I7 920: One core with high usage %?

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs I7 920: One core with high usage %?

Hello.

I have a I7 920 CPU and I'm experiencing weird stuttering/choppy gameplay when playing World of Warcraft. I used the program "Speedfan" to see my CPU temps (which are fine) and then I noticed something. One of the cores is up at 80-100% usage while all the others are at 0-11%!

I took a screenshot of what Speedfan is showing:

http://img33.imageshack.us/i/cpuc.jpg/

I'm just wondering if this is normal with the I7 920 or is something wrong? And if it's wrong, could it be the reason for the choppy/stuttering gameplay?

My first post on these forums so I'm sorry if I've posted in the wrong section.

Reply to Calz

thats odd out of all cores core 6??????

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Reply to xaira

thats weird indeed, maybe core0 was doing something els when he started WoW.

Anyways, WoW is old basicly. So no multi core support for you buddy. basicly Wow can only use 1 core to do its biddings,

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to ill b ben

Yeah, but WoW tech support have said that if you change "Setaffinitymask" to 85 (default is 3) in the wow config file, it will use more cores apparently. I did this and it made loading times faster and increased FPS, but the game is still choppy.

Reply to Calz

Sorry I ment: "SET processAffinityMask ". I'm says I'm not allowed to edit my post.

Reply to Calz

It*

Reply to Calz

look in taskmanager and see which process is using up the most cpu time

------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

It looks fine in taskmanager. WoW using 13% and then 87% as "free system" thing. Not sure what it's called in English sorry. While core 6 is using 80-100% according to speedfan.

Reply to Calz

ill b ben wrote :

thats weird indeed, maybe core0 was doing something els when he started WoW.

Anyways, WoW is old basicly. So no multi core support for you buddy. basicly Wow can only use 1 core to do its biddings,

Not correct - WoW does support multiple cores, and actually benefits from them rather nicely since (as games go) it is comparatively CPU and memory intensive compared to most games on the market.

What the SET processAffinityMask "*" parameter does is tell the game how many cores (virtual or not) are available to process whatever threads may be running at the time.

The maximum values are 3 for a dual. 7 for a Triple, 15 for a Quad. And for the i7 guys: 31 for 6, and 255 for all 8. This is different from telling your OS to pin the game to a given core.

OP - Be advised that simply maxxing out the value for your CPU isn't necessarily the most effective approach. The Blizzard rep recommended 85 - so 7 of 8. I'd be inclined to trust his number - at least as a place to start.

Check these threads for the detailia:

From the Warcraft Support Forums: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/ [...] rhtml=true

AnandTech: http://forums.anandtech.com/messag [...] id=2310148

****

Now - Regarding the Choppiness: When does it happen? Is it all the time? (possible graphic card/driver issue, or possibly not enough RAM). Or is it on entering a new area: Stutters and continues for a while, and then stops? (likely a slow Hard Disc causing delays while loading textures)

------------------------------ Trying to make up his mind whether the current situation is due to an overabundance of high quality pharmaceuticals freely available on the Internet. ...or not enough of them.
Reply to Scotteq

It happens mostly when raiding 25mans. It does not happen at all when we are out of combat, but as soon as the fight starts it will stutter/be really choppy. It also happens sometimes when loading new players while I'm running around in a city.

The thing is, it was perfect before, high fps , no stuttering/choppyness. Then just overnight without changing anything or downloading any new updates/drivers , the problems started.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Calz

My research says that SET processAffinityMask "85" makes it so that WOW will only run on physical cores, and not hyperthreading cores.

------------------------------ jennyh wrote: AMD break-even Q4 2009. *Gauranteed*

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Reply to TechnologyCoordinator

Calz wrote :

At this point, I'd start stripping out UI mods and add ons to see if it's one of those.

Ok, for tonights raid I will delete all addons and see if the problem goes away. I will come back here and post the results.

Reply to Calz

Update:

It seems like it was an addon. I never really considered this because there had not been any patch and I had not installed any new or updated any old addon when the problems started. Silly me.

Thanks everyone.

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to Calz

Calz wrote :

Woohoo! I'm glad everything worked out for you!

------------------------------ jennyh wrote: AMD break-even Q4 2009. *Gauranteed*

RabidFanboysSpreadingFalse.Info
Reply to TechnologyCoordinator

Calz wrote :

Argh please tell which addon it was? I have the same problem since 3 weeks .

Reply to rulez

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