isn't really an issue. i can't understand why it would do that, but using Start>Shutdown will suffice so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. it wouldn't be causing power fluctuations as far as i can tell. i think you can be pretty certain that if you replaced the power supply your problems will sort themselves out from there.

alright when i got time ill see if i can get it and tell you then in the mean time keep posting on any other possible issues if you can =] THANKS ALOT GUYS