Is my CPU going bad?

[typeo]

Hi,

I have a E8500 dual core CPU, (The rest of my hardware can be seen in my Sig) and was wondering if it might be going bad? When I first bought and built my computer I was able to run MMOs such as DAoC and then run a Dvix movie on top of the game and play the game and watch a movie at the same time, but now it seems I cant do that anymore. If i try to do that now my CPU gets maxed out and my game and movie gets all lagged out, and i cant play neither of them.

Also Ive noticed that now just a game will even get close to maxing out my CPU. I don't ever have much running in the background. Normally all that is running in the background is AVG free (Not doing a scan) and Super anti spyware (Not scanning).

When i have all my programs closed down, besides my normal background programs my CPU usage is around 2-3%, so i don't think i have any viruses on here, and i have done scans with AVG, SaS, and Malware Bytes. And they all come up clean. I built this computer about 2 years ago, so i was wondering. Is my CPU just getting older and cant do as much as it could when I first bought it, or is it starting to dye on me, and ill have to replace it soon?

Also i am running Windows 7 x64 if anybody needed to know.

Thanks,
Typeo

 

[daship]

Defrag and run system mechanic.

 

[Guest]

System cleanup I think, try ccleaner and defraggler, also how long has win7 64 been installed?

 

[typeo]

Here is what CPU-Z is showing. The Core speed fluctuates between 1999.7 and 3166.4. But i don't see where I can look at the speeds for the second core.

And I did a clean install of windows 7 about 6 months ago, Would defraging the disk do much since I did a clean install pretty recently?

Thanks,
Typeo

 

[cjl]

You can just right click anywhere in CPU-Z to select which core to look at.

 

[typeo]

My hard drive is about 2 years old i think.

And it says about the same thing when I switch to the other core on CPU-Z. So if the first core looks fine, the second one should be fine as well.

The only thing that confuses me is that if it is my hard drive, then could that somehow cause my CPU is get maxed at 100% usage just running a single game now? Where I used to be able to run allot more?

Although when my computer could run a lot more, i never did look to see what my CPU usage was. So it could of been close ot maxing out then as well, but never looked to see cause it was running smooth.

 

[BradyT88]

A defrag would do wonders. I usually do them about once a every week or two. As you put new data on your hard drive it can be scattered around and makes your hard drive do a lot of skipping around to find data. Doing a defrag will organize this data by trying to group it together. Also, run prime 95 and watch CPU-Z. Does your core speed stay at about 3166 MHz the whole time. If it does I can't imagine your CPU is bad.

What are your performance options set at? (balanced, power saver, or high performance) right click on your desktop, click personalize, then click on screen saver, and then change power settings. Since you are on a desktop I would set it to high performance and then click change plan settings. Adjust those how you would like and then click change advanced power settings. Change those to how you would like but when you get to processor power management, I would set you minimum processor state for 5% and the maximum for 100%. Then set the system cooling state to active. Then click ok and save changes.

Is what this does is tells your processor that if it has nothing to do it will lower the voltage, which drops the core clock down, and saves on your power bill. If the CPU is needed though it will go up to 100% as needed. A passive cooling state will slow down the CPU instead of speeding up the fan in an attempt to cool down the CPU. where as active will speed up the fan before it slows the processor.

If yours is currently set to passive and your CPU is getting too hot then the computer will slow the processor and could be causing your lag.

 

[typeo]

Ill try that out and let ya know what happens. Although none of my fans are connected to my Mobo. They are all controlled by a fan controller i have installed. So not sure if that will make much difference from what you told me to do, but ill give it a shot and see.

Thanks,
Typeo

 

[BradyT88]

What do you have plugged into those mobo connectors...nothing? Most motherboards dislike having nothing plugged in. Did/can you disable the mobo fan detection in your bios? Also something you could try is setting the minimum and maximum processor states to 100% and turn your fans to 100% and try playing your game and watching your movie and see if it still lags. You should download a program like HWmonitor and see what your temps look like while doing this to rule out overheating.

On my ASUS board if it runs too hot it will trip some sensor and will throttle down my CPU voltage to try to cool the board down. It's really annoying and I'm working on a fix.

 

[typeo]

Ya, I'm pretty sure i don't have anything plugged into the Mobo fan connectors. Ive never had any issues that I know of with nothing being plugged in. And i haven't disabled anything like that in the bios. I usually have my CPU fan at 100% due to my other fans in my system, even after being throttled down are noisier than my CPU fan at 100%, so i cant even hear it.

I have a lot of airflow going though my case so I don't think overheating would be an issue, but Ill get a temp reading program just to double check and see if that could possibly be a problem.

I'm in the process of defragging my HD, and ill let ya know if it makes any difference.

Thanks,
Typeo

 

[math1337]

CPUs usually do not fail, so the problem is probably overheating if you say that the CPU is maxed out. I actually had a terrible overheating problem with my CPU because the whole heatsink was blocked off with dust. If it is dusty, cleaning the heatsink can make a big difference.

 

[typeo]

I clean out all the dust from my computer not to long ago so dust shouldn't be a problem. But I have (At the time i bought it) one of the best after market CPU coolers and arctic silver 5 thermal grease on on CPU so I don't see how it could be overheating.

But ill get a program to measure the temps so i can bee 100% sure that is not the problem and rule it out.

Thanks,
Typeo

 

[BradyT88]

Sounds like you're pretty on top of things. I'm guessing a defrag should do the trick since MMO's tend to require lots of memory and have to pull info from the hard drive often, especially when loading a new level.

 

[typeo]

Awesome,

Ill get it defragged and let yall know how it goes. Thanks a bunch to everybody that helped out.

Thanks,
Typeo

 

[Keiki646]

Defrag and run system mechanic.

Agree, But make sure that your Hard Drive is not compressed, if the HD is then you would still have to do it a second time around. It would take less time if you uncompressed the HD. Make sure you run System Mechanic 9.5.1 and at Deep.

 

[typeo]

Best answer selected by Typeo.

 

[BradyT88]

So the defrag did the trick?

 

[typeo]

Seemed to have helped some, but i haven't had the time to test it out thoroughly though due to getting busy with school and work. (Midterms coming up)

Ill let ya know if all is good when I get time here in the next day or so.

Thanks,
Typeo