Big Problem with PhenomII X4 955 in all 3d apps/games

[DonneRR]

Hi

i'm going crazy after 3 days of trying to figure out what's wrong with my system. In every game i play i have stuttering all 1.5-2 seconds, no matter if on high or low details, offline or online. Although the FPS count from FRAPS or the game itself is steady at high 35-60fps.

I formatted twice now, tried win7 with and without sp1 and now win8 release preview. I ran memtest86+ and it showed me that one ram-rig was broken, so i removed it and hoped it was over. But it didnt change anything. I also tried cpu/gpu over and underclocking, tried various HDD diagnosis tools, different drivers for almost every component. Tried it on an external hdd drive, didnt help either. The temps for gpu and cpu are normal... My first guess was disabling cool'n'quiet, but that didnt help either.

Specs:
Amd PhenomII X4 955 Black Edition @ 3,5ghz
XFX HD6870 Dual Fan 1GB
Asrock m3n78d
4GB
Win8 x64 now

This is it what it looks like, as an example here with battlefield 3 on high and low settings while the fps count is high. On the spikes my system stutters or nearly freezes for a moment, its terribly annoying. Pretty much the same in any other game.

Has anyone an idea?

-----

CpuZ shows me that the clockrate is constantly changing every second, although i turned off cool'n'quiet and have an max-power energy thing (dont remember what its called) in windows configured.
Could that be the problem? it changes randomly, the bus speed and even the multiplier get changed every second, although its mostly above 2,5ghz.

thanks for reading, i hope anyone can help me. and sorry for my english

bye

 

[iam2thecrowe]

possible overheating and its throttling back performance, check your temps with hwmonitor. I have also heard of fan speed issues where the change in fan speed on the video card can cause a stutter. Set your fan speed to a fixed 100% speed on the 6870 and see what happens. Also turn off any power saving features of your cpu, like cool 'n quiet.

 

[correon]

Do you remember to install chipset driver and so on?

 

[whatsthatnoise]

Is this a new system? Did this occur "over night"? Or did you add/change something? Are you running the stock AMD cooler on your CPU?

Check your CPU temps.

And don't waste your time with a different OS, it's a hardware issue (given that you installed chipset drivers every time you switched the OS).

BTW, Cool'n Quiet and Energy saving profiles aren't a bad thing at all. Especially not if you have overheating issues anyway.

 

[DonneRR]

thanks for the answers!

i didnt play any game for a long time, so i didnt realise it (everything seems pretty normal in windows).... i bought/build the whole pc in january.
then i wanted to play bf3 4-5 days ago but i only got 15-20fps, so i flashed a new bios version and reinstalled windows7. fps jumped to 35-60fps but i have those problems now with stuttering, cant really say if there were already there before that.

temps for cpu: 48 idle, 65-66 on max stress with prime95
gpu: 45 idle, 70 or so on stresstest

i will try the tip with 100% fanspeed on gpu, i use speedfan.exe to check the temps and control fanspeeds

installed both packages for the motherboard from here: http://www.asrock.com/mb/NVIDIA/M3N78D/?cat=Download&o=Win764
i guess thats including chipset drivers?

also i tried all catalyst gpu drivers from 11.1 to 12.7 and all bios versions. my psu is a 550w from "be quiet".

i agree its not a software problem, but as it turns out i actually really like windows 8 didnt expect that.

i really dont know what to do.... nothing seems to help, even older games stutter on low settings but with 60fps. maybe something is broken? either cpu or board would be my guess

 

[whatsthatnoise]

Maybe it's some BIOS setting. Have you ever overclocked your CPU?

BTW, 48° idle is quiet high. More than 60° on load isn't very healthy for an AMD CPU, neither. Since you haven't answered my question regarding what CPU heatsink you use, I assume you do use the AMD stock cooler, judging from those temps.

Consider replacing it with an aftermarket cooler, Arctic Cooling have some great low cost one and so does CoolerMaster (212 and it's derivates ... Evo, 212+, whatever).

You can also try to lower your CPU voltage a little bit to something like 1.3V - 1.35V to keep temps lower. This might result in an unstable system, though.

Anyway, I'd start with an aftermarket cooler, to get those temps down and check if that fixes the problem.

 

[DonneRR]

i tried every bios setting (defaults) and every versioin, but yes i overclocked for a few hours but not much. its stock 3,2ghz right now

my cpu heatsink is "Scythe SCKTN-3000 Katana 3 CPU Kühler", not the stock cooler

didnt know that over 60c is bad for the cpu, i thought it was over 70. have to add that it is very hot in my room these days.

i lowered the cpu voltage to 1.36v, runs stable but the same problems.

due to hot weather i have a big fan in my room, i will place it next to the open pc and see what happens...

thx again!

 

[DonneRR]

oh gosh, everything works fine now you were right, it was overheating. the second it hits 58/59c, the cpu goes crazy and games/videostreams stutter like hell.

the scythe katana was crap, found an older arctic cooling cpu fan/heatsink, temps for cpu are now 33 idle and 45 on prime95 test

thank you all very much guys <3