please help identify my problem

okay im almost certain that the problem is hardware because i just did a low lvl format and i still have this issue.

for those who need my pc profile i have an amd athlon 64 3200+ and windows xp sp2

what happens is when i restart my pc i have no problems with any of my software, but as soon as i load a game my entire pc begins to become choppy, mouse, keyboard, (grapics mainly) even though i have a radeon 9800 pro and 1 gb of ddr1 ram. the really wierd thing is that after i exit the game it continues to do until i restart my pc

so summed up, it starts when i use a game, and then doesnt stop when i leave a game. the games are games such as rainbow 6 3: raven shield, doom 3, everquest 2, counterstrike source, etc. (games that demand both processing power and video card power)

so if anyone has any clues or fixes id really appreciate it

thanks
-kyle

 

Although it could be a few things, I'll throw these out first. Are you using a memory manager? What is the CPU usage before you start the game and what is it afterwards (Go to task manager, processes, look at the system idle process)

 

Good suggestion by Ruebarb, also in addition to that, give memtest a run (second time I've said that in 3 mins! - http://majorgeeks.com/download350.html) and see if any errors come up. Also, what is your current PSU that you're using?

 

for the record i had my BIOS set to use raid instead of IDE, i fixed that and am currently back to IDE as i should be i also increased the amount of my AGP memory allowance to 128, as for memory management...no i dont think that i have that...honestly i havnt the slightest clue as to how to edit that aside from knowing i can in BIOS, so im fairly sure i havent tweeked it for sheer safety precautions

the memory allocation on my task manager/running porcesses window, is almost constantly between 24% and 50% when it should be idle...and at pretty much 100% the second i try to run generic games like solitare( though the CPU column in the running processes window doesnt show what program is using all this memory for some reason.

but with 1Gb of DDR ram i dont know whats taking it all up. i just finished re-installing graphics, sound, motherboard and even processor driver updates and reinstalling windows hotfix....nothing has helped....i am going to run mcaffe virus scan in safe mode ill let you know how it turns out

 

oh and PSU is 480 watt and only 4-6 months old....however i had been suspecting that as well, so i think if the virus scan holds no weight then ill re-connect my wires and see what that does