Performance problems

[molvanja]

Hello, a while ago i bought new computer, it was put together by the shop i bought it on and since i needed it fast i did not built it myself. I had tiny 15" screen and any game i was playing and program working with was working perfect until i bought new 22" screen. Now almost every game is a bit strange. I even don't know how to properly explain it. For example, when playing GTAIV sometimes it feels like i was driving through glue. Its like going faster then slower and fps itself is pretty low. Not higher than 30 in open places. In some other games i don't really feel the "glue" thing, but when fps drops at 30 and below it feels almost unplayable.
I remember my friend having similar behavior on games, but he had very, very weak graphics card on 22" screen.

My specs are
Athlon II X4 640
Gigabyte HD5770
4GB DDR3 ram
ASRock N68C-S UCC motherboard
550W power supply
500GB SATA drive 7200rpm
And one old 400GB ata drive for file storage only (pics music etc.)

My guess would be that this could be because of motherboard which is pretty cheap and with pci-e 1.1 slot.
But i'd love to hear some advice from more experienced guys since i can't afford to anything i want until lag is gone
Thanks for reading, i hope the text is understandable

 

[jmsellars1]

Higher resolutions will put a lot more strain on your graphics card, lower it a bit or take off some AA and AF and see if it still lags.

 

[molvanja]

Yes, it lags. Especially Witcher 2. Changing graphics options doesn't change anything. There is small fps increase with lowest settings, but the gluish lag is still present.

 

[jmsellars1]

Try making sure you have the right drivers, could be some kind of bug.

 

[molvanja]

I have tried that.. Few times. Also tried those tweakforce drivers, but it seem to lag even more with them.
Judging from video settings i have tried in games it looks like system is capable of giving much bigger performance but something is limiting it and all ends up in terrible lag. Since there really is barely noticeable change if it's on Maximum or minimum.

But what's up with the PCI-E 1.1? Can it still provide enough bandwidth and whatnot? Or maybe something other hardware related?

 

[jmsellars1]

The fact that changing the settings doesn't make a difference is making me think it's not the graphics card. Especially because PCI-e 2.0 vs PCI-e 1.1 isn't going to make a noticeable difference on an HD 5770. Maybe the fact that you have an AM3 CPU on an AM2+ board is making the difference, see if it lags more on an RTS or TBS game such as Starcraft, Civilization, Age of Empires, Total War etc.

 

[molvanja]

Well, i don't have any of that kind of games, but obviously something is wrong with hardware, as i said, playing Witcher 2 is like playing online shooter with 10k latency. Its super lagy even on lowest possible settings.
It just shouldn't be like that on system like mine.

 

[jmsellars1]

Like i said though, it might be because your motherboard won't be fully utilising your CPU so it may be bottlenecking. Seems like an extreme case but i can't think of anything else it might be, maybe someone else around here will have a better idea.

 

[molvanja]

Fps is around 25-40
Its not lagging at all on 1024x768, but ofc it looks like a crap then..

oh, and when i play world of warcraft fps is good mostly, but if i have a youtube video opened in browser it lags awfully.
Looks like i'll just have to buy new pc again, lol..

 

[molvanja]

Hey again. So, I was poking around internet trying to figure out this annoying problem and was reading CPU's review, the one i have. So i compared some numbers from their CPU-Z screen and noticed something called HT Link, their number was 2004.0MHz while mine is only 800.0MHz everything else is exactly the same.
Why so? Is that normal?

 

[jmsellars1]

What did it say next to that number? It's probably not clock speed, it must be something else.

EDIT: No matter what it is though actually, restoring your default BIOS settings would be a good idea.

 

[molvanja]

BIOS setting is default. HT freq was at Auto and i can't set it higher than 10x 1000MHz.
I tried some overclocking, but it doesn't seem to change anything at all.
Friend of mine said that i have *** motherboard, but i'm not sure about his knowledge
And PSU is something called HEC bought it few years ago, even cant find it anywhere anymore
oh there it is - http://www.computeruniverse.net/products/e90255073/d1/product-informations-details/hec-550tw-atf-550watt-netzteil.asp#InfoDataHeader

 

[jmsellars1]

Never heard of the brand but it looks expensive, maybe that means it's good. Dont know though.

 

[molvanja]

After a lot of reading i think it just has to be the crap motherboard.
So could you suggest some good mb's, but not too expensive please. That 990FX is a bit too much for me, since i am unemployed.