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Under performing PC, please help!

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  • Windows 7
Last response: in Windows 7
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May 16, 2013 3:36:44 AM

Hi, first post on the forum, and am desperate for some help, as I have been trying to troubleshoot this myself for ages.

Essentially, I feel my PC is underperforming, i.e. not being able to run games as quickly as it should given my components, although most are playable, the frame rates are ALWAYS unstable. For example, if I apply all of the lowest graphics on Call of Duty 4, I will not get a solid 250 fps (which should be attainable), Chivalry Medieval Warfare is almost unplayable due to the low and unstable fps.

I will list my components here, and please tell me if I miss something out;

ASUS M4a87TD EVO Motherboard
AMD Phenom II x4 955 black edition CPU
Asus Radeon HD 7870 DirectCU II Graphics Card
Corsair CMPSU-750HXEU PC power supply
4GB DDR3 RAM (not sure of brand, if someone asks I will find out)
1TB SATA Hard Drive
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit

Also, should probably add that my CPU seems to be hotter than it should, idle temperature is around 65 degrees Centigrade according to AMD overdrive, and under light load it can rise to 90 degrees.

More about : performing

a b $ Windows 7
May 16, 2013 3:57:22 AM

There few sticking points on your build. The first off is low amount of ram and a high end gpu. I would add another 4g of ram to make sure your not bottle necking your CPU. If there not a lot of free ram the game and CPU can't pre load a lot of the large cut shots or frames. On your mb make sure your bios has all the updates. Your CPU should not get that hot I would buy a tube of thermal paste and clean and reseat it.
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a b $ Windows 7
May 16, 2013 4:14:09 AM

Cpu is way too hot, maybe it's thermal throtteling. It won't survive long on that temp.
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May 16, 2013 4:15:13 AM

Yes your CPU seems to be throttling due to the heat. 90 degrees under "Light load" is absolutely insane! Re-seat your heatsink with fresh thermal paste and it should sort your problem. 4GB ram is still plenty for games like Call of Duty etc.
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May 16, 2013 4:27:47 AM

You have not mentioned if you cpu is overclocked, however I would recommend getting temps under control first.. that is way too hot for that cpu. I recommend an aftermarket cooler ( if you don't have one ) max cpu temp is 62C under load.. from what you have described, it is likely throttling which will cause performance issues..

also if you have an lcd monitor, you won't see more than 60fps anyway.( that is the max the monitor can display ( unless you have 120hz monitor in which case 120fps is the highest you will see ))

I also recommend adding more ram ( make sure to match it with what you currently have or you can run into stability issues )

again once you are over 100fps, any more is pretty moot and you are worrying over nothing.. however the cpu is DEF overheating
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May 16, 2013 4:28:46 AM

Thanks for responses guys. Will another 4GB Ram really help? From what I know, I thought large amounts of RAM were only really useful for video/audio production. How hard is it to reseat my the heatsink? I did build the PC from scratch (with help), so I have quite a bit of experience with working inside it.
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a b $ Windows 7
May 16, 2013 4:34:10 AM

TheOnion2895 said:
Thanks for responses guys. Will another 4GB Ram really help? From what I know, I thought large amounts of RAM were only really useful for video/audio production. How hard is it to reseat my the heatsink? I did build the PC from scratch (with help), so I have quite a bit of experience with working inside it.


isn't that hard, take it off probably with a clip, clean the old thermal paste off it with some rubbing alcohol, put a drop of new thermal paste on it and put the heatsink back with clips. Make sure once it has touched the thermal paste it doesn't come loose again, otherwise you will get air bubbles in the paste and it will mess up your temps.
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May 16, 2013 5:09:20 AM

aatje92 explained reseating the heatsink well. as for ram, many applications use more ram with the abundance of ram available.. while you don't need more than 4GB for gaming, with everything else that runs on the computer AND windows using as much as it can for indexing and superfetch, it is still recommended to go with 8GB. by large amts of ram fro video editing etc is more over 16GB... ( personally I have 12GB and all my ram is used up.. ( I use fancy cache to group the writes to my hard drive and as a ram cache so my most commonly used apps and games tend to stay in the cache ) I plan to max the ram on my next build ( waiting for ddr4 and sata express )
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a b $ Windows 7
May 16, 2013 5:37:05 AM

didn't mention your ram. is it 1 stick or 2?

what is the video card? specific..

try enabling cool and quiet in the BIOS.

clean off the thermal paste and reapply new. . try a better heat-sink for the processor.

set vsync. no need to see if your machine can get 1000fps, why?

what's your monitor/resolution?

have you upgraded the motherboard drivers and component drivers? have you been to windows update?
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May 17, 2013 5:42:26 AM

Thanks a lot for the responses guys! Got it fixed, I did not believe that a simple clean out could affect and temperatures and my pc's performance so much... I removed the heatsink on the CPU and found it was absolutely caked. Running like a complete new pc now!
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