Strange 4870X2 performance problem - Please help

Malachitsai

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Last night I was playing wow , and I did a shut down and then reboot as a restart. I realise that I am getting really low fps eg 16 fps in wow where I am suppose to get 60+ ( this is running on 2560x1600 all maxed ) every game I tried it was poor performance compared to what I had normally and eventually my computer restarted its self with a blue screen in the back. But this morning I tried playing my games , the performance were back to normal 60fps +.

I remember having this kind of problem on my 8800GTX and Enermax Liberty 620w , like some sort of lack of power , or power degrading. But now I bought Sapphire HD4870X2 with a new Enermax Galaxy 1000w PSU month ago, and it was running fine till last night , I tried rebooting , restart or shut down by all mean I am still getting weird crappy performance , until I shut my computer and went to sleep , the next morning everything is back to normal.

any ideas ?

my spec are

Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 2.66ghz
ASUS P5B Delux Wi/Fi
Balastix Tracer 1066 2GB Dual channel
Enermax Galaxy 1000w
Sapphire HD4870X2
 

lukuks

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hello, i had the same problem with my old 6600 gt. It started to show crappy performance after computer crashed usually couse of graphic drivers or power supply. But after crash unplugging power source for a several seconds usually helped. Maybe it will help u too :) and i have now idie why it was acting so weird.
 

Malachitsai

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I just did a test of restarting the computer , and I got crappy performance.....the fps were really bad and low......so I shut my computer down , turned off the PSU , waited for 1 min , rebooted , everything is fine .... any idea what is happening ?
 

soundefx

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It might be that your power supply is going bad. nothing last forever.
Try to get another PSU, from a friend and see if the problem reoccurs. if it does not, then you know you need another PSU.
Another thing you can try is maybe your RAM.
It could even be a heat issue.
 

mtyermom

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Could be a heat problem. Use a program like SpeedFan to monitor your CPU and GPU temperatures before and after the problem. Report back your findings (or any data you might already have relating to temperatures).
 

kyeana

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^doesn't matter. If heat is the problem then it will be a problem with the heatsink, not with the case airflow (at least in this case).
 

mtyermom

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Exactly. Just because you're moving some air around, doesn't mean that your components are being effectively cooled. (It's possible the heatsink(s) on your GPU(s) are not properly mated, you would need to reseat them yourself or exchange the card.)

We need some real temperature data to further diagnose this problem.

You mentioned a prime95 test, which is well and good, but it stresses just your CPU, not your GPU.

EDIT: I want to know what the GPU temperature is when you experience the slowdown. Who knows, it might be just fine, temperature wise.

It could, in fact, ultimately be the PSU going out after all. Even the best of the best PSUs have the occasional bad egg that is DOA or goes out within a week of being installed. Getting us some real temperature readings will help us to narrow down the possible causes here
 

Malachitsai

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okay , the latest update is ~ I can make it to go really slow by just doing a restart , everything I restart , the game will result in poor performance , 3d card and CPU are both running normal temp , 3d card is around 70-80 degree and CPU is around 40-45 , this is weird ! how come a restart would stuff the performance up , I can even feel the lagg when I am typing this message
 

Malachitsai

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I just did a quick test , everytime I restart my com I get poor performance , but not when I shut it down , wait for like 1 min and reboot , the performance will be normal
 

mtyermom

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So when you do a complete shutdown and then 'cold' boot it runs fine, but if you just restart through the OS it gets ****?

If you shut down completely, 'cold' boot, and then immediately do a 'restart' after booting but without doing/touching anything else, do you still get the performance hit?
 

phantomsys

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I would look into power problem try keeping supply cool maybe it spicking when you draw power! You can figure the power you need for free at extreme power supply calculator it has every type of setup and you need at lest 30A on the 12 rail for that video card I know your power supply has that but if it has spare rails open try changing to another power wire I think your power supply has several video power inputs. If still problem maybe test another supply ask the store for a loaner to trouble shoot.
 

Malachitsai

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cool ! I was thinking that too , because the power supply its self came with alot of wire on default to cover the motherboard and the video card , I am thinking using separate rails to cover the 6pin and 8 pin , instead of using the default wiring configuration. because it came with lots of spare wiring and connections
 

Malachitsai

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ok ~ my test were , it didnt work , I use a separate rail for the 6pin connector to the gfx card and swapping another different 8 pin from the native cables.

What I found out were , if I dont run any games , and restart , its fine , how do I tell ? because by just by holding your mouse on the vista desktop and draw a square , I can tell the effects were smooth , and if I ran a game like WOW , and exit , and restart , the poor performance appeared , I can tell from the square selected , if you move them around , it appears laggy.

I remember this kind of problem happened to me when I had my 8800GTX and enermax liberty 620w , that time I had two OS installed on two different partition of HD , I remember if I am switching to Vista or to XP , I can not use restart , I had to shut down and reboot , or else I will experience the laggy frame rates if I scrol down and up when surfing websites , that is how I first figure it out.

it later on get to a point even if I shut down and boot the next day , I will still get crappy fps for some weird reason when I had my 8800GTX , but now I got my new PSU and gfx card , same kind of probelm still appears , I dont mind using shut down , as long as everything will function properly, maybe its something to do with booting ......sigh*** spend so much $$ on computer hardware getting the best stuff but so many problems
 

mtyermom

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That is definitely a strange problem, Mal. It shouldn't be doing that at all with your configuration. What kind of regular maintenance do you do for that computer? When is the last time you scanned for virus/malware/spyware? When is the last time you defragged the hard drive? Have you run Memtest on your memory?
 

Malachitsai

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I mainten my computer very well , I have spy bot and kaspersky installed , and I defrag every 1 month , I ran Orthos and prime95 test , all seemed fine
 

Malachitsai

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what I can think of that might come into play in this problem is the setting in the bios ,
current setting are

PCI-E frequency 100hz
PCI-E Sycrnoising 33.33mhz

Initial Graphic Adaptor PEG/PCI
PEG Force x1 Disabled
 

Malachitsai

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I just tried uninstalling ATI 8.11 driver and reinstalling , still wont work .....its really wierd , if I use restart my computer will result in poor 3d performance , but if I use shut down and reboot , its all fine........What the hell is going on !! , even tho its not a big deal , I can just use shut down......but in a way......I hate to think that some thing is weird is going on with my com