Games Suddenly Running Slow

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Konsonum

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I've just recently built a new custom desktop that was designed to be able to play high-end games like Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. For the first few months, gameplay was running perfectly smooth, with absolutely no errors of any kinds.

But then, just in one night, one morning I woke up to find that all of my games (along the lines of AC2 to MW2 to SC2) suddenly running abnormally slow. Some are somewhat slower, still playable but completely ruins the gaming experience, while other games are now running so painfully slow, that, in-game, the mouse cursor looks like it's on a slide show, appearing on one side of the screen then suddenly on the other. I did install a second optical drive roughly around that time, but I decided to remove just as quickly. I've done everything I can think off; I've reseated the graphics card, I defragged, I cleaned up my disk (using both the Windows default one and CCleaner), I uninstalled every unwanted program on my hard drives (I have two, one 250 GB used down to 100 GB, and one unused 1 TB), reinstalled the latest drivers, and reinstalled the latest DirectX.

I am using an XFX Radeon 5770(4770 was a typo) graphics card. I have some suspicion that the problem could possibly be due to the PSU, since the PSU is below the recommended wattage for the graphics card. But only by 50 watts. And I wouldn't expect the first few months to be godly smooth for gameplay, then all goes to hell in one night.

Any help/advice?
 
Solution
What i would do is disable onboard graphics in bios.
Uninstall ATI Catalyst Install Manager / everything
Download and install DriverSweeper
Run in safemode
Check off ATI
Click purge
Restart normal
Go to AMD reinstall CCC

Konsonum

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Case- RAIDMAX SMILODON
Video Card- XFX Radeon HD 5770 (4770 was a typo, sorry)
Motherboard- ASUS M4A785TD-V Motherboard
PSU- CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX
RAM- G.SKILL Ripjaw Series 4GB
CPU- AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana
Hard Drive- SAMSUNG Spinpoint
Optical Drive- Sony Optiarc

As for processes..... Actually, I can't identify most of them, but those have "00" under CPU. In fact, all of them do as of now, except for the System Idle Process, which has 99 most of the time.

EDIT: There are actually two processes that change from from 00 to a higher number like 01 and 08 occasionally, but they revert back to 00. Those two processes are the Task Manager and Firefox, respectively. Aside from that then, there really is no other process that takes up any CPU right now.
 
There must be a specific event that caused that, since you say everything worked fine, and then went to hell in a handbag overnight. Did you make any configuration changes, install new hardware/software, or possibly opened a suspicious file?
 

Konsonum

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Well, as I said, I did install a second optical drive, but I uninstalled that almost as soon as I installed it as I figured I probably could salvage it for something else.

Internet imploded upon itself, for the second time. But that was just Comcast.

Aside from that, the only other event that I could think of is that I had knocked out the SATA and power cable to my main hard drive, so I reconnected them.

Nothing else happened at all.
 

Konsonum

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Just an update:

It seems that I'm able to play games that were and are installed after my games suddenly getting slow, but only on medium quality. Anything higher and stuttering in the graphics become very noticeable. In fact, I can only play America's Army 3 on Low settings since I notice stutters on anything higher, which really confuses me/pisses me off considering I have a Radeon HD 5770. Games that were installed before still have incredibly painful game-play, no matter what graphics setting I set them to.
 

bertimus

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It sounds to me like your video card is getting hot. That is probably due to months of use under power reccommendation and poor air circulation.

Open your case and put a fan next to your rig and see if it helps. If not, you might need to replace your video card :/
 

Konsonum

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I downloaded CPUID HWMonitor, but I have absolutely no idea how to read it.

As for the video card overheating, I touched it and it didn't feel hot at all, just mildly cool. I am opening the case and putting a fan next to it, though. I figure I'm going to turn the power off and leave it like this for a few hours.

 

avalonstar

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Well there's your problem, you're computer is running on your mobo's intergrated graphics(4200) and not your installed graphics card (your 5770)

which would explain the slower frame rates, as the 4200 is obviously inferior to the 5770.
 

Konsonum

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I followed the instructions (there was a 'Clean' instead of 'Purge'), but to no avail. The games are still very slow, and whenever I check Display Properties -> Settings, it's still showing Radeon HD 4200.
 

Konsonum

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Interesting thing to note:

I was going through my device manager, and, while looking at "Plug and Play" under "Monitors", I noticed an 'Update' selection. So I chose it and it updated.

So now, the "Plug and Play Radeon HD 4200" has become the "SyncMaster 2033SW/2033SWPlus,SyncMaster Magic CX2033SW(Analog)".

Did I just screw something up?
 

MxM

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Do you even have 5770 in your device manager?
Is it also possible that you have connected your monitor to wrong output? (Video card may have different output from your on-board card)
 

Konsonum

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I've reseated the video card and reconnected all the cables for it.

There is just a major problem that just came up now. While going through BIOS looking to see if my 5770 is detected, and any way to disable the onboard video card, I accidentally changed the 'Primary Video Controller' to [PCI-GFXO-GPP-IGFX] and the 'Internal Graphics Mode' to [Disabled]. Now the monitor doesn't work.

I'm so frustrated, all this for a god damn video card that probably doesn't work.
 

T3rm1

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Dude are you kidding? You are asking all the people for help and you somehow solve your problem but you don't tell us how you did it? Have you EVER thought about other people (in this case me) having the same problem looking for an answer?
Please report back how you managed to get everything back to normal.
 
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