FX 4100 Causing huge lag in Games! (Bottlenecking?)

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Madmikegamerxl1

Madmikegamerxl1

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Hi,
My CPU seems to really under-perform in any tasks (if that's a word!) and as a result, games lag hugely, and not only games do this, which is why I have struggled to find the right category for this thread. If someone recommends a different category than "Video Games", let me know. But anyway, games in particular can run really smooth, at 60FPS on Call of Duty: Black Ops II. But this doesn't last long; every now-and-then at random intervals, the FPS will go down to ~4 FPS, sometimes less. Then after a few moments, it will go back to 60 again, and when it does, all games appear to run in "slow-motion" then when the FPS rises, the game looks to go in "Fast" motion, and in racing games, flicks the car to the sides. It is very frustrating, and as you can tell, ends up with me dying in Call of Duty, or damaging my truck in Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Now for the fun stuff, PC Specs.
CPU: AMD FX 4100 Quad Core @ 3.6GHz
RAM: 8GB Crucial 1600MHz RAM (I think it's 1600)
Graphics: XFX AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB Double Dissipation Edition
Motherboard: ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX
HDD: Hitatchi 1TB (not sure on the RPM)
Monitor: BenQ GL2450HM HDMI LED Monitor

Surely my graphics card isn't the issue, and the RAM is more than plenty!
Just tested, and when playing Minecraft, it happens in this too, no matter on Render Distance, or any other video settings. Furthermore, even Twitch.tv livestreams seem to do the exact same thing as explained above. Another thing, at one point when it happened, that second I minimized the game and in Task Manager, Memory was at around 50-60%, can't remember the exact number, and CPU was at 100%. This was in Minecraft too, and tested in Call of Duty, the exact same happens! When the FPS goes back up, i can see that Task Manager shows the CPU goes down to around 60% usage.
I have recently reinstalled Windows, as it was that bad, and I had 100GB/850GB available on the C:\ Drive. After reinstalling windows, the performance was a huge difference, with it now booting up in 20-30 seconds, compared to the previous 3 minutes! I've also noticed games load quicker, where Black Ops 2 would have a black screen with the blue loading windows cursor for around 60 seconds on first load, but now it only does that for about 10 seconds.
But it still does not stop this lag in games! These aren't even typical lag spikes.

I will be more than happy to provide any more information you need.

Thank you in advance,
Mike
 
Solution
GmanBOSS
Since you say it has been fine for months and then it happened you should get a can of air and clean all fans and parts. Some throttling programs are designed to save power and most to reduce temps. If this does'nt work you may need to check and see if the psu is supplying adequate power at a stable level. When they start going bad and the power it supplies starts to drop randomly it will affect the gpu first since it is the most demanding of your power resources.

Which psu do have btw?
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Madmikegamerxl1

Madmikegamerxl1

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Yes, from what I can see, all 4 cores are being used, but no I don't have any other GPU except a NVIDIA GT 610 1GB of my brother's, and I can't put up with that thing! c:

Thanks for the reply.
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

Madmikegamerxl1

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I thought that may be the case, but it can't be I don't think as I used to be able to play literally any game I thrown at it, I've had it since last February when i had the PC built for me, so I'm not sure why all of a sudden it doesn't like working.
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

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But Twitch streams don't work either, and they use so much CPU power. Chrome/Twitch doesn't use the GPU do they?
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

Madmikegamerxl1

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Thanks. After running Open Hardware Monitor, it shows that it is the CPU that cannot handle it. When I looked at the plot, it showed the CPU at 100% at the same intervals as the lag, whereas the GPU was at around 50%. But there is one thing, my GPU only shows up with 860MHz GPU Core, and 1200MHz GPU Memory. What does this mean, all I know is it isn't very high!

Thanks again,
Mike

EDIT: I looked closely at the plot (not sure if i initially had it right initially) , but this is what it looks like, it doesnt look normal at all, it looks as if the GPU is not being used whatsoever. https://www.dropbox.com/s/24upp4srthtczbu/oprenhw.jpg?dl=0
The GPU is using more (as expected in Crysis 2 Maximum Edition), but then as I get the lag i explained, the GPU load (%) [blue line] goes down, and the CPU load [purple line] goes higher!
 
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GmanBOSS

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I would also try checking for and malware, spyware, or infections of any kind. I had games that used to play shut down on me all of a sudden and I watched the task manager close one day and saw a spike in the cpu too 100% then a shutdown. Turns out it was some kinda bit miner program my girlfriends little girl must have picked up when she was playing games on my pc.
Easy free ones are spybot and malwarebytes.

I also change all my programs update times to a time when I would never be on or to manual updates. They don't use a whole lot but if more than a couple go at the same time it can add up.
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

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What does "unparking" actually mean? Sure, I'll try it! Thanks.
 
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tambeshakunt

tambeshakunt

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Basically, sometimes, Windows puts your core(s) to 'parked' state when they shouldn't be and when they are actually needed. By parking the cores when they are actually needed causes the lag spikes. Windows keeps switching the cores between unparked and parked and this causes lag and stutters. Hence, for desktops its better to just disable the core parking feature that Win7 and 8 have. The only down side is slightly more power consumption because all cores are on all the time. But this consumption is negligible so there is really nothing to loose. Give it a go, you can always revert it. Make sure you create a restore point before though-just in case.
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

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I don't think it's a spyware issue, I recently reinstalled windows to try to fix the issue, which did help in booting up, but games still struggle. i've also recently scanned too, but nothing has come up.
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

Madmikegamerxl1

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Thank you so much for that, after checking the link you sent me, I found a program called ParkControl and it has fixed the majority of it, games load quicker now, and there are less of these stutters, although they still occur, it is less than before!
 
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GmanBOSS

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These FX series also have a habit of locking the clock at 7 and fixing the multiplier to save power. It wont use all of your cpu if it does not read that you need it and sometimes it just gets stuck. Here is a link that helped me out some when I noticed I wasn't getting full use of my fx6350.

http://www.ronwoods.us/2014/02/what-does-amd-application-power.html?m=1

Also had to change RAM settings to Preference 1 so they would time over 1066. Thet are now at 2133.
 
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tambeshakunt

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Glad it helped a bit.
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

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Thanks for that, but I don't really fancy my CPU getting any hotter, as I don't have any good cooler for it, but I will certainly keep it in mind if it gets too bad. Thanks again :)
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

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Is there any other ways of increasing performance? I can now play at least half a match of Call of Duty multiplayer before I get this lag, and even then it only happens once or twice per match, whereas before it would happen every 10 seconds.
 
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GmanBOSS

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It's not OC'n the cpu. Your cpu is supposed to run at a higher clock than 7. They just stick sometimes when it should be at 10 it's stuck at @ 7. So your not using all of your processor even at stock when this happens because it is being throttled.

If you open the ET6 program that comes with it and click on the tuner tab you can watch your cpu slow itself down. You will see the 3500.00MHz it should run at stock under the POWER ON section and beside is the TARGET your cpu is aiming for. You will notice the TARGET drop drastically when idle at desktop or browsing, well sometimes it does this too under load ( hence it gets stuck ) when you need the 3.9GHz. It will slow you down at random points If you leave it up to the cpu to decide when to throttle itself.

By turning this function off mine ran so much faster and smoother and I only saw an increase of 2.3 degrees C with my 6350, stock cooler and two 140mm case fans. It runs very stable @ around 42 degrees C.

You can check your temps easy through the ET6 program too. It's under the HW Monitor tab then click fan/temp. From here you increase your fan speeds too but you shouldn't need to.

Oh sorry I thought you has a gigabyte mobo, I'm sure there is a program like this that came with the ASROCK. You may have the Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU). Then look under the frequencies.

It's really the same thing tambeshakunt is talking about with windows except it's between your mobo and cpu not the OS.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/345514-28-8120-throttling-playing
 
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Madmikegamerxl1

Madmikegamerxl1

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Hmm my motherboard never came with any software. The only thing it came with was XFastUSB, but that's it. Any ideas?
 
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