I7-720 sudden drop in load

[petrus1143]

Hello, my 1 week old Asus N71jq is giving a giant headache because in all games, from europa universalis II, passing to half life 1, up to starcraft 2 borderlands and civ 5, and in windows itself, the bloody machine from time to time has this sudden freeze, for example:

I'm playing starcraft 2, im about to order some units to move, and when i do it the game freezes for 2 seconds and then everything fast forwards from the frozen point until the present in the game. Looking at the graphics in the CPU load graphic, when those freezes happen, my CPU load goes from the average for that program to 0 and comes back up when the freeze passes. I hope i made the problem clear and easy to understand.
I've also seen something strange in my RAM which is supposed to be running at 1333mhz but in CPU-Z it only shows up as being 660mhz average... strange? I can post screenshots of everything needed and provide additional info that u think it might be needed

I've tried formating(before it used the factory installation), experimenting with different drivers, unpluging different components from the computer, nothing fixes it. Im desperate for help... The bios of this computre also sucks ass seeing as i cant even access cpu options to try to turn off turboboost to see if it helps.

the computer specs are:

Processor & Cache Memory
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 720QM: 1.6 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz ;

Operating System
Win 7 ultimate 64

Chipset
Mobile Intel® HM55 Express Chipset

Main Memory
4GB DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM

Video Graphics & Memory
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730, 1G DDR3 VRAM

Hard Drive
2.5" 9.5mm SATA
640GB,5400rpm

Please, for the love of god, help me.

 

[rolli59]

the ram is dual data rate 667 x 2 =1333. what is causing the freezes is hard to guess but if it is not doing anything then the cpu will not have any load. Anything running in the background that is competing for system resources?

 

[dEAne]

This is not a gaming PC it is designed for entertainment.

 

[petrus1143]

Well guess what, gaming falls within entertainment, besides ive read allot of reviews about the computer, and nobody reportd any problem like that even after having played some of the same games i do.

Only thing running in the background is the usual: icq, teamspeak, messenger, xfire. All stuff I run in my desktop when im at home. This should not be happing, and its not a system resource thing because it happens from the fairly old game(half life 1) to a rather recent one (sc2). The thing as i saw it is that from time to time, the cpu will drop all its workload to 0, causing the freeze and then resume it causing the application to go back to normal

Also thanks about the clarification about the ram!

 

[rolli59]

Try Disabling the Intel speed step in BIOS/setup it is a possibility the CPU is throttling down when it should not.

 

[petrus1143]

Well i would like to, but havent figured out how to access cpu configuration in the BIOS of this computer :\

 

[petrus1143]

Anybody have an idea how to unlock cpu configuration in an Mobile Intel® HM55 Express Chipset?

 

[popatim]

Go into the power saving features and set the HDD to Always on please and retest.
I've a feeling your HDD spun down to save energy and so your cpu went to 0 while waiting for data from the sleeping drive.

 

[petrus1143]

hey, well my power options dont have a always on option, only options of how long to wait till hdd turns off with inactivity. I do however agree with you, since that in games that load most content into ram instead of always using the HDD(like left for dead 2) have almost no breaks, while harddrive heavy ones(like rpgs such as star wars kotor) and even starcraft 2 it happens all the time. Is there another place where i can configure the harddrive to keep it always running?

 

[petrus1143]

Go into the power saving features and set the HDD to Always on please and retest.
I've a feeling your HDD spun down to save energy and so your cpu went to 0 while waiting for data from the sleeping drive.

hey, well my power options dont have a always on option, only options of how long to wait till hdd turns off with inactivity. I do however agree with you, since that in games that load most content into ram instead of always using the HDD(like left for dead 2) have almost no breaks, while harddrive heavy ones(like rpgs such as star wars kotor) and even starcraft 2 it happens all the time. Is there another place where i can configure the harddrive to keep it always running?

 

[petrus1143]

bump

 

[bertimus]

Put your laptop on a laptop fan. It's probably getting to hot. That is why your tech specs say that the ram is underclocked and your cpu is dropping load, the machine is intentionally doing that to save itself from hardware failure.

Edit:
To elaborate, laptops in general always have this problem. No matter how much beef you put in them, they are going to overheat and start to bog down. My roomate has gone through 3 alienware laptops in 2 years because of this. Manufacturers put big graphics cards into these laptops to market more utility to you because it sells. No airflow + downward facing exhaust fans + hot battery = overheat.

Edit 2:
You aren't going to be able to do anything to your machine that is noteworthy in BIOS. Most manufacturers have the important stuff blocked/frozen so you can't mess with it.

 

[popatim]

Under "Turn off hard disk after"... below 1 is: Never.

 

[petrus1143]

TThat was already done, no other option.

To the other poster, yes id have considered overheating if the gfx was something noteworthy(its kinda bad really) and this happens even with aged games(some from 1999) So I doubt strongly overheating is the issue. Also a friend of mine has the same computer model without any problems. I start to think it might be the harddrive failing as ive read while searching the inet that some people had problems with asus computers.

I'm guessing im going to hand this back to asus and demand a new one since i cant find way to fix it.

Do they even give refunds? The fact that i cant configure anything but the boot order in the BIOS is ******* terrible, as im used to do everything including overclock in my main desktop in the asus motherboard bios... ud think a asus computer wouldnt come with this crap.

Oh well, if anybody else has any more ideas, im all hears otherwise im giving up.