Bad CPU?

[Susejchristo]

So, i have a core i7 930. For the 2 and a half years i have had it, it has always worked fine and it provides great performance, but i can't help but think something is up. Games are never very smooth, audio cuts in and out, microstuttering in many games, i am not able to overclock it past 3.2 gHz or system will not boot, crossfire performance is negative in every game i play no matter what, and in windows, the screen periodically will hiccup when just loading folders and such. I think it has gradually been getting worse though. Surprisingly, temperatures are a lot lower than other i7s though, so it's sort of got me stumped. Idles around 28-35 depending on the day. Anyone have any ideas? Could it be something else? I'm not a computer genius, but i know my way around every component, as I've built my own system and it just feels like the processor is slowly degrading.

All help is appreciated!

Thanks.

 

[Pinhedd]

Overclocking isn't free. Even if it does run stably it will drastically lower the lifespan of your processor. Now, degradation will manifest itself in the form of instability and not in the form of degraded performance. You'll see BSODs and application crashes, not unsmooth gameplay. If you haven't reinstalled your OS recently you should probably do that. Amongst other things, AMD's drivers are known to clash internally if they're installed on top of each other.

 

[o1die]

I would do a fresh install of windows 7 and try disabling the update feature (don't install all the updates; I use microsoft's security essentials, which I do install all the updates). You may also try an ssd if you don't already have one. My agility 3 ocz was only $54 after rebate.

 

[blueboyrio]

I don't think you can blame your cpu only, your memory could be busy with something else, another program running on the back and your profile could be so big that is causing you the problem. Start by checking your profile and remove any big folders from you desktop and creat short cuts.

 

[HEXiT]

if you cant get the cpu to at least 3.6 on stock volts then yes you have an issue. the chances are you have damaged the mmu, if you left the memory on auto while over clocking... this may have cause your ram to be over volted past 1.66v which will damage the mmu (memory management unit), end result is unstable cpu, but there would also be other symtoms. random bsods and corrupt hdd. as the cpu would start writing bad data to the hdd regularly. go into bios and load optomised defaults. then set all the things that need to like the gfx priority, hpet and boot order. save and quit. then let windows load and download the following.
cpu-z
hw-monitor
prime-95
furmark
memtest 86
gpu-z
Hyper PI 0.99b (superpi for multithreaded cpu's)
load up all the monitoring apps. cpu-xz/gpu-z/hwmonitor and run the stress tests...
run hyper pi first on 32m this will stress test the memory.
then furmark to stress the system and particularly the gfx.
when you run this check gpu-z making sure you check the voltage or the vrms not just the temps.
then prime 95 do a blend test first.4-5 runs at first to check temps and get an idea of system stability.
1s dont make a boot dvd and run memtest86 via dos.
if you get errors in any test. the app your using will likely tell you what part is unstable.

 

[Susejchristo]

Thank you all. I recently did a fresh re install of windows around christmas time, as that was when i received my second 6950. Performance was okay before the install, and still the same, if not a little worse now. As for the ram issue, this could be. I used to have an issue where the computer would restart itself when trying to boot over and over again until i took out all the ram, and reseated them in a different configuration. But, this has thankfully stopped over the course of about a month or two. Should i try some new RAM? I have plenty. Currently running 24GB of Gskill ripjaws at 1600mHz. Processor is at stock clocks right now, as well as all the BIOS settings, minus the Ram set at XMP profile 1 and the timings adjusted to what theyre rated for.

 

[Susejchristo]

I don't think you can blame your cpu only, your memory could be busy with something else, another program running on the back and your profile could be so big that is causing you the problem. Start by checking your profile and remove any big folders from you desktop and creat short cuts.

I dont keep any desktop icons or shortcuts. And i don't have any particularly large files, other than games in the steamapps folder. i have 46-50 tasks running in the background, which is pretty normal, and i have gone into windows and configured the startup programs.

 

[Susejchristo]

Overclocking isn't free. Even if it does run stably it will drastically lower the lifespan of your processor. Now, degradation will manifest itself in the form of instability and not in the form of degraded performance. You'll see BSODs and application crashes, not unsmooth gameplay. If you haven't reinstalled your OS recently you should probably do that. Amongst other things, AMD's drivers are known to clash internally if they're installed on top of each other.

recently reinstalled OS, as in 4-5 months ago. I've only had one BSOD for the entire span of owning my computer. Which i guess is a good thing, indicating the processor is not the problem? I have had it at a little over 4 gHz before, but only for a week or two, as there was absolutely no performance increase, if anything it was a decrease. I am a novice overclocker, but stuck to many guides and took my precautions. Used monitoring programs and did all my stress tests, and never had any fails at 4 gHz. As for the drivers, i am completely aware. It's almost impossible to find a decent AMD driver now, i do a pretty clean install every time, uninstalling the old one, reboot, safe mode, atiman uninstall, reboot, install the new. I dunno what i could be.

 

[Susejchristo]

if you cant get the cpu to at least 3.6 on stock volts then yes you have an issue. the chances are you have damaged the mmu, if you left the memory on auto while over clocking... this may have cause your ram to be over volted past 1.66v which will damage the mmu (memory management unit), end result is unstable cpu, but there would also be other symtoms. random bsods and corrupt hdd. as the cpu would start writing bad data to the hdd regularly. go into bios and load optomised defaults. then set all the things that need to like the gfx priority, hpet and boot order. save and quit. then let windows load and download the following.
cpu-z
hw-monitor
prime-95
furmark
memtest 86
gpu-z
Hyper PI 0.99b (superpi for multithreaded cpu's)
load up all the monitoring apps. cpu-xz/gpu-z/hwmonitor and run the stress tests...
run hyper pi first on 32m this will stress test the memory.
then furmark to stress the system and particularly the gfx.
when you run this check gpu-z making sure you check the voltage or the vrms not just the temps.
then prime 95 do a blend test first.4-5 runs at first to check temps and get an idea of system stability.
1s dont make a boot dvd and run memtest86 via dos.
if you get errors in any test. the app your using will likely tell you what part is unstable.

Thank you HEXiT, I'll give those tests a go. I never understood how memtest86 worked. And i'm beginning to think i should, as the RAM might be the culprit. If i am unable to get past 3.0 gHz on stock clocks, could that be due to the RAM? When i overclocked, i made sure VDIMM was at 1.5 and stayed there. and then i changed the ratio down to 2:8 or something like that because i didnt want to deal with overlcocking it yet.

 

[Susejchristo]

well just ran a benchmark, crysis 2 dx11 high res texture pack running at 70-100FPS. Crossfire apparently working today. Battlefield crossfire as well as skyrim and any other game i play does not work though. hmmm confusing. CPU temps are fine when playing, will update if more problems persist. ill get on those stress tests.
EDIT: Running games at 1920 x 1080, get 160-200 fps in Deus Ex:HR. hmm this is weird. is that normal? low, or high?

 

[Pinhedd]

Install the latest Catalyst 12.7 beta. All AMD drivers from 12.4-12.6 have massive crossfire problems, especially in the 7000 series (I only have one 6970 so I can't compare it)

 

[Susejchristo]

Install the latest Catalyst 12.7 beta. All AMD drivers from 12.4-12.6 have massive crossfire problems, especially in the 7000 series (I only have one 6970 so I can't compare it)

Funny you mention that, as soon as you posted i was reading up about how 12.4 final is a complete piece of ***. Haha will be doing a driver update in a little here, hopefully we'll get some crossfire performance gain!

 

[Pinhedd]

Yup. 12.7 fixed some of the scaling issues in 3DMark 11 but not all. It also fixed scaling issues in The Witcher 2 and a bunch of other titles as well.

 

[Susejchristo]

Great to hear. Just got them installed. Had some trouble in the process though.. Failed to install microsoft redis. 2010? i just uninstalled redist. 2010 then uninstall ccc again then reinstalled and it worked like a charm. Checking performance in a little bit.