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PC Crawling For a Second or 2!


Jan Gaarni

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Okay, I'm getting sick and tired of being shot in games because my computer randomly slows down to a crawl.

 

Symptoms are as follows:

- Grafix freezes up.

- Sound crackles kinda, but not noise crackling, but the sound you hear at that moment. It could be in-game sound, or just plain music or video while not in-game.

- I die for the umpteenth time!!!! Okay, not really a symptom.

 

My system and accessories:

Mainboard: MSI 890FXA-GD70, Socket-AM3 (BIOS default)

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition

RAM: 2 x Kingston ValueR. DDR3 1333MHz 4GB, CL9

GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 (software and drivers updated)

Soundcard: Creative X-FI TITANIUM FATAL1TY champ (software and drivers updated)

Headset: Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G930 (software and drivers updated)

OS: WIN 7 Home Premium 64-bit (fully updated)

 

Now, this problem never occured before I switched from my old nVidia GPU to this Radeon one. I switched it out about 6-7 months ago, but the problems didn't manifest themself until a couple of months ago (tops). But, I thought I'd give it a go and switch back to the old one (Gainward GeForce GTX 275 896MB PhysX) just to check. De-installed everything Radeon, and installed the newest nVidia drivers and software.

 

No go, still the same problem.

 

Okay, so I started to think maybe there was a problem with the headset I had bought 5 months ago, so I tried de-installing that. Still the problem occured.

 

Tried watching the list of processes running to see if I could spot something that was hogging the CPU. Had problems with Search & Destroy's Tea-Timer feature way back in the days on the old computer which resembled this problem, but alas I can't see anything out of the ordinary.

 

So I'm kinda at a loss here what could be causing this.

And short of installing Win 7 all over again, is there any tips you guys can give on this subject?

 

If you require a soundfile example of what it sounds like then I'm sure I can provide.

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Nice hardware. :thmbup1:

 

I think that I might know what's causing this. When you switched video cards for the first time, did you use any kind of cleanup utility after you uninstalled the Nvidia drivers and before you installed the AMD/ATI drivers? If not, you're going to have to do this, because the drivers from both brands leave behind garbage files and registry keys that can seriously bork the installation of the other brand's drivers and cause the hardware interrupts that you're experiencing, along with BSODs and other nasty stuff. Here's what you need to do:

 

1) Download and install Driver Sweeper and CCleaner. If the installation packages contain adware, be careful not to install it as well.

 

2) Go to Start>Control Panel>Programs>Uninstall a program and uninstall whichever drivers that you're using right now, along with all of the other stuff that has anything to do with them, then reboot.

 

3) Boot into Safe Mode (tap F8 at POST screen when the computer first powers up), login as an administrator and run Driver Sweeper. Clean for BOTH Nvidia and AMD/ATI display drivers. When it's done it will prompt you to reboot, but shutdown instead and install whichever video card you're going to be using (I assume that it's the 6950). Then power up and boot into Normal Mode.

 

4) Run CCleaner's registry cleaner. It will prompt you to back up your registry first, and I would do so, then fix any issues and reboot into Normal Mode again.

 

5) Now you can install the new drivers.

 

If you're still experiencing interrupts after all of that, then I would have to go with nuking it from orbit by reinstalling Windows. Last resort for sure, but we both know that will work if nothing else will.

 

 

On a side note: Tea Timer used to seriously kick my old Pentium 4's butt to the point where I had to disable it, but it should present no problem for any modern multi-core CPU like your hexacore.

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I think I've figured out what was causing the trouble.

 

One of the tabs on my Firefox was causing it. Every time it refreshed itself, the disturbances occured. Tried closing it down and so far so good. :)

I've had a small suspesion it was causing it for alittle while.

 

I know Firefox has added a function that lets it use the grafics card to power grafical content on webpages, but that was awhile ago.

 

Still, I will try and do as you said this weekend, and see if it helps.

It still shouldn't be this way. I've had that particular page up for a looooong time and it never caused any problems before.

 

 

Thanks in advance. I will let you know how things go as soon as I've done what you suggested and given it a fair amount of testing time. :)

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  • 2 months later...

Okay, so yeah, re-installed everything on the computer .... still didn't help.

In fact, it may have gotten worse (more frequently).

 

Long reply time, I know. :p

Kinda haven't had the time or will to do anything about this issue. Been lots of stuff to do personally and professionally in my life the past couple of months.

 

Any other ideas to resolve this issue?

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So you reinstalled Windows and it's still doing that? :confused:

 

I could've sworn it was a graphics driver conflict since you switched from Nvidia to AMD. It's a common problem.

 

I have an X-Fi (just the basic Titanium model) and it's never caused so much as a hiccup, but at this point I'd be willing to try anything. :giveup:

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So you reinstalled Windows and it's still doing that? :confused:

Yep.

 

I could've sworn it was a graphics driver conflict since you switched from Nvidia to AMD. It's a common problem.

Yeah, but it didn't take effect until 4-5 months later, so that's odd too.

And switching back to the Nvidia one didn't help much either.

 

I have an X-Fi (just the basic Titanium model) and it's never caused so much as a hiccup, but at this point I'd be willing to try anything. :giveup:

Yeah, I'll see if I can't yank it out this weekend and activate the mainboard sound.

 

Will update as I go (more frequently this time). :p

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Just a guess not more, but depending on what (ATI Radeon 6950 HD card) u own the card itself deliver an own soundship which can be deactivated to use the main onboardchip or soundcard as primary Audiodevice to avoid problems. This problem effects not just SW games. Any time ppl using hdmi cables between PC and Monitor they will never be sure about what they rly use actually.

 

(my english sucks) ;)

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That's a valid suggestion I suppose, but it doesn't explain why the same is happening when I put the old nVidia card back in, which I'm pretty sure doesn't have a soundchip on it (or does it? I can't find anything that says it has: Gainward GTX275), and which didn't display this problem at all for years.

 

No, the problem has to be somewhere else, something that changed a few months ago.

It's either some kind of update that happened, or a defective part somewhere.

 

The last thing I added, hardware-wise, is the G930 headset, and that was still a few months before this problem developed. I've already tried removing that one from the system and the same still happens.

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hey i just found this post from google. I'm having the exact same problem and I have no idea what it could possibly be.

 

i'll provide some info that might help clear up some of your questions or possibilites.

 

-I also use a G930 Headset, and I can't say for sure, but if I remember right this problem started occuring to me when I bought this headset. I first noticed it playing MW3 shortly after it was released.

 

 

Processor Intel® Core i7 CPU 980 @ 3.33GHz, 3334 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)

3x 4 Gigs of RAM corsiar vengeance (12 gigs total)

2x GeForce GTX 560 2 gig video cards

Windows 7 64 bit

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Extreme

 

 

-Everything I can think of is updated (drivers etc)

-I've reinstalled my video cards, tried taking 1 out and it still happened.

-I put in my old video card from my old computer and it still happened.

-I'm currently trying taking out my RAM, took out 2 of 3 sticks so far, I'm about to switch out the 3rd one. I don't think thats the problem.

-I've also reinstalled Windows 7 completely, it didn't work.

 

 

The problem is really start to annoy me. It doesn't make games unplayable, but it's a huge annoyance when you're fighting/shooting someone and the game freezes for 2 seconds.

 

 

I'm going to try to play without a headset for a while. Uninstall it completely and just use my speakers.

 

Once again this problem started on its own for me. I did not touch anything inside my computer before this started to happen. My computer is about 9 months old.

 

 

edit: i forgot, i've also had a couple times when my screen turned purple while browsing the internet (i believe i was on youtube all 3 times) and forced me to restart my computer with the button.

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Go to Start>Control Panel>Hardware and Sound>Power Options>Change plan settings>Change advanced power settings. Under "Hard disk" set "Turn off hard disk after" to "Never", hit "Apply" then "OK", exit Control Panel, and see if your computer still hangs after that.

 

I should've thought of this much, much earlier. :dozey:

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No, didn't help either, and I've tried it for the second time now aswell.

 

Gonna try and disable McAfee, see if that helps.

 

 

EDIT: Hmm, that's both bad and weird .... it helped. :(

So far anyway.

 

But why then don't I experience this on my TVPC???

Same OS on it, same McAfee, but granted, alittle older equipment.

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Okay, I've figured it out: It's Skype. :)

As soon as I shut it down, the problem disappears.

 

So the question becomes, kaelik: Do you have Skype installed and on aswell?

And if so, if you shut it down, will the problems disappear?

 

Scratch that. :(

Back to the same this morning. :rolleyes:

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