Upgraded to a Downgrade! WTF! Please Help!

[gordonfreeman]

Hello, I'm here because i've crossed the line between calm and controlled to insane. The story so far....

I recently upgraded my CPU from a AMD athlon 4000+ 2.4GHz (Single Core) with 2GB budget DDR ram and a **** motherboard to:

Intel Q6700 (4 x 2.6GHz)
ASUS P5KC AiLifestyle Series iP35 motherboard
Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Hyperx Memory
Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
550W PSW

The problem is having upgraded i've noticed that games such as Crysis Warhead are running slower or at the same speed! When I had the amd 4000+ system i could have everything on Mainstream setting and it would run without lag, now it lags at those settings! WTF!

What happens exactly is that it will run smoothly and then freeze for a couple of seconds and then run smoothly again and then freeze again and so on. This happens with every game i play including mass effect, world in conflict & GRID. I had no lag when playing these games on the AMD 4000 on the same settings. I did the installation myself so i'm thinking i messed up somewhere, but I don't know where it could be.

When i check the PC via the bios or windows it tells me everything is installed fine and running at the speed it should. My computer usage is also idle at around 1 - 3 % usually. Shouldn't things be running better? I even overclocked my Q6700 to 2.8Ghz and its still the same. Somethings wrong.

Any help would be great. P.S I have a 7800GTX graphics card (cant afford to upgrade yet) which was used on both systems

 

[4745454b]

Did you reinstall windows? (or at the very least, upgrade your windows processor driver?) Its also possible that your new setup uses more power, and your aging (?) 550W PSU isn't up to the task anymore. I would look at windows/drivers before that however.

 

[gordonfreeman]

Windows was not reinstalled, would this help in anyway? All the drivers have been updated to the appropriate and latest ones available including the bios. Cheers.

 

[gordonfreeman]

Also, the overclocking gets to about 80 degrees C under a maximum stress test (its idle at around 23 degrees C) when overclocked to around 2.9Ghz. This is also not cool. Would this be the power supply at work? I thought 550W was a lot? Thanks

 

[chaosgs]

I was always told you HAD to re-install windows after you install a new MOBO!
Also i never got windows to boot with a new MOBO. So yeah i think you need to.

 

[chaosgs]

550 watts is plenty for what you got unless its very old. Check the voltage on your cpu, lowered my voltage 0.15 and went down 10C so check that and tell us what it is.

 

[4745454b]

If you upgraded a single core CPU to a multi core CPU, windows needs to use a different "hal". This can be done by either updating the windows CPU driver, or simply doing a restore install of the OS. This will allow it to use more then one core of your new CPU.

If your new CPU hits 80c, it might be thermally throttling itself. The idle looks good, but your under load temp is to high. You have probably upped your voltages to high. I would back them down a bit, or even remove the overclock until your system is stable again.

Would this be the power supply at work? I thought 550W was a lot? Thanks

Without knowing anything about your PSU, its impossible for me to say. 550W might be a lot, but you have no idea how clean that power is, or how many amps are available for your GPU and new multi core CPU. Both the CPU and GPU draw power from the 12V line, so if it can't supply enough power, one or both will suffer. In addition, if the power on that rail is "dirty", you might have issues. I don't think this is the problem, but you should keep an eye on it.

 

[gordonfreeman]

Sweet man, I'll try reinstall the operating system and will hopefully notice some differences. The PSU is just under 3 years old, cant remember the details but it was a quality one at the time. Cheers for the help. I be back for more if the **** hits the fan.

 

[gordonfreeman]

O and the cpu voltage is on 1.3250 in the bios? cool?

 

[lunyone]

My first guess is the PSU...Of coarse this is just a guess, but you went from a fairly mild CPU to a quad core CPU that will consume more power than the single core. What is your specific make and model of your PSU? If you can read the sticker on the side of the PSU, it should have a "AMP" amount under the +12v rail(s). Some PSU's have multiple 12v rails, so calculating your total available power isn't as straight forward as one would think.

 

[zenmaster]

If you are not OCing, the Voltage can likely be reduced quite a bit.

I have a Q6600 that is running at stock speeds, but I've drop the voltage to 1.15 or even lower. ( I need more cores than I really need speed for its particular function, so that is the reason for the odd setup on that particular machine.)

 

[johnyeah]

Reinstall your window. Enough said.

Hardware changes like that pretty much yells for a reinstallation. Trust me.

 

[4745454b]

While it could be lower, 1.3 is fine. You should double check your heatsink, push pins are a b!tch.

If your using the wrong CPU driver, none of this might matter however once your reinstall is done.

 

[will_chellam]

Definitely +1's to all the people suggesting a windows reinstall....

Your 7800 series graphics card needs to be upgraded - if you can id get a new one beofre the hastle of reinstalling windows.

Also a new hard disk often helps, your inital description sounded like disk pauses, hard disks get faster every year and hard disks in use get worn and slower, im often amazed at what a difference a new hard disk can make.

And finally get that extra 2gb of ram when you can!

once all thats done, you're on your way!