In Game Stuttering Possible CPU Damage

[jdog2pt0]

A while back (as in January) my computer started stuttering while in game, any game. It is not the motherboard seeing as how I have replaced it. It is not my graphics card because I have tested others. It is not my RAM because I have tried others. It is not my current OS because I have formatted. None of this has helped. I'm afraid its my quad and this bothers my because the thing was over $300. What I've noticed is that the usage on one particular core will spike hard when the in game stuttering occurs and it occurs almost randomly. Is is possible that I have damaged the processor or is there, hopefully, something else going on. Temperature is also not a problem.

Currently running
XP SP3
Intel Quad-core Q9450
XFX 9600 GT XXX
Powertek skytek 600W PSU
Some 200W PSU dedicated to the graphics card and fans
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500AAKS 250GB
Mushkin 2GB 1066mhz
EVGA 132-CK-NF78-TR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI (last mobo was a Asus P-5ND stuttering occured with it too)

Please help me

 

[doormatderek]

how about the audio hardware/driver?

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Did you monitor the CPU temperature?

Once my CPU fan became loose, and my COD4 started artifacting...I checked the temp and it was almost 85'C.

I turned my system off before any damage occured.

 

[jdog2pt0]

For audio, I am using the Turtlebeach Ak-R8 http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/akr8/home.aspx . Thats not the problem, nothing comes up in the event viewer and occasionally I do notice stuttering outside of the games mostly though when I'm typing. I failed to mention, I did tinker with overclocking it but when I did, the P-5ND would spaz out, I.E. bios wouldn't even load right so I gave up on that.

 

[jdog2pt0]

In the way of a heatsink I am using the zerotherm BTF90 all copper. I am not sure if it is seated properly (either my die is warped or the base of the heatsink is...very scary thought) because I do not see thermal compound all the way over it but in the way of temps, everything across the board seems stable generally at an average of 50C. Oddly enough before my P-5ND died there was artifacting but I think that was just because the board was in its death throes or my PSU was overtaxed and I have yet to see that happen with the EVGA.

 

[daship]

50 is to hot idle.

 

[jdog2pt0]

So I've been told. I'm going out on a limb here but could it be that for some reason that the cpu isn't receiving the proper cooling and starts to overheat and throttles (can it only throttle a specific core? or the whole processor) and then being throttled the game maxes it out (its only one core though, i.e. core 0 spikes and so I'll set it so the game doesn't use that one but then another core spikes and the spikes are only for a second or less) and somehow in that second cools down enough, drops the throttle then the cycle repeats? Just a thought

 

[roofus]

if you are at 50c at idle, it is scorching playing games. the stuttering is probably a by-product of thermal issue and cpu throttling. you need to take it apart and work that out before you ruin the cpu.

 

[jdog2pt0]

All my stats are coming from speedfan. At idle it says the cores are running an average of 47c, the games seem to barely tickle the quad and when I do a burn in, speedfan only reports a maximum temp of 60c. That was 15min of 100percent usage. I have all the bios related thermal controlling turned off but I'm assuming throttling is built in and you cannot turn it on or off. The games stutter before they are even fully loaded. I used a program called OCCT for the burn in. I'll take a look at the base of my heatsink.

 

[jennyh]

Try out Vista and see if it's still doing it.

 

[jdog2pt0]

I do not have Vista nor do I ever intend on buying it

 

[Kraynor]

Get the Windows 7 RC then, it's free. Dual-boot it and stuff.

 

[jdog2pt0]

I'm going to try something, I had a bad sector or two form a while back on one of my previous windows installations causing it to become corrupt and I had to format and reinstall but I never did a remapping operation, one of my friends suggested that might be the problem so I'm going to go ahead and run it then see whats happens.

 

[jdog2pt0]

I'm bouncing off the walls right now, turns out that was the problem. I ran the Western Digital Diagnostic Software, it found some problems, fixed them and this thing is running better than ever. I want to thank you all for your help here.

 

[Dark Comet]

50 is to hot idle.

I'm not doing much on my computer now and my Q9450 is running at 44C, 42C, 43C, 43C using real temp 2.5 (TJ max = 95). Stock cooler. I'm going to upgrade it soon though.

 

[jdog2pt0]

The quads run hot and I've got mine slightly overclocked to 3.0ghz which is why its running 50c, This thing has never hit above 62c though even on a full load

 

[Dark Comet]

Double post.

 

[Dark Comet]

I used to get around a max of 63,58,61,61 in WOW with my old case after a few hours of playing. But after I upgraded to the Antec twelve hundred I get 53,48,48,52. Whats your TJ max when you are testing it?

 

[jdog2pt0]

I used to get around a max of 63,58,61,61 in WOW with my old case after a few hours of playing. But after I upgraded to the Antec twelve hundred I get 53,48,48,52. Whats your TJ max when you are testing it?

I'm not sure what you mean by "Whats your "TJ" max when you are testing it?"

 

[Dark Comet]

What program are you using the test the temperature? You can read up about TJ max online as other people will be able to explain it better then me.

EDIT: Sorry can see you are using SpeedFan. Different programs use different TJ maxs so you can get different temperature readings from different programs.

 

[jdog2pt0]

Old thread is old, however I got an email from someone asking how I solved the issue. Turns out my HDD was bad. I would run the Western Digital Diagnostic which would detect and fix the problem, but it would come back within a few months and frag itself a little more each time. Eventually I got a new boot drive, and have been using the bad drive for storage without any issues ever since.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey