Video Prioritization Issue Maybe???

[cncnowland]

First off, thanks for taking the time to read my post and provide answers if possible.

I have been having an issue (Video) with a new system I built a couple of months ago. Its not a life ending and the computer is usable, but hampers the purpose of this computer, online gaming. I primarily play games like World of Warcraft, online shooters, etc.

The issue I am experiencing can be best described as a prioritization problem. I will playing the game online, then active window will become inactive. Visually, the dark blue bar across the top of the window becomes light blue. I can't move or provide any input unless I click the left mouse button, making the window active again. When playing a game fullscreen, when this incident happens, the game window is minimized and I return back to the Windows desktop, with the game in the tooltray. I can click the icon and it comes back. THis happens roughly every 5-6 minutes.

First off, the original build:

- ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
- CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
- Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
- XFX HD-695X-CNDC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support
- G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage (1.2V) Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2
- Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
- COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7
- ASUS 24X DVD Burner
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM


AFter experiencing the issue, I tried some troubleshooting and replacement of parts. After looking at the the RAM QVL, I replaced my memory with the following since its on the list. The new memory did not correct the situation.

- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL


Next component I changed out was the video card was NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 Graphics Card from Best Buy (local). Same issue.

Thats as far as I have gotten. Only things I have not changed are the Mobo and Power Supply.

I am really at my wits end. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

[suteck]

That's not a hardware problem, it's software or firmware for sure. Have you updated the firmware for the nvidia? (From chico3434) Do you have a logitech mouse? Go to control panel and select Mouse. If Logitech Setpoint software is installed you will see a tab for SetPoint settings. Click it and then find the tab that has a pic of a castle on it- (Mouse game settings) Make sure Game detection is enabled. Go with the defaults.

First, to give you an idea of what is happening (in case you do not already know) is that in Windows and just about every operating system, there is a concept called focus. The window you are currently working with and view is the window that has focus. Most operating systems have the windows without focus grayed out a bit. Normally shifting focus is not an issue because you just click on the window that you want to focus on and you normally will not even tell the difference. The issues is most noticable when you are in a full-screen application, like watching a movie or playing a game. When another application requests focus when you are in a full-screen application, it will minimize your application. Are you running AVG? That is a big culprit - if not the biggest. Uninstall, turn off temporarily if you can, or wait for them to patch and fix it.

If your application minimizes and a notification bubble immediately pops up, you have your suspect there. Try to minimize the amount of applications you have running in your task bar at any given time. If you do not know what something does in your task bar, you can probably just close it. Give this program a try. It is called Malwarebytes Anti Malware and it looks for malicious programs that can request focus away from the program you are working with. Download the program; run the scan; fix whatever it finds. That may solve your problem.

Though unlikely your problem might be with the webcam. The software suite for HP Deluxe Webcam, Arcsoft Magic-i, does, for whatever reason, request focus away and thus causing your games to minimize. After uninstalling it, the problem should go away.

And now, if after the aforementioned steps, you still cannot find what is going on, try this. There is a program put out by Microsoft called Process Monitor. Go there and download the program and run it. It literally shows every process that your computer runs, so within seconds, the list will be populated with millions, figuratively, of entries. Needless to say, this can be a bit of a process. Run the program/game that keeps minimizing until it minimizes again. After it minimizing, click the button on Process Monitor to stop monitoring the processes so you don't get overrun with new processes. Then look at where your game or application stopped running and look at the processes immediately after that. It is more than likely that one of those first three or four programs to run thereafter will be your culprit. Things likes videocard suites or messenger programs are likely suspects. Try uninstalling and reinstalling stuff to see if it helps.
It can be a long boring process but go thru it until you hit the magic bullet. Then maybe you won't have to bang your head anymore. I have also heard of the malwarebites causing this to happen when it starts a scheduled scan. So if you try that method make sure you turn scheduled scans off during game play.

 

[cncnowland]

Suteck, thanks for the response.

I am using the wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard but never installed the vendor software. I checked the settings and no setpoint tab shows up.

I have no webcam or associated software installed on this machine.

I ensurd that all drivers (mobo and video card) are up to date, which they were.

 

[suteck]

That leaves the fun part. Download the process monitor and follow those instructions

 

[cncnowland]

Actually, I just installed that setpoint software just for grins, and enabled hardware detection. I will be playing onlione so I should know if it worked. I will post back if I am still in the same boat.

Thanks again for your help up to this point.

 

[cncnowland]

Tried installing the software for the logitech mouse/keyboard, same issue.

Installed the process monitor and ran while playing an online game. I captured the incident as it happened and it always seemed the common item was EXPLORER.EXE line items. I have compiled two seperate incidents below:

6:49:40.8389350 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegQueryValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\P:\Hfref\Choyvp\Tnzrf\Jbeyq bs Jnepensg\Jbj.rkr SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 72, Data: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 82 04 00 00 5A 2D 85 05
6:49:40.8389694 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegSetValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\P:\Hfref\Choyvp\Tnzrf\Jbeyq bs Jnepensg\Jbj.rkr SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 72, Data: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 82 04 00 00 5A 2D 85 05
6:49:40.8389873 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegSetValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\HRZR_PGYFRFFVBA SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 1,612, Data: 01 00 00 00 BB 00 00 00 C5 0B 00 00 96 3B 87 08


6:59:51.1983308 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegQueryValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\P:\Hfref\Puevf\NccQngn\Ybpny\Grzc\Grzc1_CebprffZbavgbe.mvc\Cebpzba64.rkr SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 72, Data: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1F 00 00 00 98 B5 0E 00
6:59:51.1984211 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegSetValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\P:\Hfref\Puevf\NccQngn\Ybpny\Grzc\Grzc1_CebprffZbavgbe.mvc\Cebpzba64.rkr SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 72, Data: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 98 B5 0E 00
6:59:51.1984991 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegSetValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\HRZR_PGYFRFFVBA SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 1,612, Data: 01 00 00 00 BC 00 00 00 D9 0B 00 00 FB 5C 8D 08
6:59:51.1985480 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegQueryValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\P:\Hfref\Choyvp\Tnzrf\Jbeyq bs Jnepensg\Jbj.rkr SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 72, Data: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 86 04 00 00 39 EE 87 05
6:59:51.1985814 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegSetValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\P:\Hfref\Choyvp\Tnzrf\Jbeyq bs Jnepensg\Jbj.rkr SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 72, Data: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 86 04 00 00 28 0E 8B 05
6:59:51.1986197 PM Explorer.EXE 2724 RegSetValue HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\{CEBFF5CD-ACE2-4F4F-9178-9926F41749EA}\Count\HRZR_PGYFRFFVBA SUCCESS Type: REG_BINARY, Length: 1,612, Data: 01 00 00 00 BC 00 00 00 D9 0B 00 00 EA 7C 90 08


Pretty ugly post huh? I can probably copy the process monitor log if that will help. Before capturing this, I disabled the Asus AI Suite and my anti-virus and firewall.

I hope you can give me a good direction. Thanks again.

 

[Rosebud]

That's not a hardware problem, it's software or firmware for sure. Have you updated the firmware for the nvidia? (From chico3434) Do you have a logitech mouse? Go to control panel and select Mouse. If Logitech Setpoint software is installed you will see a tab for SetPoint settings. Click it and then find the tab that has a pic of a castle on it- (Mouse game settings) Make sure Game detection is enabled. Go with the defaults.

First, to give you an idea of what is happening (in case you do not already know) is that in Windows and just about every operating system, there is a concept called focus. The window you are currently working with and view is the window that has focus. Most operating systems have the windows without focus grayed out a bit. Normally shifting focus is not an issue because you just click on the window that you want to focus on and you normally will not even tell the difference. The issues is most noticable when you are in a full-screen application, like watching a movie or playing a game. When another application requests focus when you are in a full-screen application, it will minimize your application. Are you running AVG? That is a big culprit - if not the biggest. Uninstall, turn off temporarily if you can, or wait for them to patch and fix it.

If your application minimizes and a notification bubble immediately pops up, you have your suspect there. Try to minimize the amount of applications you have running in your task bar at any given time. If you do not know what something does in your task bar, you can probably just close it. Give this program a try. It is called Malwarebytes Anti Malware and it looks for malicious programs that can request focus away from the program you are working with. Download the program; run the scan; fix whatever it finds. That may solve your problem.

Though unlikely your problem might be with the webcam. The software suite for HP Deluxe Webcam, Arcsoft Magic-i, does, for whatever reason, request focus away and thus causing your games to minimize. After uninstalling it, the problem should go away. Thxs I had not read about malwarebites but I will now

And now, if after the aforementioned steps, you still cannot find what is going on, try this. There is a program put out by Microsoft called Process Monitor. Go there and download the program and run it. It literally shows every process that your computer runs, so within seconds, the list will be populated with millions, figuratively, of entries. Needless to say, this can be a bit of a process. Run the program/game that keeps minimizing until it minimizes again. After it minimizing, click the button on Process Monitor to stop monitoring the processes so you don't get overrun with new processes. Then look at where your game or application stopped running and look at the processes immediately after that. It is more than likely that one of those first three or four programs to run thereafter will be your culprit. Things likes videocard suites or messenger programs are likely suspects. Try uninstalling and reinstalling stuff to see if it helps.
It can be a long boring process but go thru it until you hit the magic bullet. Then maybe you won't have to bang your head anymore. I have also heard of the malwarebites causing this to happen when it starts a scheduled scan. So if you try that method make sure you turn scheduled scans off during game play.

 

[suteck]

I think you're working it too hard. There is a process name - first column - that tells you the name of the process, like winword.exe for microsoft word. Should be something simple like that. You'll have to scroll down to the bottom and see what's there.
Or we could try something like THIS PROGRAM CALLED GAME BOOSTER. It might turn off that/those annoying programs for you.

@ Rosebud - You wanted to add something??? I don't think it worked, or I can't see it for some reason.