Needing Help ASAP

I'm having some issues with my PC. I believe it's a hardware issue, which is why I am posting in this section. I would appreciate any help.

My Basic Specs Are:
Intel Core 2 Quad (msi diamond p7n) Q6700 2.66GHz
6gig ram
GeForce 8800 GT
2 500gig HDs
2 DVD/RW burners
Windows 7 x64

My machine was built about 3-4 years ago. I believe about 2 years ago, my power supply died so I had to get another one. Then around February (I think), I had another die and got another one. This last time, I think it may have damaged my motherboard. I have 4 ram slots for allowing 8gigs, but one slot doesn't work anymore (if I put another stick in, it doesn't boot or it'll go reboot loop).

It plays videos glitchy a lot of times. I do video and graphics, so it's quite annoying. It also will run fine and all of a sudden, run slow and play catch up. My fan on the side panel door was broke so I left it open for the last 6 months I'd say and let a fan in my office blow around the room and on the computer to keep it cool. My friend suggested to get RealTemp to see if my computer was getting too hot. When I would play video, it would get to about 92 C. So I replaced my fan on my side panel, but it hasn't helped.

I decided last week to format my secondary HD and put a fresh copy of Windows 7, Chrome, and my Adobe Suite to see how it runs with the basics I need. It runs no better. Still choppy.

All my drivers are up-to-date, malware and virus scanned, etc.

Any ideas what to do?

 

Welcome to the forum december What's your level of experience with computers? I'll assume you know nothing for some of my explanations.

From your description it sounds like your cpu is overheating,video is decoded by the cpu when the cpu can't cope the video will stutter,your also describing a high temperature of 92C which is far too high for a cpu at first glance I would guess that your cpu fan is faulty or clogged with dust.

First check your cpu fan is spinning,the cpu is the large heatsink in the middle of the board,then make sure it's clean of dust,use canned air and your fingers to pull large chunks of debris from the heatsink 'don't use a vacuum',you can also remove the fan,unplug the computer and touch a bare metal part of the case before venturing inside.

Post your base temperatures when the computer is idle,is the 92c the idle temperature?In the real temp folder there is a load simulator,select all cores then click load,what's your maximum temperature now after 20 mins?

If your temperature rapidly goes up towards 90C stop the test,if the temperature is real and not an anomalous reading your cpu fan should begin screaming.

You can double check your temps with this program,click the load simulator in the real temp folder again,the temp that goes up fastest is your cpu temp.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/SpeedFan_d337.html

Let me know

 

92 was when I was watching a video or having 5 tabs opened in Chrome. Idle is staying around 68-72.

Without anything really going and my computer basically at an idle, here is what SpeedFan says:

GPU: 52C
CPU: 44C
Local: 42C
Remote 2: 44C
Temp 1: 47C
Temp2: 37C
Temp3: -128C
HD0: 32C
HD1: 31C

 

I just watched a simple tutorial and after 2 minutes, my sound and video were choppy and my CPU usage went to 100%. Doh!

 

Your idle temp is pretty normal if slightly high,have you ran the load test,post temp? Have you checked your fan and cleaned the heatsink?Does the fan spin up?

 

I ran the Load Tester, and after 20 minutes or close to it, I pressed stop. How do I see the results?

 

After running it for 20 minutes (Load Tester), and opening RealTemp again..

Miniumim was 69/69/68/67
Max was 86/85/85/85
(all Celsius)

 

That is too high have you checked your fan cpu heatsink and fan as I asked in my first post and then again in my second post? Is this temperature with the side of the case off also?

I don't mind donating my time to help you diagnose your computer but you need to answer my questions and perform the steps I suggest in order, I also don't mind if you choose not to follow my advice that's up to you.

So the first thing you should have done is check your heatsink and fan,if you have done post and let us know

These are the first basic steps to see if your cpu is functioning properly,if we don't check these off we'll struggle later on as things get more complicated.

 

Sorry, just didn't wanna turn off my computer since I'm doing some stuff

Let me open my panel, and check about the spinning and what not. Then I'll shut it off to make sure it's clean. BRB

 

Ok, it's spinning. There was no gunk in it so it was fairly cleaned out.

 

Right with the side of your case off run the load program,your cpu fan should start spinning really fast,leave the side of the case off while running this test so you can hear and inspect the fans speed.

Leave the side off when you do the maximum temperature test,this is important as it eliminates case air flow as the cause for overheating.

If your temperature is significantly lower with the side of the case off then obviously you need more case airflow and need to install a fan,if the computer will run consistently lower than 70 with the side of the case off I would have no problem continuing looking for your problem elsewhere.

The maximum operating temperature of your cpu BTW is 71C,in general use hitting this every so often is not big deal but running 15C over this signifies a problem with your cooling or your cpu's voltage is too high,this is also backed up by your performance problems.

 

Looks like the temp is staying about the same.

 

Does your fan start spinning really fast once you start the load program? It should change from a low hum to something approaching a hairdryer.:confused

I'll assume your post "It's spinning" means it is and move on,so your cpu is running hot but not broken fan hot so I'll move on to test performance and stability under maximum load.

1.You mentioned cpu usage,what program are you using to monitor load over time task manager? If so performance monitor is better,go to start type 'run' then type 'perfmon' .

2.While your computer is idle on the desktop post your rough cpu usage or idle % this is our baseline,on the desktop doing nothing you should be hovering around 0-10%.

3.Do you have video files you can test? If so play a few different video's using vlc media player,using task manager watch vlc's process usage and post what your rough cpu usage is while playing these files and report your findings.

Run this test,it will test the performance and stability of your cpu,select maximum stress,keep an eye on your temps to make sure nothing crazy happens and wait for the test to finish,if your cpu is unstable you will fail this test and it will end or your computer will crash.

http://majorgeeks.com/IntelBurnTest_d5987.html

Your cpu should score around the 20gflops mark.

 

I really appreciate all your help. I ran it once and it gave a 3.4166 GRops.

I'm going to run it again overnight and will let you know in the morning what it comes out to.

 

There's no need to run it over night,your computer isn't running correctly,if it's not damaged now it probably will be tomorrow morning,whether it's stable overnight is immaterial it's only performing at 3gflops:confused

There's definitely something wrong with your cpu then,that's about 15% of the performance it should be,it also explains why your videos use 100% of your cpu time so your cpu is the problem pending answers to my previous questions.

I appreciate your appreciation but you still haven't answered my questions,I won't ask again it's too hard doing something like this if there's a basic communication problem but good luck I hope you get it sorted

 

I opened Performance Monitor (I was using task manager), and where it says "Memory % Committed Bytes in Use" ... Idle is 38.868.
Playing a video off my hard drive is gets to 42.523
Streaming a video, it's about 40.588 but the Cache Faults/sec is going from 6.042 to 277, then at one point the %, Available MBytes, and CAche all went to "--" while streaming.

 

O.K :-D If there's something you don't understand or if I've not explained something properly you can ask,if you can't get reading or something stops you it's also important for you to tell me I'll elaborate my explanations also in your next post put a set of numbers and answers next to each number I post,I think this will make organisation easier.

1.

I'd like you to confirm this is the case.

I'd also like you to confirm it in speedfan so open speedfan and post your cpu fan rpm at idle,now put Intel burn test next to it and run it,watch your cpu fan rpm is it rising?

Once your cpu reaches maximum temperature check your cpu fan speed and add it to your next post.

After you've done this disconnect the cpu fan,blow the plug clean,plug it back in then run the test again.

This is also important to determine if your computer is throttling instead of increasing cpu fan speed



2.I also want you to post these numbers.

Open realtemp,click the realtempGT app in the folder,you'll notice at the top are some numbers one is the cpu speed in MHz,the other is called the cpu multiplier at the top right and will be written like this 199 X 6.0.

Now get the realtemp box and the intel burn box next to each other on the desktop so you can see them both.

First post both these numbers while your on the desktop doing nothing.
Now run Intel burn while watching these numbers,do they change,If so to what?

This is also a throttle test,throttle is your computer limiting your cpu performance to stop it being damaged or to save power.

3.

Use task manager to check this,click 'show processes from all users' then go through all the processes to check for usage,none should be over a couple of percent your 'idle%' should be above 80-90%.

If you want to use performance monitor start the program then at the top left under performance monitoring tools click performance monitor,you will be presented with a graph of cpu usage,this is good for analysing cpu usage over time as task manager or resource monitor in task manager only monitors for a few seconds.

 

Also work through the post from top to bottom, move on once you have your answers,if you get stuck post

 

1) My fan speed rose, but it wasn't a constant rise or hold.
I'm assuming, like you've said, the largest is probably my CPU.
On Idle: 8475 RPM
With IntelBurn: Mostly remained 8475, but did jump to 8775 a few short seconds (twice), and at some point dropped to 860, then slowly climbed back up to 8380, then back to 8475.

2) CPU Speed Idle: Between 1920.02 - 2533.37 MhZ
CPU Multiplier Idle: 266.67 x Between 7.8 and 9.6

CPU Speed With Intel: 2666.70
CPU Multiplier With Inte: 266.67 x 10.0

3) On idle, my CPU Usage is between 0-5%.

 

To summarise.

1.Your cpu fan is at full speed all the time tryna cool your cpu,your cpu is running hot.

2.You have about 10-15% of regular cpu performance but with no Errors in intel burn.

3.There are no processes consuming cpu power,it's a clean windows install anyway and this performance persisted before the reinstall.

4.Your cpu is NOT throttling,intel speedstep is working perfectly,your cpu is running at a full 2.66GHz.

5.You've had a destructive power supply failure in the past which is when you suspect the issues started.

Tricky one,I'm starting to think your CPU is faulty but I want to check if all cores are operational.

Open task manager,open resource monitor,click the cpu tab you should have 8 cpu cores numbered from 0-7,now run intel burn do all of these core show 100% activity,if it doesn't post what you see.

I'm struggling to come up with an answer that can explain your symptoms,let alone any suggested fixes I was sure it was a throttling due temperature problem but it obviously isn't.

I'm now considering whether only one of your cores have become disabled or hyperthreading has become disabled or isn't working correctly,if this is the case I can at least 'at last' then suggest some possible fixes.

I'd also like you to perform a cmos reset,disconnect from the ac,locate a small coin shaped battery on the motherboard,remove for 20 secs then replace,now boot and run the tests.

Could you also remove all ram but one stick in slot 0 or the first slot then run intel burn test,then switch to another ram stick and run the test again,you may want to repeat this with a couple of different slots,your looking for peformance in intel burn close to 20gflops.

There's only so many hardware faults I can test for over the internet,problems that are caused by a minor hardware fault such as a destructive power supply failure are very hard to track down.

 

I ran IntelBurn with Resource Monitor opened. I ran IntelBurn and CPU 0-3 all ran at 100%.

I'm on to the next steps you suggested.

 

Would adding thermal paste on the CPU fix anything, by the way?

 

I took that battery looking thing out for 20 seconds, and decided to just look at BIOS at the fans upon booting.

It said CPU Fan 2654 RPM
Sys Fan2 (NB_FAN) 8575

So the fan that I looked at yesterday that wasn't changing much must be that Sys Fan2 and not the CPU Fan?

 

This would have been one of my suggestions,you could have knocked the heatsink and broke the seal between the heatsink and thermal paste when changing the power supply.

The problem though is this is good for reducing your cpu temp by 5-10C so it would cool your cpu but the original paste must be still connected because your cpu isn't throttling. You also aren't receiving a high temperature alarm or shutdown which is normal,usually when cpu's come loose the computer fails to boot or is extremely unstable,your computer is perfectly stable,running full speed, isn't throttling but the performance is down.

It's a good thing to tick off the checklist though.

Your cpu only runs 4 threads BTW it doesn't have hyperthreading and all your cores are working,so the problem isn't there,your FSB is also at full speed @266.

Since one of your ram slots has died I'm starting to think your ram or cpu ram interconnected could have become damaged,you also confirm this due to one of your ram slots being dead.

Download sandra lite,open benchmarks,then open overall performance,now click the blue refresh arrows at the bottom,your computer will become unusable for 15-20 so just let it finish.

At the bottom left copy to clipboard then paste into notepad and add as an attachment with your next post after you've finished the cmos reset and check different memory sticks.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/SiSoftware_Sandra_d92.html

 

Your reading the wrong fan? I thought your reading was a little high,the regular range for an 90mm fan is usually between 1000 and 5000,Do you know which one is your cpu fan then now? As I said the one that starts running faster when you run intel burn test is your cpu,your system fan will not change.

If you have found the fan and it doesn't start running faster when intel burn runs turn it up to 100% in speedfan at the bottom left,it should now start screaming like a hairdryer.

This is the fan to listen to.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=cp...50&start=20&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:20,i:142


You will know it's running full speed just by the sound when you listen to it,if you still don't know turn each fan up one by one in speedfan,when your cpu fan from the picture starts screaming that's your cpu fan.

If you manage to fnd you cpu fan and manage to get it to 100% and sounding like a hairdryer run intel burn again,let it finish and see what your gflop score is.

 

I wasn't sure how to turn on each fan with SpeedFan, but I decided to run the IntelBurn again. Neither fan registered in SpeedFan changed speeds really. My GFlops was still a 4.5.

I tried to run the Overall Score in the Sandra software, but I would leave my computer and come back, and the window was gone where I could report the log. I guess I have to run it again while staying in the room. I assume the Overall Score is the same as Overall Performance. I will post it once it's through.

 

The sandra icon will be in your taskbar to the right your clock just double click it and the box will appear,or click show hidden icons then double click it,in windows 7 you can also press alt tab and cycle through running programs.

In speedfan from the main windows the fan speeds are at the bottom left labelled speed 1,speed 2,speed 3 which correspond to the fan number,there are two little arrows pointing up and down,click the arrows to up or down to alter the speed.

 

Here is the Sandra report.

 

In speedfan, all I see is the Fan information, below that are Pwm1, Pwm2, Pwm3 (those pwm's are the only thing I can change).

 

Here is my SpeedFan screen shot.

 

Your computer completely failed those sandra tests so again something very wrong,run the system overview and add that as a link with your next post so I can look at all your numbers,hopefully there will be a performance advisory too.

Yes adjust PWM 1 to 100% and see if your cpu fan speeds up.

You can also run the memory bandwidth benchmark in sandra and post your bandwidth in GB's,try different sticks of memory in different slots then run the benchmark again to see if it changes,that's the main benchmark I wanted to see,to see how your memory is performing.

 

Here is the overview.

 

Turning up Pwm1 and 3 to 100% did nothing to any fan showing in Speedfan.

 

Ok, Sandra didn't finish installing. I forgot to click ok on installing DirectX. Here is the text file of the overall performance thing.

 

Your memory bandwidth is 4.5gbs which is normal for your memory and board,so as far as I can tell your memory is working properly.

If you would like to investgate your memory further run this test,remember test all the sticks together,then test them all individually.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/MemTest_d350.html

Notice in the arithmetic cpu test your cpu scores 10gflops,so it's performing at 50% and drawing 50 watts exactly half of it's total power draw.

You still haven't confirmed what your cpu fan sounds like?Does it sound like a hairdryer, it should at those temperatures,does it change volume or tone at all when running intel burn.

It will take too long for me to explain how to setup speedfan to control your cpu fan if it doesn't work out of the box,one thing to try are to click allow automatic speed control a box will appear at the bottom right with speed settings if it doesn't or the settings don't alter speed you'll have to follow the video guide to set it up for your computer and even then some computers cannot be controlled by speedfan.

If you would like to try this watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VjdQStihsE

We can also try changing it in bios,I'm linking you to a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO8mwpK12Kc

Set your smart fan target to 40C or the lowest it will go,if your bios allows manual control over cpu fan set the speed to 100%,it should be really noisy once you restart your computer 'check the video'

I don't know what cpu fan controls you will have each bios is different,they should under pc health,or pc monitoring.

Here is a guide also-

http://lifehacker.com/5866009/contr...rmance-when-you-need-it-silence-when-you-dont

The goal is to ramp up the cpu fan to 100% then run intel burn test to see if your score improves,so using these guides and videos see if you can achieve this goal.

This will tell us if the your cpu temp is somehow limiting performance.

Well really after all this testing I'm none the wiser:-D Everything appears to work apart from your cpu performance,this could be damage to the motherboard that can't be found with tests.