Author Topic: Halp with my computer?  (Read 2702 times)

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Offline Sintheros

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Halp with my computer?
« on: September 11, 2011, 05:26:44 PM »
So recently, whenever doing anything remotely graphically intensive (which means anything from WoW to Minecraft, heh), every ~25 minutes or so my framerate will drop to about 2 FPS for about 3 minutes and then resume working properly. I can only imagine it's something with my graphics card, or maybe its an overheating thing, but I really haven't a clue as to how to work it out. Anyone?
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Offline ReaperKK

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2011, 05:35:52 PM »
Have you updated drivers recently?

What's your computer specs?

Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2011, 05:41:59 PM »
My drivers are up to date.

What specs would you want? It's an overpriced Alienware laptop (M17) with 4 gigs of RAM. The graphics card is an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2, only because they wouldn't offer me an Nvidia one. Anything else?
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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2011, 09:26:07 PM »
Sounds like something running in the background.  Antivirus.  Malware.  Outlook.  Something trying to update itself. 

I don't recall ever seeing a slowdown because of an overheating graphics card.  Plenty of crashes.  Occasion artifacting.  No crashes. 
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Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2011, 02:09:10 AM »
My CPU usage (on the Performance tab of the Task Manager) spikes to 100% and hangs there for the duration of the slowdown (about three minutes), if that helps at all. I can't see anything out of the ordinary running in Processes though.
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Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2011, 02:12:13 AM »
Sounds like something running in the background.  Antivirus.  Malware.  Outlook.  Something trying to update itself. 

I don't recall ever seeing a slowdown because of an overheating graphics card.  Plenty of crashes.  Occasion artifacting.  No crashes. 

Yeah, I get this kind of crap all the time with my virus scanner.

I can't remember what info the standard task manager has, but I use a program called Process Explorer that replaces it, and it should definitely let you know what is eating up your CPU time.
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Offline Edan the Man

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2011, 06:42:51 AM »
My CPU usage (on the Performance tab of the Task Manager) spikes to 100% and hangs there for the duration of the slowdown (about three minutes), if that helps at all. I can't see anything out of the ordinary running in Processes though.
Did you try keeping an eye on the processes list when it happens? Make sure to arrange it by CPU usage, and see what jumps up to the top when the slowdown occurs.

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2011, 08:50:58 AM »
My CPU usage (on the Performance tab of the Task Manager) spikes to 100% and hangs there for the duration of the slowdown (about three minutes), if that helps at all. I can't see anything out of the ordinary running in Processes though.
Did you try keeping an eye on the processes list when it happens? Make sure to arrange it by CPU usage, and see what jumps up to the top when the slowdown occurs.
Exactly.  Sort by CPU usage and the one that isn't your game or sys. idle process should be the culprit. 
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Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2011, 02:43:55 PM »
There is not a process visibly taking up an extraordinary amount of CPU power.
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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2011, 04:47:32 PM »
It doesn't need to be an extraordinary amount.  How many cores you running, and is hyperthreading in the mix?  If you've got a single Athlon core or something, then anything that commands it's usage could create a bottleneck.  If you've got a modern machine, then it shouldn't matter and I'd start looking elsewhere. 
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Offline Priest of Syrinx

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #10 on: September 12, 2011, 04:51:18 PM »
Sounds like either your CPU or GPU is throttling - cutting back to avoid damage from overheating.  Might need to open the case and clean out any dust.  You are playing WoW, etc with the laptop on a hard surface, right, so the vents are not blocked?
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Offline 3xodus

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #11 on: September 12, 2011, 05:04:35 PM »
There's a lot of things that this could be.. a faulty psu or battery would be my guess. Open it up and obviously clean out any dust you see but ALSO look for bad leaking or buldging capacitors on your mobo. If you get cpuz you can hopefully montor your temps to find out if that is indeed the case. But my money would be on your HDD, battery or psu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague - for further reading

Offline 3xodus

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #12 on: September 12, 2011, 05:15:20 PM »
Also, even faulty RAM could do this. You can see if all of your ram is showing in your system properties just to check and make sure one of your sticks hasn't come unseated. There's too many variables to really make a diagnosis on that kind of a problem. If you have some spare parts you could try plugging them in to see if you can pinpoint the problem. I had a laptop do this once and it turned out to be a faulty hard drive. So you just never know about these kinds of things.

Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #13 on: September 12, 2011, 09:23:02 PM »
Yea, hard surface. Open it up you say? Tis a laptop, I'm not quite sure where to start but I could give it a look...
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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #14 on: September 12, 2011, 11:02:58 PM »
I missed the post where you mentioned it's a laptop.  I've dealt with a few of them that were crippled because of HDD trouble.  Assuming you didn't pop for the SSD, then a stumbling hard drive might well be the culprit.  Back up your important info,  run chkdsk, making sure that it reboots and runs in the pre-windows environment, and in 4-8 hours, I bet you're golden.  Hard drives don't handle the laptop life too well, and eventually pick up quite a few bad sectors.  Trying to access data from a bad sector will hang the thing for quite a while.  Chkdsk with the surface scan will find the bad sectors and mark them unavailable. 
Argument, the presentation of reasonable views, never makes headway against conviction, and conviction takes no part in argument because it knows.
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Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #15 on: September 13, 2011, 12:03:40 AM »
I dont have the SSD. What commands should I put in Chkdsk, if any? /r?
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Offline Bacong

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #16 on: September 13, 2011, 03:59:10 AM »
Please tell me there's a GOOD reason you bought a gaming laptop :(

those things are so expensive and so hard to cool properly

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #17 on: September 13, 2011, 08:41:56 AM »
I dont have the SSD. What commands should I put in Chkdsk, if any? /r?
Do a bit of research, but I believe /r will do it.  Since files are in use, it should prompt for a reboot.  And if that is your issue,  don't be fooled into thinking that it's locked up.  I wasn't kidding about the 4-8 hours part.  I had one hang for 2 hours on one sector before. 

And do back up your stuff.  Though very unlikely,  it isn't unheard of for a disk scan to brick a HDD. 
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Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #18 on: September 14, 2011, 02:49:27 PM »
Well, as of today instead of random frame rate failures I'm now getting random BSODs instead. Whee.
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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #19 on: September 14, 2011, 02:54:20 PM »
What happened between now and then?
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Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #20 on: September 14, 2011, 02:54:33 PM »
Nothing noteworthy.
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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #21 on: September 14, 2011, 02:59:48 PM »
When the frame rates drop, do other applications slow down as well?  Does windows grind to a halt, or is it only the FPS of the game you're playing?
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Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #22 on: September 14, 2011, 03:04:58 PM »
Windows grinds to a halt. It slows everything.
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Offline 3xodus

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #23 on: September 14, 2011, 03:06:31 PM »
Well, as of today instead of random frame rate failures I'm now getting random BSODs instead. Whee.

Yep, deffinitely going with HDD failure. I bet if you replace it you'll be fine.. It should even be covered under warranty

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #24 on: September 14, 2011, 03:09:42 PM »
Yeah,  I'd try chkdsk before replacing it, though.
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Offline 3xodus

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #25 on: September 14, 2011, 03:20:18 PM »
Also if the BSOD is spamming addresses like 00ff22e3 or something like that.. It could be a memory leak in your ram. I'm only a slightly amateurish C++ programmer but basically (from what I understand) if something is trying to access that bad space of memory in your ram it could be causing a run time error. If you have two sticks of ram available you may be able to figure out if that is the problem by plugging one in and testing your system then if it happens try the other. The problem with that is it could also be programs in general that are running on the computer. If a program fails to "deinitialize" that space of memory and something else tries to accesss it, it will also cause a memory leak.

To test that theory, that two programs are fighting over the same address in your memory (or just one program) at the same time, you can try to download a program called killprocess. It will kill processes that you can't kill in task manager. It also comes with a default kill process that only kills processes that aren't necessary to run Windows and it works with Windows 7. Try it out, I managed to kill some Malware my wife downloaded once by using it and then safely removed it. If you don't end up with BSOD after that you will know the problem lies in one of your programs not releasing an address in your ram. Or trying to point to an address that has already been used.

*edit* Also also.. If it says stuff like boot sector or sector or whatever else.. Yeah obviously that's the HDD.. One good thing you could do is write down whatever codes the BSOD gives you and Google the codes to see what they mean. Or paste them here and I'm sure one of us would be able to look at it.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2011, 03:25:24 PM by 3xodus »

Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #26 on: September 14, 2011, 03:26:36 PM »
Attempting to launch my email client BSODs me, swell.
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Offline 3xodus

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #27 on: September 14, 2011, 03:30:42 PM »
It's not a totally bad thing to get the BSOD.. I'm always a little relieved because it points you to where the problem lies. It usually narrows it down to ram and hard drive. Both of which are the least expensive thing to replace in your computer. :)

Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #28 on: September 14, 2011, 03:40:07 PM »
Well with it being BSODs now, I figured I'd go grab BSOD viewer to narrow it. With 7 BSODs in the past two hours, apparently all of the following drivers are culprits...

atikmpag.sys (x4)
atikmdag.sys
dxgkrnl.sys (x3)
bthpan.sys
tcipip.sys
facap.sys
Ntfs.sys
hal.dll
Wdf01000.sys

Time to do a bit of googling or something.
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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #29 on: September 14, 2011, 03:42:44 PM »
Those are all over the place.  A few are graphics related.  A few are Windows system related. 
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Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #30 on: September 14, 2011, 03:44:06 PM »
Two of them occurred more than once though.

Also, the bug check codes are always either 0x00000116 or 0xa0000001.
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Offline 3xodus

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #31 on: September 14, 2011, 03:52:20 PM »
https://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/62903-bsod-bugcheck-0x00000116.html

Seems like video drivers.. You have the same ATIKMDAG.sys file that that guy had. lol the post at the end goes back to heat issues that someone mentioned yesterday. Figures...

Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #32 on: September 14, 2011, 04:09:00 PM »
My drivers are up to date though.
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Offline 3xodus

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #33 on: September 14, 2011, 04:22:01 PM »
https://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/1084140-0xa0000001-bsod-code-caused-atikmdag-sys.html

Both codes point to driver problems. It could just be badly written drivers regardless of updates. Both codes seem to have posts where people are relating it to heat issues on the gfx card or driver errors in general. I wonder if you uninstall the drivers and go with older ones if that would work. ATI may have some tech support on the issue to. What kind of card is it running?

Offline Sintheros

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Re: Halp with my computer?
« Reply #34 on: September 14, 2011, 04:23:48 PM »
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2

I believe the current driver is 8.57.
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