Performance problems during games...

Hi there! Ive got a p4 1.5 with 512mb RAM, a GeForce Ti 4200 with 128mb, Audigy Gamer, bout 200GB of HD space. But despite all this stuff, some basic games from about 4 years ago (Risk 2, Unreal Tournament[the first one], and even modern games like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic) which require much less of a computer have this incredibly annoying tendency to slow down my computer. Ive done the usual maintenance, ie, erased my temp files from IE and defraged. I also got a spybot program to take care of that, and a registry "cleaner". Even made sure there were no scheduled tasks that ran every 5 mins and shut off system restore. It seems to happen about (depending on the game) every 5 mins (UnrealTourn) to every 90 secs (risk2) or so though, and lasts for about 30 secs. Also, by using msconfig, I tried booting without any of my startup programs running and it still occured. Any thoughts? Thanks for you help.

-Mark

 

You might also have a slow FSB. The early P4's have a small FSB. My dad has a 2.0 ghz P4 with 233 or so FSB. Everything gets clogged in the bus and the CPU is waiting for the data. I gotta agree with robo that it is most likely too many services running. Some program could also be accessing the internet to update itself causeing precious cycles to be consumed.

 

Oh right, sorry. Im using XP Home and have already done the Black Vipers super tweaks and updated my drivers a few days ago. Wierd thing about all this is that its a really new problem. About 4 months ago, everything ran fine. Wierd, huh. Also, if it was background services, wouldnt doing a clean boot through msconfig with all startup programs disabled make things work then?

 

I got and tried that Intel stuff, but it didnt make a difference and my IDE isnt VIA. I get the feeling that its something super easy that Im overlooking. Ill double check those Viper fixes again tonight to make sure that none of them some how got switched back. Could it have anything to do with a video card or sound card configuration? Ill also try it with my DSL unplugged to see if that has any effect.

 

NIC? Whats that? Ohhhh network card. Roger. Ill do that too

 

It didnt work. Unplugged everything and double checked the super tweaks and it still slows down. Now Im wondering if maybe its some sort of configuration error somewhere. Do you think if I reinstalled XP that might fix it?

 

One thing that might help you narrow it down is to look in Task Manager / Processes to see what's eating up your CPU cycles when the slowdown occurrs.

 

Have you checked your virtual memory?

start
control panel
system
advanced
performance settings
advanced

or maybe a memory check

http://www.memtest86.com


just some suggestions

 

I got a SpyBot to erase all the spyware, messed with my page file in a few different ways, tried making a static page file of about 1.2GB on a separate drive other than C:, tried putting system control of a separate page file on each drive, so that there are 3 different 700mb page files. I also did Black Vipers Super Tweaks. How can I check the processes while in the game? Would alt-tab'ing out of the game to task manager when it stalls do the trick?

 

you can try that i know when ive tried that before on some games the task manager remains hidden under the game window

just a long shot have you tried looking in your event viewer
access through control panel--admin tools

 

I totally fogot about the event viewer. Ummmm. Ok its full of errors. Here are all the ones that happened today. wtf In the Application part, there were 44 errors just today!

Here are the errors from Applications:
This one comes up a lot:

Alert Manager Event Interface: Alert Manager Event Interface unable to send alert to \\MARK\pipe\AlertManager. Error returned = The system cannot find the file specified.

The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 80070422 from line 44 of d:\nt\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine CoCreateInstance. hr = 0x80040206.

Here are the errors from System: All in all, there were 43 errors just today...
DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to start the service EventSystem with arguments "" in order to run the server:{1BE1F766-5536-11D1-B726-00C04FB926AF}

The Universal Plug and Play Device Host service depends on the SSDP Discovery Service service which failed to start because of the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to start the service StiSvc with arguments "" in order to run the server:{A1F4E726-8CF1-11D1-BF92-0060081ED811}

The Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) / Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service depends on the Application Layer Gateway Service service which failed to start because of the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

Well great...Anybody have any thoughts? I think the UPaP device host and the ICF/ICS have that disabled message b/c of the Black Viper super tweaks, but the rest????

 

Also I noticed under the Task Manager that the System Idle Process seems to always be using at least 90% of the CPU. Any ideas what that means?

 

I use windows update about every 3 days or so, just to be sure. Right now I have the Black Viper tweaks set to Gamer, should I lower them all back to safe to see if that helps?

 

well, theyre Ive got it set to "safe", but it still happens. Is there any chance that by just reinstalling XP it might reset everything back to the way it was months ago when there was no problem?

 

well having a look at your errors i guess that a re-install would be a good idea look here at the third error down
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBO/tip7100/rh7193.htm

 

So are there any special considerations that I need to take in to account when reinstalling XP?

 

if this will be your first reinstallation, all you'll want to make sure of is that you've got all of your current data that you have to keep, backed up. makeing sure you've got the appriopriate drivers for all of your devices backed up onto a CD isn't a bad idea either. but a reinstallation of windows should make a fine inprovement :-D

*Edit* forgot to mention if you've reinstalled windows xp quite a few times (i doubt it from your description and all of what's going wrong), the worse you'd have to do is call up M$ for the product activation i dont think you'll have to worry about it though

 

hi wally
all you really need to do is a repair installation

have a look here (too lazy to type it out)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341&Product=winxp

oh yeah only thing is you will have to reinstall all your windows updates

 

And update/reinstall device drivers.

 

OK, so Ive got the newest driver updates copied onto my external HD which will just get unplugged before I reinstall XP. Do I need to back up all the info on my internal HDs? Will they get erased totally? Im also going to copy any important papers, pics, etc over to the external HD so that anything that is on my internal ones can get zapped. If I miss a driver or two, will it mess anything up to badly afterwards or will it just be a matter of getting it again? What about the registery, do I need to back it up as well?

 

Also, is there any easy way to just get all my drivers at once to back them up?

 

Nice! Thanks Robo

 

Yeah, I agree. I was thinkin that I would probably save all the files I need off my C: and then reformat it. Ive got a ton of old crap thats hard to let go of and that might be causing problems. I figure as long as I have the drivers, Ill be ok. Have any handy links to help me along with that?

 

Hmmm. On second thought, I think Im just gonna try the repair installation first to see if it works. If not, then Ill do a total reformat/install.

 

Well, I got my Compaq recovery CD out and I guess it reformated my C and then reinstalled everything. So I did Win Update and put all my drivers back on...but, much to my suprise and astonishment it still slows down. Think maybe it didnt erase all the files when it did the recovery? Any other ideas before I start seriously thinkin about draggin my tower out to the pistol range a few miles away?

 

While poking around it total desperation, I found out that my video card had been sharing an IRQ (#18) with my USB 2.0 hub. So I pulled out the USB hub to see if it improved things any and it did! However, its not totally fixed up and Im wondering what else should not be sharing and IRQ, I/O, or whatever. When I go to MSInfo, these are all the conflicts/sharing under my Hardware Resources:

Memory Address 0xF0000000-0xF80FFFFF Intel(R) 82845 Processor to AGP Controller
Memory Address 0xF0000000-0xF80FFFFF NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Intel(R) 82845 Processor to AGP Controller
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

Memory Address 0xF9000000-0xF9FFFFFF Intel(R) 82845 Processor to AGP Controller
Memory Address 0xF9000000-0xF9FFFFFF NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Intel(R) 82845 Processor to AGP Controller
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB Intel(R) 82845 Processor to AGP Controller
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

And here are all my IRQs:

IRQ 0 System timer OK
IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard OK
IRQ 3 Communications Port (COM2) OK
IRQ 4 Communications Port (COM1) OK
IRQ 6 Standard floppy disk controller OK
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK
IRQ 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK
IRQ 12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 14 Primary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 18 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 OK
IRQ 19 Intel(r) 82801BA/BAM USB Universal Host Controller - 2442 OK
IRQ 20 Intel(R) PRO/100 VM Network Connection OK
IRQ 21 Creative SB Audigy OK
IRQ 22 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller OK
IRQ 23 Intel(r) 82801BA/BAM USB Universal Host Controller - 2444 OK

Anything look out of place or messed up?

 

tag for later reading

 

I know you may not believe this, but its perfectly normal for your video card to share with other PCI devices. PCI devices include your USB controllers.

This is the nature of ACPI.

Note you have 23 IRQs? Now we all know thats not possible, unless ACPI is in control, which supplies virtual IRQs, and provided the devices are built porperly and have decent drivers, all should be well in that realm.

 

following on then from Adraynlynes post
the fact that it improves after pulling the hub could suggest a power supply problem how many ports does that hub have

 

Its got 4 ports, but only one had been in use (to my exernal HD). Eitherway, i took it out of the PCI slot, so its not in anymore.

 

Do you think if I pulled all the extra hardware out before I reformatted/reinstalled it would have made a difference? Then I could add things in one at a time to see if anything is failing or causing conflicts.

 

normally shouldnt make a difference
but i noticed you used a compaq recovery cd which resets factory settings so maybe pulling anything you added yourself might have made a difference

 

Using a Compaq Recovery CD is your biggest problem. They load so much garbage its nuts.

I formatted my friend's Compaq with an Athlon Xp 2000+ and put on XP Pro, clean.

The computer performance was amazingly different. A free 50% performance increase.

 

Ill try pulling everything tomorrow. I know recovery cds load way too much extra crap, but I cant help but think that maybe that will help. It just seems really wierd how this whole problem didnt develop until a little more than 3 months ago, when i was trying to connect my computer to my bros back home using a crossover cable. Before that, everything was groovy.

 

Another possibility came up this morning when i was taking everything out of my machine. Couple months ago, right about the time the problem started happening, I had to replace the fan on my GF4. When I did that, I had to plug the fan's power cable into a splitter(?) that attached to my HDs power cable (which already gives power to both of my internal HDs). Might that be causing a power drain problem? I cant really see that happening cause its such a small power drain, from what Ive heard, but who knows. If that is a problem, should I just go ahead and connect the fan power cable to the cd/DVD drives power instead?

 

small chance its related as it happens when your playing games so the heat is up on the graphics chip and if the fan is temp controlled its going to pull more juice when hot maybe slowing the juice to the hard drives
shot in the dark but maybe worth switching it over espicially if the time frame matches the time the probs started
nothing to lose everything to gain

 

Well, disconnecting the video cards cooling fan (temporarily) made an amazing difference. instead of pausing every 90 secs, it went for 9 mins! WTF, im so confused. Ah well. The battle goes on...

 

looks like you nailed it
i expect if you had the fan disabled then the reason she went after 9 mins was overheating
have you tried the fan plugged in the cd drive power line line yet
maybe its time to get a new power supply as compaq only use generic brands anyway have a look here for an idea of how much juice you need
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

 

Tried as I might, I couldnt get the stupid plug out of the cd drive. I cant imagine that they glue those things in there, so its probably just really stuck. Ill keep workin at it.According to that link you included, I need 336 Watts. How much does my compaq come with? I have no idea where to look.

 

Packard Bell used to glue them in. Don't be so sure

 

great. well, a coupla more beers and itll come out...or not. on second thoughts, any suggestions on how to get it out safely?

 

yeah a lot of manufacturors use a glue gun to hold the molex connectors in ive had problems before removing ide cables that have been glued in all i can say is just keep gently rocking it from side to side they usually go eventually

there should be a stcker on your power supply with the wattage details

 

Sure enough, it says Max output 250W. Well no kiddin. Jeeze. Looks like it wont make a difference if I plug the fan into the CD power cable or not. I just have to get a new power supply. Thanks your your help everyone. What a mess that was. Two reformats/reinstalls later and we finally figure it out. So where can I get a more powerful powersupply and how will I know if its compatible. I have to profess my ignorance in this area for sure.

 

yeah and unfortunately the cheap generic 250 power supply will not be as good as a branded 250 so once you start adding extra drives etc it just cant cope
just checkout online computer shops if your in america most ppl here reccomend newegg as a good place to shop
i would reccommend getting a minimum of 400watts judging from the info youve already given dont be tempted to get the cheapest though the PSU is the heartbeat of your machine
i personally prefer to use either antec or enermax good solid brands
someone else may have some other ideas

 

K. Thanks for the advice, are there any compatibilaty issues I have to be concerned about?

 

should be no problems ive swapped out a few compaq power supplys before with no problem just make sure its intel as well as amd compatible you will also end up with more connectors so you wont have to use a splitter for that fan
heres a link to a power supply ive just ordered notice in the description it says intel compatible sorry its a uk site but gives you an idea
http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/product.php?view=1725

 

Are they hard to install or will the directions be self explanitory?