You helped me choose the build, now troubleshoot it ;)

**Pnutmaster** · July 25, 2007, 10:14 AM

I'll start from the beginning.

Many moons ago, in early June of 2007, I built a new computer. For a time it ran splendidly, godly, in fact. A performance test in Company of Heroes, with all settings maxed (save for shadows, at medium), gave me the highest result rating, falling somewhere between 120 fps at max, 60 on average and 30 at minimum.

Then one week later one of my sisters picked up a virus from AIM and/or youtube, and every computer on our local network was compromised. To fully eradicate the virus, every infected harddrive was reformatted.

When my computer was reformatted and Windows XP Professional reinstalled, I began noticing some strange things. Large M2TW battles were noticeably slower than before (there was slight choppiness where, before the reformat, I could not detect a single hint of it with all settings maxed save for anti-aliasing).

I double checked my drivers, perused a couple of forums, and tested my computer with the Company of Heroes benchmark. This time, using the same settings, I saw a 60 fps at max, 50 on average, and 2 at minimum. Thinking perhaps this might be the fault of anti-aliasing, I toned that down from 16X to 4X, and found that my results remained the same, albeit 1 fps higher at minimum.

Since I discovered this issue, I have reformatted my harddrive three times, tested the computer with a higher watt PSU (a friend's OCZ 700W to compare with my 650W Coolermaster), tested a RMA Evga GTS 8800 (which I just finished returning. The whole process only cost me 8 dollars thankfully), and most recently, replaced the motherboard.

Here are for my specs:

Operating System: Windows XP Professional
Motherboard: Gigabyte 965P-DS3 Rev.3.3
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (overclocked to a conservative 2.25 GHz, and yes, I did troubleshoot by sending it back down to 1.8)
RAM: 2 Gigs of Corsair DDR2667
Graphics Card: Evga GTS 8800 640 MB
PSU: Coolermaster EXtreme Power Duo 650W

So, what the hell should I do

?

**Freddie** · July 25, 2007, 10:39 AM

Are you sure the games are patched to the same versions they were before you reformatted? Are you sure your using the same settings?

I ask because I know one the patches for CoH massively improved performance and shortened loading times so it’s always worth checking first. I don’t suppose you know what your 3DMark 2005/6 score was before you reformatted was (if you had one)?

I don’t believe it effects performance but Microsoft keep updating DX9c every other month so download the latest version from the Microsoft website.

**Pnutmaster** · July 25, 2007, 10:55 AM

I can honestly say I am running at the same exact settings. Games are patched, drivers are updated.

I know for a fact that Company of Heroes is running with the latest patch. I actually thought the DirectX10 fixes might be the cause of the fps loss, but I doubt it could actually halve my max fps like that.

And, most unfortunately, I did not test my build with 3dsmark05 or 06 before this happened. However, the Company of Heroes tests should be an adequate and accurate indication of what has happened to my performance..

**Freddie** · July 25, 2007, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Pnutmaster

I can honestly say I am running at the same exact settings. Games are patched, drivers are updated.

I know for a fact that Company of Heroes is running with the latest patch. I actually thought the DirectX10 fixes might be the cause of the fps loss, but I doubt it could actually halve my max fps like that.

If you're running XP why do you need DirectX10 fixes?

**Serious Spamurai** · July 25, 2007, 11:11 AM

You tried a new hard-drive?

**Pnutmaster** · July 25, 2007, 12:50 PM

If you're running XP why do you need DirectX10 fixes?

I don't. I just thought the latest Company of Heroes patch, geared towards DirectX10, might have inferred with DirectX9, but, bah, nevermind, I am a n00b

Originally Posted by Serious samurai

You tried a new hard-drive?

No, I haven't, and that has me thinking.

The harddrive I have been reformatting is a SATA 250 GB 16 MB Western Digital. It was also sitting in my room for over a year before I purchased this build. Could the first reformat have screwed with it in some way?

**spartan_phalanx** · July 25, 2007, 01:36 PM

Run a chdsk and defrag it.

My Computer > {Whatever Drive Letter It is} > Right Click > Properties > Tools Tab > Error Checking - Check Now

The default windows defrag version is a start or better is diskeeper (free trial).

**Pnutmaster** · July 25, 2007, 02:13 PM

I'll do that (as for defragging, I use Perfect Disk

)

And I finally ran the 3DMark06 test to the end. My score was 8913...

I was comparing my build with those who had "similar configurations". Either overclocking to 3.0+ GHz really makes a difference in those tests, or their harddrives were the key to their score (12000+)

**Freddie** · July 25, 2007, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by Pnutmaster

I'll do that (as for defragging, I use Perfect Disk

)

And I finally ran the 3DMark06 test to the end. My score was 8913...

I was comparing my build with those who had "similar configurations". Either overclocking to 3.0+ GHz really makes a difference in those tests, or their harddrives were the key to their score (12000+)

The CPU makes a massive difference with 3DMark, I thought overclocking the video card would get the biggest boost (after all '3D' suggest graphics) but it appears the CPU has more effect.

**Aristocrat** · July 25, 2007, 05:34 PM

*racks brain to think of what caused this to his computer 1-2 years ago.

Memory. Check your memory, make sure it is running at the speed recommended by the manufacturer (Eg: 5-5-5-15 or whatever), memory can be really fickle about this.

Chipset drivers, install the newest chipset drivers for your motherboard.

IRQ conflict possibly, in hindsight this may have been the reason I had issues so long ago (and only just realised with my sound card saga).

While we are at it. Update your motherboard BIOS to the latest one available.

If this doesn't work, we then get all the fun of testing actual parts as the culprits.

**Roman Clone** · July 25, 2007, 08:40 PM

Reformatting may damage your hard drive,, after I reformatted I noticed that I experience expected problems much quicker.

**Pnutmaster** · August 02, 2007, 11:36 AM

Used a friend's Seagate to determine if my OS partition/harddrive was at fault. No real difference (other than the relative silence of his Seagate...bastard).

To help in my benchmarking, does anyone know what kind of performance I should be seeing in M2TW, for example? With my specs (listed above) should I be able to run the game on max settings, 1280 x 1024 resolution, 4000 man battle, custom skins installed, with no noticeable choppiness/fps loss?