Computer running on half the performance and keeps freezing

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
alex00

alex00

Reputable
Sep 7, 2014
10
0
4,510
ISSUE: Computer running on half the performance than it used to, and keeps freezing for few moments every 5-10 seconds while playing games or simply opening a program. Is very slow for some reason and I can't find what's causing this problem.

While is frozen I am able to move mouse ( in some games ) and the sound is working fine. And when i exit a game everything stops for 10-20 seconds ( black screen, no sound ). After that it comes back.

I have fresh windows installed, lastest drivers, i have tested memory with memtest and it went with no errors, temps doesn't seem to be a problem. https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/519x845q90/538/FM6XBq.png

SPECS:
Motherboard: MSI 870-c45
CPU: AMD Athlon II x4 645, 3.1GHz + Cooler Master: Hyper TX3
RAM: 4GB, 1 stick, 1333MHz
GPU: Leadtek GTS 250, 512Mb
HDD: ST1000DM003 (Seagate Baracuda 1TB)
PSU: 600W
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
JeckeL

JeckeL

Distinguished
Jul 19, 2009
743
26
19,165
- How long have you had the PC? Has it always been like this? What kind of games are you trying to play on that card, I'm not even sure it could handle very many newer games

- What manufacturer/model is your power supply?

- What all programs are running while you're playing games (look on taskbar and/or msconfig > startup tab)

- After playing a game that freezes all the time, close it and open event viewer, look under windows logs > application and see if anything weird shows up in there

- What driver are you using for your GPU... from a CD, manufacturers website, etc?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
alex00

alex00

Reputable
Sep 7, 2014
10
0
4,510
Pc has ~4 years old, it wasn't working that well since I got it, but now problems (slow, freeze) got bigger and very frequent.
Surprisingly BF3 works with no problems on medium. But everything else is a disaster. Low games like nfs world, or in maya 3d I draw one cube, everything is going down the hill. Dota 2 i used to run on everything max settings, now I can't even play it on low settings.
Startup with only antivirus enabled ( nod32 ) and nvidia driver service, is very slow. Yellow led from pc keeps loading something, but in processes is nothing going on.

Delux Dual Core Power, Model: DLP-34A, 600W.

In event viewer, i found some errors (like 20 in under 30 seconds) under System tab.
"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort0."
I just bought one month ago another HDD i thought the old one was causing the problem, but the problem didn't go away.

I have the lastest drivers for my motherboard, gpu, and everything else from the manufacturers website.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JeckeL

JeckeL

Distinguished
Jul 19, 2009
743
26
19,165
When you're playing a game that's lagging, downsize it and open task mgr... see if anything is eating up tons of resources. Also try disabling antivirus from running on startup (and anything else you can disable temporarily) in msconfig then reboot and try it out.

Do you have a different power supply you can try? I'm surprised that power supply lasted 4 years let alone 1 year....
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
alex00

alex00

Reputable
Sep 7, 2014
10
0
4,510
While playing NFS World in window mode.
CPU stays max at 40% and when it freezes goes down to 5%.
Physical Memory stays at 70%.

Disabling everyting on startup, and services ( that's not from microsoft ) problem is still there.

EDIT: I don't have other power supply big enough to handle my pc.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
alex00

alex00

Reputable
Sep 7, 2014
10
0
4,510
@Carl Blance, I just did that again and it didn't help at all.

In Event Viewer I seem to get lots of "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort0." errors, I will probabily have to change my motherboard :(.
I already changed HDD and cables, so it has to be the motherboard.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JeckeL

JeckeL

Distinguished
Jul 19, 2009
743
26
19,165
If your power supply is failing and not supplying power properly to GPU/mobo/etc (after 4 years with a not-so-good quality PSU I wouldn't doub it) then it could cause these symptoms... do you have ANY power supplies lying around? (your PC doesn't seem like it needs very much in terms of wattage)

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
alex00

alex00

Reputable
Sep 7, 2014
10
0
4,510
I just tested the PSU with a multimeter and a paperclip, following the wiki values for voltages and this is what i came up with:

fFKPsp.png
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JeckeL

JeckeL

Distinguished
Jul 19, 2009
743
26
19,165


Do you have ANY other power supplies? Your system might not require as much power as you think... or you might be able to at least use it for a day or two just to see if the original power supply was the problem
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
alex00

alex00

Reputable
Sep 7, 2014
10
0
4,510
I have one like 200W but that can't handle my pc, it doen't have the 6 pin connector that is required for my gpu so I can't test it.
I don't wana spend money for a PSU and then see that the problem didn't go away. Like I did with my hdd.

Yesterday I got 2 BSOD 0x00000050 and 0x0000000A. ( thought this might help spotting the real threat in my pc )
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JeckeL

JeckeL

Distinguished
Jul 19, 2009
743
26
19,165
Do you have any other RAM you can use? Or perhaps plug it into a different slot? Here's a thread from someone getting the same two BSOD's and after removing the stick in the 1st RAM slot it fixed the issue (he ran memtest and everything came back fine apparently).... are you running XP?

http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/stop-0x00000050-0x0000000a.122457/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
alex00

alex00

Reputable
Sep 7, 2014
10
0
4,510
Ok so this is what I did:
-Change the ram slot so this got rid of the blue screen for now.
For the lag / shuttering:
- Changed the sata cable ( this is like 3rd time ) this definitely helped with the shuttering.
- Downgrade BIOS to the actual firmware that is required for my CPU, kinda helped.
- Capped the RAM frequency in BIOS to 1:3:3 ( which is 1333MHz ), since this is max my CPU can support, and my memory is also 1333Mhz, this also helped a little with the freezing.

The problem is not 100% solved.
In PlanetSide 2 for ex, i get 30fps + wether I play on low or ultra, but it keeps shuttering ( fps keeps dropping at 2 or 3 ) , in other games it doesn't hasppen that much anymore.
When I exit an application I get black screen and sound stops for 10-15 seconds. Sometimes I hear a buzzing noise like I'm about to get a BSOD.

I don't have much information to go on, on this.
I suspect the motherboard has something ( had problems like these since I bought it ~4 years ago ). The ram / sata ports, even the OC Switch on the motherboard don't work in all combinations.
Or it could be the PSU.


I posted a pic in my last post with my PSU values, are those ok ? or I should be worried ?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom