Serious Lag spike issue.

[vorless]

So I just installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 RC on my pc.

Specs are:

Core 2 6850
MSI P6N-SLI mobo
9800GT
256gb Western Digital Harddrive


I installed a few games, my favorite online shooter, the recent release of dragon age, dead space, and some other games. I have been noticing serious lag spikes in all of these games, and even when I am watching some movies in HD. So I just bought my 9800GT and upgraded from two 8600GTs in SLI, and it did not fix the problem, I even am now using HDMI instead of DVI. I ran memtest for hours and it does not seem to be my ram. I tweaked all my Win7 settings, services, drivers, and everything to best performance. Cleaned out my PC with tons of virus and spyware scans. I have done everything I could think of and cannot seem to fix the issue. Could it be my cpu or motherboard is going bad, perhaps my power supply? Or can it even be that there was a glitch in my windows 7 install? I consider myself very knowledgeable in the field and am even going to school to be a certified A+ tech.

Please help, this is my only pc and she is my baby, I dont want her to die on me.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Interesting.... you've covered basically everything I was going to suggest already. As you suspected, I would look at the motherboard or power supply as the root cause at this point. A bad CPU, while not impossible, is very highly unlikely.

One other thing you could try is flashing your BIOS? According to the MSI support page for your site, BIOS version 2.3 is required for full support of your E6850, however there has been one noted (and likely several other un-noted) CPU microcode updates which may be contributing to your problem.

Also ensure your graphics driver is up to date. Latest version for the 9000 series Nvidia cards is, I believe, 195.62.

 

[vorless]

Yeah I got the latest video drivers, even tried an older version that I knew worked perfectly. I will try flashing my bios and let you know how it turns out.

 

[vorless]

Yeah I got the latest video drivers, even tried an older version that I knew worked perfectly. I will try flashing my bios and let you know how it turns out.

So I flashed my mobo to the latest bios and even updated my mobo driver. Still I get the lag spikes, I am guessing it must be a hardware issue or just a failed windows install. Ugh. Cant figure this out.

 

[The_Prophecy]

How long do these spikes last?

 

[vorless]

5-10 seconds, but happen offten.

 

[Scotteq]

Hard Drive I/O, would be my suggestion.

 

[The_Prophecy]

either a HDD I/O problem, or the drive is actually failing...?

 

[Guest]

Couple of things...

- If it's your drive, then it could very well be caching causing the problem.

You might want to check to see what the cache setting are for the drive.

To check the drive to see if it's failing, go to the Western Digital Download site, select your drive model and download the latest software for your drive so you can check the condition of the drive and it should tell you if the drive is failing.

- What Router are you using as the router can cause lag too?

The DGL-4500 is known to have some serious lag issues when gaming online. I think some other D-Link routers have or have had the same problem.

One other thing I noticed, you say you tried thousands of virus and spyware scans.
You might want to check out this list to make sure you didn't end up with any rogues on your system as that could mean unwanted parasites such as Malware.

Lavasoft Malware Lab's Rogue Gallery

 

[The_Prophecy]

The DGL-4500 is known to have some serious lag issues when gaming online. I think some other D-Link routers have or have had the same problem.

The OP also mentioned that he/she is watching movies, and the spikes persist. If those movies are being watched locally, and not being streamed over the net, the router suggestion no longer works. Updating router firmware is a good idea though.

 

[Guest]

Saw the movie bit and figured the Op was talking about Streaming movies.

If it's the drive, hopefully the Western Digital software will show the problem and he'll be able to RMA the drive.

I had to RMA two drives last year which failed. One drive was a month old and the other was about four years old. The only thing I had to pay for was shipping to Western Digital. They Paid for the return shipping and sent back brand new replacement drives.

 

[vorless]

I think its the HDD, I turned off caching in the device manager and I havent noticed a lag spike while playing Dragon Age yet.
My pc is like 4 years old so it most likely is a HDD problem or other hardware issue. Thanks everyone.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, caching can definitely cause lag problems.

Also, if you watch video in FireFox there is a browser cache setting which can cause problems with video stopping periodically. It the crash recovery setting which causes this.

in addressbar type about:config

then look for browser.sessionstore.interval
I forget how many minutes the default setting translates to, but it's less than 5 minutes. You'll want to increase this number to something large enough not to disturb your videos.

next look for browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo change to zero

next look for browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo change to zero

next look for browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash change to false

This should stop most problems viewing streaming video with FireFox except network problems.

 

[witcherx]

I wonder if you tried this.. Disabling IPV6 -the root cause for me which kept giving me head aches for initial 2 weeks of windows 7 usage.

 

[witcherx]

Bing ! Disable ipv6 windows 7
This is whtat i found
MY OS is Windows 7.

Junst have to disable this IPV6 s h i t.

This has removed all kinds of lag which i used to experience in the games.
Now I can say I am WireFree .

BING! oooo I am wirefree.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/09/disable-and-turn-off-ipv6-support-in-vista/




Disable and Turn Off IPv6 Support in Vista My Digital Life

 

[vorless]

Yeah I always turn ipv6 off, but it wasnt internet lag cuz it was happening in offline games and videos, def glad I found it. Caching was killing me hahaha, def. gonna buy a new HDD soon. SMART says my current one is only at 50% health. Probly from Win7 superfetching and caching.

 

[jet truebow]

I had the same problem with my new GTS250. and the funny thing is I didn't had that problem when I was using 8500GT

Download nvidia physx driver that solved it for me.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_9.10.0129.html

 

[Cmil43]

I am actually having kinda the same problem. when I play first person shooters, like every 5-10 seconds it will lag for half a second then continue. it doesn't really affect things like MMO's. I play WoW and it seems to work without error. but the moment I throw down in things like call of duty or left for dead 2. it lags like crazy. really really annoying.