Major downgrade in my PC's performance

Ok, so here it goes.

These are my PC specs:







And here is my problem.

A while ago everything was fine with my pc performance, I played games normaly and all that, and then, all of a sudden my pc's computer performance downgraded drastically, and I mean REALLY drastically.

For instance, I played quake 3 arena and had over 300fps on it. Now, I can barely get 40, and with even 40 fps game is so choppy, slow etc. My PC specs are like 10 times better than the "performed" specs for quake 3. Same problem with all of the games.

I also have problems with silly things like firefox popouts "do you want firefox to remember this password" where those things pop out sooo long and everything slows down with no reason.

Same problem with flash. I tryed playing deadfrontier which is an zombie mmo in flash, and moving the character and mouse is almost impossible. The fps in that flash game is 9...

I tried reinstalling system many times, from different CD's and everything, nothing changed.

I cleaned my PC from dust and everything, cleaned GPU slot, fans, and every other inch of the pc, nothing.

Tried with all sorts of drivers, fixes, pc speedup programs, still no results.

So all i can think of is that it's probably a hardware problem, but which one?

Is my GPU screwed, my CPU or something else?

I thank you in advance.

 

What processes are you running? Press and hold CTRL, SHIFT and then press ESC once.. the task manager will start. Click on the "Processes" tab then sort (as you would in excel) by CPU so you can see the highest at the top. Is there a program or service eating up a lot of cycles? maybe your virus scanner running a scan in the background? Maybe you've been infected with some scumware? Let us know what the program name is if it's eating up a high % of cycles.

I know you said you reinstalled but without knowing if you got a good clean install or reinstalled over the previous install I'd recommend if you haven't already running Spybot SD. If for some reason that don't work try http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ if that don't work try it from safe mode with networking.

There are some nasties out there that will dig in and dig in deep compromising your installed virus scanner all the while spewing their junk out all over the net. Unless your 100% sure double check and triple check for scumware if found remove.

In addition try the usual, uninstall any unneeded programs, defrag, update drivers, virus scanner, windows.. get SP3!

 

Surprised you got 300fps on almost any game with that system (no offence intended) ... it might pay to run READ & RUN ME FIRST and Basic Computer Maintanence everyone should do.

If that doesn't make a difference, you should boot from your XP cd and press r when it asks you what to do ... then type;
chkdsk /r
fixmbr
fixboot

then once finished, boot to Safe Mode with the disk in the drive go to CMD and type sfc /SCANNOW

... some of these may be unnecessary but they won't cause any harm and they might just help. Remember to take note of the Bad Sectors after chkdsk ...

restart after sfc and boot again, then download and run memtest86 3.6

 

Guys, I am 100% sure it's not malware nor spyware beacuse I allready did all those things you mentioned.

I formatted the drive, reinstalled fresh system, then did all of the scans, defragmented drive etc. My PC is clean.

These are the req for quake 3 :

3D graphics accelerator with full OpenGL support, Pentium II 233 MHz or AMD 350 MHz K6-2 processor or Athlon processor, 64 MB RAM, 8 MB video card, 500 MB of free hard drive space, 100% DirectX 3.0 or higher compatible sound card, CD-ROM drive (600 kB/s sustained transfer rate)

So I really was possible to get 300 fps on it. Just look at the req, you can play it your cellphone.

I really think it's the hardware problem, but I just can't to get it which part isn't functioning correctly, since I did all of the hardware scans etc. and everything seems fine.

Thank you for the effort.

 

Wow is that all? Must have been Quake IV I was thinking of ... heres a suggestion, open up your system, and take of every single wire from your MOBO EXCEPT the power button, power pins and HDD ... also remove all cards ... then see if there's a difference ... believe it or not this may work ... I worked on a computer a month ago that literally took 9 hours to get to the login stage of Vista, and it turned out the Media Card Reader in the front panel of the computer was causing it ...

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major
Did you run the memory diagnostic suggested above by Drizzles? Personally, I use a different one (I use this one; the download will create a bootable floppy or ISO disc image) but either one should be OK. Run the extended tests for at least 3-4 full passes. Run a full hard drive diagnostic; you can download the free diagnostic software from the hard drive maker's web site. Try running a couple of different GPU tests like Video Card Stability Test (don't use the benchmark, it doesn't really test the GPU that well) and Video Memory Stress Test. Maybe install the latest DirectX 9c updates from this link and see if that helps.... Good luck!

(I'm betting it's the hard drive going out - I've seen very similar symptoms on PCs where the hard drive was hanging on to life by a thread)

 

Thank you for the welcome .

Drizzles, I tried removing the wires from mobo that were connected to the usb slots in the front of my computer casing. Didn't find anything else to unplug. And the problem still persists.

And dllb I did everything you told me. Tested my HDD with the official tools. It passed all tests and my HDD was granted "healthy" status.

I also did memory test. RAM is fine.

I also did Video Card stability test, video card memory stress test(both directx and opengl tests). I attached the screenshots of the results.

 

Front audio in? Optical drive? Internal speaker? Floppy drive?

Also I'd recommend BurnIn test ... use all tests that apply to you, pump all of the tests up to full in preferences and select longest duration then test ...

See if it passes or fails ...

 

I'm assuming you've checked the BIOS and your CPU/Memory settings are correct? Fan is spinning on your CPU, it isn't being throttled down at all? Failing it being software the next thing I'd do is disconnect everything that isn't critical and test.. is the bottleneck still there?.. If not.. Plug things back in one at a time until you find the bottle neck. If you have two sticks of RAM start up with one then the other benchmark and test everything. If you have any known good spare parts e.g. CPU, RAM, Video Card, PSU.. etc have them ready to swap over. If you have a motherboard or a friend that has a machine that could take some of your components try plugging things in there see if any issues pop up.

If you strip it all down and you still have the bottle neck try finding replacement parts you can use to test.. once your down to this level it's just a matter of time until you find what's gone bad. Keep an eye on your PSU just in case that's throwing things off, PSU's going bad can be a nightmare sometimes to troubleshoot.

Just some thoughts I thought I'd throw out there, keep us up to date let us know what you find!

 

Ok, I've done the burnin tests, and I downloaded another CPU stability test, all passed.


So here is what I'm gonna do next. All the hardware is fine(judging by the tests), and my pc is clean, no viruses, malwares, shitwares etc.

I have an old nvidiga geforce mx440 so I'm gonna try replacing my radeon with it and see how things work.

In the end only thing I can do is try to replace the power supply.

I'll keep you guys updated once I finish trying these things.

 

I tryed replacing the graphic card, inserted the gforce, installed the drivers and started Counter strike.


I hosted a game on lan, and I had 100fps at 800x600 @ 85hz. Great performance.

While with my radeon 9600 I couldn't get 50 fps, even though it's a better gpu.

So, that proves that my radeon is malfunctioning. But I still have problems with websites lagging, facebook etc.

Could it be that cpu is also malfunctiong?

 

Have you changed the PSU? Do you have a clean power source where your at? I know here in Florida I've replaced the same MB/CPU on the same machine for the same person twice now and the RAM/PSU on another for the same person because.. they get dirty juice from the grid. Spikes, blackouts, brownouts will take their toll.

If you can change the PSU and run a few tests see what happens. You might also want to just for the sake of it put in a live boot CD, then go to the same websites? Are they are still slow?.. if they pickup.. could it be the hard disk? If not could it be something else? Run a stress test on the CPU if you haven't already. Try ORTHOS run it over night see if pops up any errors.

Keep at it, you'll get it in the end! Keep us up to date!

 

Looks like you are on dial-up (Lucent WinModem). That would explain a lot about your lag problem while surfing.

 

lol.. that might do it. I hope thats it! lol :-D

 

What? You didn't see that in the Everest log in post #1?

 

I did I forgot all about it.. it's funny how the obvious we miss sometimes comes back to bite us when another person just takes a quick look and spots it right away! :-D