Good Evening All, 

I have a problem I was hoping someone could help me fix. I have a custom built PC that I have been running for roughly 6 months now and just recently it has hit a lag issues on its framerates. I am not sure if it is CPU related or video card related, the CPU seems to be put into overdrive when running games or multiple tasks. I am ran CCleaner to try to fix the problem but that did not help. I also updated my video card drivers and checked the temperatures on both my CPU and GPU which seem to be normal. A Malwarebytes scan found nothing nor Kaspersky and due to the fact that this is a gaming rig, and an expensive one at that I limit my downloading and try to watch what sites I visit. This issue seemed to pop up in the past few days and I have no idea what the root cause could be. Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be or would anyone be willing to run through some solutions? My system specs are as follows: 

CPU: Intel i-7 2600 @ 3.4ghz 
GPU: Nvidia GTX 580 3g 
Op System: Windows 7 x64 
RAM: 16gb 

Any other questions please let me know, and thank you so much for your time in advance. 

It is probably noteworthy to say that it is an intermittent issue. I first noticed it when I was playing Rage and the game stuttered and now today while checking to see if it was a fluke by running Terreria. Neither of these should be an issue for my PC at all.

I have done the following so far with no immediate fixes in sight: Run defrag, scandisk, memory check, updated drivers, monitored temperatures both of CPU and GPU.

When the lag spikes hit, even while playing something as resource minimal as Terreria I am only getting 38 FPS, something is clearly not right.

I'd try monitoring your CPU and GPU load and clock speeds as you play games that give you trouble.  It would be ideal if you could put the monitoring software on a second computer, though playing a game windowed works if you don't have a second monitor.  You can monitor CPU clock speeds with CPU-Z, and CPU load with Task Manager.  You can monitor both on the GPU with GPU-Z, though you can likely do something through the Nvidia control panel, too.

If there's a huge load on the CPU and not much on the GPU or vice versa, then that limits what we need to check some.  Also make sure that the load clock speeds are about what you expect them to be.  Both your CPU and GPU will probably clock way down at idle, but you want CPU clock speeds to be in the range of 3-4 GHz if there's a heavy load on the CPU, and GPU clock speeds to be around 1.5 GHz shaders and 750 MHz core if there's a heavy load on the GPU.

Originally posted by kftaurus
Am now considering wiping Windows 7 and my hard drive and doing a fresh install of Windows 8.

If you're going to do that, then you might as well get an SSD for your system at the same time.  A computer without a good SSD is slow, no matter what else it has.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by kftaurus
Am now considering wiping Windows 7 and my hard drive and doing a fresh install of Windows 8.

If you're going to do that, then you might as well get an SSD for your system at the same time.  A computer without a good SSD is slow, no matter what else it has.

Mine is pretty snappy without an SSD. Win8 makes a big difference.

Need a bit more info:

When you say lag - is it like.. the game drops to 2-3fps and just craps out, or the computer seems to just become unresponsive all of a sudden, or what?

When you say CPU goes into overdrive... explain what you mean here.

What were your temps exactly? "Normal" is a huge range.

----

The usual cuplrit here is thermal throttling on the CPU - it gets too hot, it downclocks itself severely in order to cool down (and if it's really getting hot, the BIOS will spin up the CPU fan to max). If it can stay cool enough, the computer won't crash, but it will feel suddenly a lot slower.

Also, Win8 is no substitute for an SSD. You get.. fast boot, and that's about it really.

Ridelynn,

To answer your questions, by lag I mean that the computer becomes very sluggish but not completely unresponsive... for example, while running Terreria my framerate goes from 60fps (100% according to the game) to 38 (51%).  Also while browsing the internet earlier it slowed to the point where my mouse would be unresponsive for a second while moving it and then snap to where I wanted it to be.

Ignore the bit about the CPU, I've come to find out that what it is doing is normal.

By the temps, here is a rundown of when freshly booted vs when I see the lag while playing a game.

While not gaming: 

Kombuster readings: 
Temp: 42C 
Load: 8% 

CPUID: 

Core0: 23C - 32C 
Core1: 21C - 31C 
Core2: 20C - 32C 
Core3: 24C - 32C 
Package: 30C - 32C 

Gaming (Running Terreria in widowed mode after lag hit): 

49FPS 

Kombuster readings: 
Temp: 41C 
Load: 5% 

CPUID: 

Core0: 20C - 32C 
Core1: 21C - 31C 
Core2: 25C - 32C 
Core3: 27C - 31C 
Package: 30C - 33C

you might want to try a program called prime 95 from mersenne, its a free program, but it tests your cpu and ram, run the torture test, it will also verify your computers ability to handle 'heat' under high load. plus, if any errors do crop up, it tells you if your ram or your cpu is faulty.

if your hoping that windows 8 will speed up your system over windows 7 though, your out of luck, there isnt any evidence it does so, and unless you have an SSD your not going to get a quick start anyway, i have win 8 pro and the startup takes around 45 seconds, although, i do not have an SSD. (and if you have 3rd party firewalls and antivirus programs, it takes even longer btw!) so overall, if you want to speed your system up, its not a new OS you need, but an SSD.

Originally posted by kftaurus
Honestly, the only reason for a complete wipe and switching to Windows 8 is two fold.  I dont expect improved performance, I guess I should have been more upfront... I realize that the best way to do that would be to get an SSD, but clearly something is bogging my system down and at this point I am at a complete loss for what it could be.  The reasoning behind getting Windows 8 and doing a fresh install is to verify that none of my current programs are causing a memory leak issue or something of the sort that is slowing my system down (and if the fresh install runs smoothly then I will know that right away).  The second reason is I have been considering an upgrade (if you want to call it that :P) to Windows 8 for awhile now and if I remember right the upgrade price will go up in cost soon.  That is the reasoning behind that.

unfortunately, your going to have to pay full price for windows 8 anyway, as the 'cheap upgrade' offer is only for the 32 bit version of windows, not the 64 bit one, and there is no way that the windows 8 pro 32 bit version is an upgrade from windows 7 64 bit,  so while it might be worth upgrading from xp 32 bit to windows 8 32 bit, although tbh, thats also a debateable point at this time, your not going to really save money. And its unlikely to be a software issue, it sounds like its a hardware issue, identifying which piece of hardware is giving you problems is the next step, ideally, its your ram, although a worst case scenario is a synergistic issue, in which case something more 'extreme' may be your only recourse, either way, your not going to miraculously see your problems disappear just by installing a new OS.

just thought i'd also point out though, that currently i have windows 8 pro 32 bit, and im saving up to buy windows 7 64 bit, to replace it with.

Bah, didn't even notice the fact that it was 32 bit, bummer... oh well.

Do you think a synergistic issue would pop up after having the computer for 6 months?  The thing has run perfectly fine up until about a day or so ago... 

Any ideas on what to do next because everything I originally listed that I did seemed to return normal results.

Originally posted by kftaurus

Ridelynn,

To answer your questions, by lag I mean that the computer becomes very sluggish but not completely unresponsive... for example, while running Terreria my framerate goes from 60fps (100% according to the game) to 38 (51%).  Also while browsing the internet earlier it slowed to the point where my mouse would be unresponsive for a second while moving it and then snap to where I wanted it to be.

 

Ignore the bit about the CPU, I've come to find out that what it is doing is normal.

 

By the temps, here is a rundown of when freshly booted vs when I see the lag while playing a game.

 

While not gaming: 

Kombuster readings: 
Temp: 42C 
Load: 8% 

CPUID: 

Core0: 23C - 32C 
Core1: 21C - 31C 
Core2: 20C - 32C 
Core3: 24C - 32C 
Package: 30C - 32C 

Gaming (Running Terreria in widowed mode after lag hit): 

49FPS 

Kombuster readings: 
Temp: 41C 
Load: 5% 

CPUID: 

Core0: 20C - 32C 
Core1: 21C - 31C 
Core2: 25C - 32C 
Core3: 27C - 31C 
Package: 30C - 33C

What happens to your CPU clock speeds while you get the lag?  They'll probably bounce around some, but do they stay in the 3-4 GHz range or do they drop way down?

Check Task Manager to see the CPU usage after the lag hits.  The processes tab will show which programs are using how much CPU power.  It's okay for various programs to occasionally use 1%, but if anything other than the game is using a ton of CPU power, that might be the problem.

Also check the performance tab to see if it's one core maxed out or a bunch of cores getting some use.

While you're there, check how much physical system memory is in use.  Running out of memory with 16 GB would take quite a bit of doing, but you might as well check in case some rogue program is doing something stupid.

There's also the possibility that it's just a glitch in Terraria and nothing wrong with your computer.  Champions Online had a glitch for a while where it would suddenly stop rendering the game for a few seconds, and then continue as though nothing had happened.  A programmer of the game said he thought it was caused by controller detection gone awry.

Originally posted by kftaurus

Bah, didn't even notice the fact that it was 32 bit, bummer... oh well.

 

Do you think a synergistic issue would pop up after having the computer for 6 months?  The thing has run perfectly fine up until about a day or so ago... 

Any ideas on what to do next because everything I originally listed that I did seemed to return normal results.

probably not, but that doesnt mean that a component hasnt gone bad, its worth running prime 95 just to make sure that isnt the case, at least it does verify your computers CPU, Ram and how well it handles Heat.

Quizzical,

My CPU clock speeds when the lag hits stay at the same speed they are at when there is no lag which is roughly 4121Mhz.

The performance tab shows all cores being used evenly for the most part, the only couple that are slightly spiked higher are 1, 3, 6, 7... but not by much.

Physical system memory is at (19%) and CPU column has everything at 0 except the game which is at 2 and system idle process which is at 99.

As far as it being the game, I would figure that but I first noticed it when Rage hung on me, then TSW and finally Terreria... I am using it as my test subject since it runs small and windowed so I can easily monitor everything when it hangs and when it runs smoothly.

No idea what to do next lol...

Originally posted by kftaurus

Quizzical,

 

My CPU clock speeds when the lag hits stay at the same speed they are at when there is no lag which is roughly 4121Mhz.

The performance tab shows all cores being used evenly for the most part, the only couple that are slightly spiked higher are 1, 3, 6, 7... but not by much.

Physical system memory is at (19%) and CPU column has everything at 0 except the game which is at 2 and system idle process which is at 99.

As far as it being the game, I would figure that but I first noticed it when Rage hung on me, then TSW and finally Terreria... I am using it as my test subject since it runs small and windowed so I can easily monitor everything when it hangs and when it runs smoothly.

No idea what to do next lol...

 

Reinstall windows.

Originally posted by Woopin

Originally posted by kftaurus

Quizzical,

 

My CPU clock speeds when the lag hits stay at the same speed they are at when there is no lag which is roughly 4121Mhz.

The performance tab shows all cores being used evenly for the most part, the only couple that are slightly spiked higher are 1, 3, 6, 7... but not by much.

Physical system memory is at (19%) and CPU column has everything at 0 except the game which is at 2 and system idle process which is at 99.

As far as it being the game, I would figure that but I first noticed it when Rage hung on me, then TSW and finally Terreria... I am using it as my test subject since it runs small and windowed so I can easily monitor everything when it hangs and when it runs smoothly.

No idea what to do next lol...

 

Reinstall windows.

don't give up the day job....

a couple of years back, i had a problem with my computer crashing, took a while to locate the problem, which was that one of my ram modules had gone bad, it was fairly new too, had only bought them a few months previously, and they were corsair, which is usually pretty reliable, point is, sometimes things just go bad and you have to replace them, which is why i suggested running a test program to verify the integrity of both your cpu and ram, also sometimes the fastest way to identify a problem, is to rule out the things that arent broken.

Originally posted by kftaurus

Quizzical,

 

My CPU clock speeds when the lag hits stay at the same speed they are at when there is no lag which is roughly 4121Mhz.

The performance tab shows all cores being used evenly for the most part, the only couple that are slightly spiked higher are 1, 3, 6, 7... but not by much.

Physical system memory is at (19%) and CPU column has everything at 0 except the game which is at 2 and system idle process which is at 99.

As far as it being the game, I would figure that but I first noticed it when Rage hung on me, then TSW and finally Terreria... I am using it as my test subject since it runs small and windowed so I can easily monitor everything when it hangs and when it runs smoothly.

No idea what to do next lol...

 

If you have a Core i7-2600 as opposed to a 2600K, then the multiplier is locked, so you can't overclock it that way. You can still increase the base clock, but that doesn't just overclock the CPU. That overclocks a bunch of things, and it's probably making something unstable or overheat or constantly have to resend data or some such, and that kills your performance.

Go into your BIOS and see if you can find the base clock, likely BCLK. Make sure it's set to 100.0 MHz. If it's set to 108 or something, that's likely the problem.

Sorry about the spacing, but the forum is being glitchy today.

---

Originally posted by Phry

---

Originally posted by kftaurus Honestly, the only reason for a complete wipe and switching to Windows 8 is two fold.  I dont expect improved performance, I guess I should have been more upfront... I realize that the best way to do that would be to get an SSD, but clearly something is bogging my system down and at this point I am at a complete loss for what it could be.  The reasoning behind getting Windows 8 and doing a fresh install is to verify that none of my current programs are causing a memory leak issue or something of the sort that is slowing my system down (and if the fresh install runs smoothly then I will know that right away).  The second reason is I have been considering an upgrade (if you want to call it that :P) to Windows 8 for awhile now and if I remember right the upgrade price will go up in cost soon.  That is the reasoning behind that.

---

unfortunately, your going to have to pay full price for windows 8 anyway, as the 'cheap upgrade' offer is only for the 32 bit version of windows, not the 64 bit one, and there is no way that the windows 8 pro 32 bit version is an upgrade from windows 7 64 bit, 

---

This is not true, there are 2 ways to get 64-bit edition from the cheap upgrade, but you only have about 12 days to do it.
If you run the Steup Assistant from a 64-bit client, it will download the 64-bit edition. If you only have a 32-bit client, then you can pay extra to get the DVD shipped (like $15, still cheaper all-in than a new OEM license though) and specify the 64-bit edition.

If you screwed up, didn't read the FAQ's and information on the internet and got stuck with a 32-bit edition, then you got what you paid for.