System Slowing Down Already?

[Dongle]

Hello! Back again for some helpful insight. Down to business!

Specs:
- ASUS 790GX
- ASUS 4870 1g HD
- AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE
- Western Digital Black 640gb
- Windows 7 Home Prem 64bit
- ASUS 21" 1920x1080
- Black Knight cooling
- G.Skill 2x2gb 1333mhz (set to 1600 in BIOS)
- Rosewill Bronze Series 700watt

Rundown: I play WoW (all high except shadows down 2) mw2 (med graphics rest high 8x AA I think) soon BC2, DA:O, whatever else that comes out. It seems as of lately, I might be going crazy from stress but... it appears that my loading times for MW2/WoW have slowed dramatically when it used to be nearly instant. I've also noticed significant FPS spikes in WoW even some spikes in MW2.

Is it just me or am I expecting too much of my budget PC? I also have that amazing "Windows Explorer has stopped working... restarting" issue that Googling fails to provide any sensible answer. *sidenote*

My first assumption was that I probably need more RAM with all the processes running firefox only thing open I'm at 33% physical memory use. Do I dare use the overlocking tools that my Mobo and such offers to jack up my pc or something else?

 

[jack_attack]

That's funny you say that. My PC seems to have off days too Some days, I can be in a game of MW2 so fast it sometimes catches me off guard, and others, slower. I think a lot of these slowdowns are caused by disk activity, to be honest. Your PC was affordable I imagine, but I wouldn't call it a "Budget PC". It's a more than capable machine. Any word on actual FPS in those games?

 

[tserich]

I maybe wrong but I could have sworn I read somewhere that if your PSU doesn't deliver "clean" power (something about ripples) to your GPU you may experience fluctuations in FPS.

From what I know, Rosewill isn't known to make quality PSU units.

 

[Dongle]

Funny you should say that, I was advised to avoid Rosewill when I had decided to purchase the unit. The problem with that being it was an extremely good deal for what seemed like a mediocre PSU that would suffice since I wasn't running dual cards or anything, honestly it was super super cheap on newegg because of like $30.00 off. Maybe that should have been a sign it was awful? Is there any way I can tell if the PSU is the problem?

I was wrong about running MW2, I opened it up real quick to check my fps via Xfire, map took too long to load and I realized I wasn't on Xfire so I closed, logged on, opened up again saw I play 1920x1080, 2x AA, Extra on all graphics, just getting into the game and looking out over the map I ranged 80-90 (90 is the cap for MW2). No idea for BF:BC2 since I only played the Beta on a friend's steam a few days and WoW with everything that high is pretty bad, 100+ in lonely places or closed in, 40-70 in open terrain (sometimes gets raped when I spin my mouse around to view other things I'll go as low as the 10's).


*Also when I reopened MW2 with Xfire to check my fps I loaded New Brecourt instantly as opposed to Scrapyard when I first tried took way too long for such a small map.*

Thanks for the quick replies.


Edit: This it the PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182186&cm_re=Rosewill_Bronze-_-17-182-186-_-Product

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

You'd have to test it by hooking up a different PSU and seeing if it acts the same.

But it sounds more like some kind of malware or a too full hard drive, something along those lines.

I'd be surprised if that particular rosewill is a PoS, because it seems to have what the good ones are supposed to. The thing about rosewill PSU's is that rosewill is newegg's brand of stuff. They get things like PSUs from a fairly high number of manufacturers, so they aren't all of the same build quality. I personally have only used the rosewill green series, (out of rosewill stuff I mean) and I also looked at some PSU fanatic forums and when they had any knowledge of the line it was always positive.

 

[Dongle]

Well I don't have another PSU, well I do, but it's definitely a PoS, PowerUp 550 Watt (probably doesn't even have the correct pin connectors for my card too). I have Malwarebytes and it hasn't picked anything up, few other scanners and nothing either. HD is defragged from like <week ago with 363GB free. Don't know what the problem is, or if there even is a problem.

Would adding another 2gb of ram do anything at all realistically, for gaming/load times/fps? I really don't know if extra memory helps at all so I don't want to get ahead of myself. And if it would, how in the hell do I match my current ram with something that will work well? (In my old PC I mixmatched and had to run at a slower speed for the cost of extra memory)



Edit: Well even if RAM would help there is NO way I'm fitting it in my board. I just peeked inside because I remembered saying to myself "Hmmm.... this is interesting" when I put it all together. Dark Knight CPU cooler is so big extra RAM wouldn't fit in the slots and my case has to be forced down to close. Keeps my CPU cool though!!!!

 

[jack_attack]

I don't think extra RAM would much, if any. Realistically, I'd guess 90% of people don't need more than that right now. How long ago did you build your machine? It might not hurt to do a reformat if you're comfortable with that, I reformat my machine every 3-4 months or so, and it's much more responsive afterwards. Could just be me frantically scurrying to replace the things I forgot to back up, but who knows.

 

[Dongle]

I didn't figure more ram would do much. I'm not a big fan of the reformatting game, mainly because I have no means of backing anything up (you do need an extra or eternal HD for that correct?) otherwise I guess I'll just have to keep everything cleaned up. Would anyone recommend using the OC'ing features my mobo came with and jacking things up? I do have the Dark Knight and my case has 2 intake and 2 outtake fans capable of 3 settings.

 

[jack_attack]

Windows 7 makes a folder called windows.old of all of your documents when you reformat. It makes it really easy. Overclock that puppy! I'm a cheap thrill kinda guy, if I can squeeze an extra 500mhz for the price of an aftermarket cooler, I'm doing it. I don't know a ton about AMD OC'ing, but I've heard the Phenom II is an excellent chip to OC.

 

[Dongle]

Thanks for the reply! I have a few questions. I need to actually set up my backup for all my files or just specifics? Then I put my Windows disc in and reformat? Also for OC'ing, I can search a guide but how much do you think I should shoot for specifically based on my specs?

I should mention my house is old, dust accumulates so quickly I wipe stuff off daily and the inside is due for a take-apart-clean, but it's winter and dry air is making me heistate til Spring. Not positive what my gaming temps are but idle with my fans on low the highest it gets is like 37c CPU/MB and the GPU is 44c according to Cataylst.

 

[jack_attack]

You don't need to do anything with the Win7 reformat. Just pop the disc in, boot from it, and select your main partition to install to. It will pop up a dialog saying, "If there is a previous Windows Installation on this partition, all of your files will be moved to a new folder named windows.old.", or something along those lines. It does it all, Program Files, Users, all of it. Pretty handy.

As far as the OCage goes, I couldn't tell you for sure. 30 seconds of Google show an added 1Ghz is attainable on air, so I think anywhere from 400Mhz to 800Mhz should be relatively easy.

As far as dust goes, your case fan orientation can be your friend, or that dreaded dead skin ickyness disease. I've always tried to run my cases with a little more intake than exhaust, primarily because I don't like sucking dust through my opticals and every tiny little crack in my case. I can just keep the screens cleaned once in a while, not a big deal. If you run Coretemp, play some games, and then open the Coretemp window, it will show you the max temp your CPU hit.