I have a buddy, and he has a pretty beast of a computer. He keeps getting lag spikes that freeze all graphic things on his computer. 1 FPS slideshow mode, for about 10 to 20 seconds. Skype calls don't seem to be affected. The triggers for a lag spike mainly consist of games, however Amazon Instant Video also triggers them as well (Netflix does not). They happen every 5 minutes or less.
The specs are as follows:
AMD FX-8120 3.1GHZ (OC'ed 3.7)
4GBx2 CORSAIR VENGEANCE 1866MHZ DDR3
GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3 AM3+ CROSSFIRE USB3.0 SATA 3
XTREMEGEAR 700 WATT POWER SUPPLY
AMD RADEON 7950 3GB DDR5 PCI-E 3.0
And various fans, which are more than enough to keep it cool. 6 in total I believe as well as a water cooling system for the processor.
We have swapped out all of the RAM for new sticks, he got a whole new graphics card, and we have tried all the various PCI and RAM slots on his motherboard.
We had the thought that it might be the motherboard or the CPU, but we are hoping it is the power supply. Any ideas? Thanks for any help!
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It shouldn't be the power supply unless he has a whole bunch of drives in there (like 20 of them) Even assuming it's an underwatted power supply you're still well over the 550 watt minimum specification.
Cyclic issues affecting the computer every 5 minutes when using the 3D accellerator (which amazon video does and skype does not), I'd be inclined to suspect heat. it could be either the processor or the video card. What kind of water cooling setup did you put in? is it a sealed unit or a kit? Any chance you have an air lock bubble trapped somewhere in the loop? or a thermal greese air pocket? What about the video card fan, is it blocked by a cable by any chance?
6 fans should be enough, but a failed water cooling unit pump could still cause that effect even with all the fans, since the water block acts as an insulator in that event.
Download and run speedfan http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php and check the HDD for errors, and also the base temperatures to see if you are detecting overheat on the board sensors at idle.
I'd also check task manager and event viewer for any wierd activity that coincides with the slowdowns. Possible suspects, media player indexing media content constantly and using up all the ram, the usual viruses, etc.
If there is a heat issue there are a couple things to try. If its not a heat issue, it might be a driver or bios issue. Is this a brand new computer, or one that was working fine and now isn't anymore?
Cyclic issues affecting the computer every 5 minutes when using the 3D accellerator (which amazon video does and skype does not), I'd be inclined to suspect heat. it could be either the processor or the video card. What kind of water cooling setup did you put in? is it a sealed unit or a kit? Any chance you have an air lock bubble trapped somewhere in the loop? or a thermal greese air pocket? What about the video card fan, is it blocked by a cable by any chance?
6 fans should be enough, but a failed water cooling unit pump could still cause that effect even with all the fans, since the water block acts as an insulator in that event.
Download and run speedfan http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php and check the HDD for errors, and also the base temperatures to see if you are detecting overheat on the board sensors at idle.
I'd also check task manager and event viewer for any wierd activity that coincides with the slowdowns. Possible suspects, media player indexing media content constantly and using up all the ram, the usual viruses, etc.
If there is a heat issue there are a couple things to try. If its not a heat issue, it might be a driver or bios issue. Is this a brand new computer, or one that was working fine and now isn't anymore?
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I thought about the thermal grease as well. The computer worked fine, until we swapped cases to a bigger case. The water supply is a sealed unit. We will download that program and check out the heat issue and I'll post back here when we know more.
EDIT/UPDATE: We ran the program while playing BF3. Here are the temps at idle:
Temp 1: 32c
Temp 2: 35c
Temp 3: 35c
HD0: 27
HD1: 40
GPU: 42
He played the game for about 20 minutes and when he got a spike, the temperatures were as follows:
Temp 1: 37
Temp 2: 50
Temp 3: 57 while playing. It dropped to 35 instantly during the spike and jumped up to 55 immediately after the spike.
HD0: 27
HD1: 44
GPU: 58
And computer processes was 97% during the spike, during game play it was hovering at 60%.
I really have no idea how to quantify that information. Thanks for all your help so far and any more you can offer!
Edited, Sep 28th 2013 3:03pm by Internuncio
Edited, Sep 28th 2013 3:04pm by Internuncio
EDIT/UPDATE: We ran the program while playing BF3. Here are the temps at idle:
Temp 1: 32c
Temp 2: 35c
Temp 3: 35c
HD0: 27
HD1: 40
GPU: 42
He played the game for about 20 minutes and when he got a spike, the temperatures were as follows:
Temp 1: 37
Temp 2: 50
Temp 3: 57 while playing. It dropped to 35 instantly during the spike and jumped up to 55 immediately after the spike.
HD0: 27
HD1: 44
GPU: 58
And computer processes was 97% during the spike, during game play it was hovering at 60%.
I really have no idea how to quantify that information. Thanks for all your help so far and any more you can offer!
Edited, Sep 28th 2013 3:03pm by Internuncio
Edited, Sep 28th 2013 3:04pm by Internuncio
CPU throttling due to heat? Not that 57C is that warm for a CPU.
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58 degrees c is about 134 degrees f, which is actually quite low for a video card which means you have good cooling throughout the case. it could be that your sensor is underreporting though. The fact that it's hitting that plateu and then dropping would suggest heat throttle, or some other power management feature kicking in. Is the computer set to "high performance" mode under the power settings? Also, whats your screensaver timeout set to normally? not that it should be trying to load that, but if it's really low, like 5 minutes might be worth looking at.
I'm thinking OS load issue at this point. that or something got damaged during the case swap. Is your 8 pin core voltage power lead to the motherboard only halfway plugged in by any chance?
I'm thinking OS load issue at this point. that or something got damaged during the case swap. Is your 8 pin core voltage power lead to the motherboard only halfway plugged in by any chance?
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It turns out it was a loose power connection. He is still a little tentative about it, but I think it did the trick. He has played at least 6 hours of games that would normally cause him to lag. However, now there is a Directx11 issue it appears. After installing Battlefield 3's expansion packs he gets texture errors, that eventually lead to a crash. The error says something along the lines of the AMD driver has stopped working and successfully recovered. From a bit of research, it appears to be the Armored Kill expansion that causes it, and it is an issue with the drivers conflicting with Directx11. If you don't have any ideas, you have both been a great help, and we send our thanks!
Edit 1:Literally 15 minutes after posting this, we hopped into a GTA4 multiplayer, and it caused a lag spike. Understandably my roommate is upset, so.....back to square one.
Edit 2: Not exactly back to square one. GTA 4 multiplayer seems to be causing the lag spike, but other games are not. He hasn't played much of other games since that lag spike (maybe an hour) because of the frustration factor. The Battlefield 3 thing is separate from the lag spike (presumably).
Edited, Sep 29th 2013 8:14pm by Internuncio
Edited, Sep 29th 2013 9:17pm by Internuncio
Edit 1:Literally 15 minutes after posting this, we hopped into a GTA4 multiplayer, and it caused a lag spike. Understandably my roommate is upset, so.....back to square one.
Edit 2: Not exactly back to square one. GTA 4 multiplayer seems to be causing the lag spike, but other games are not. He hasn't played much of other games since that lag spike (maybe an hour) because of the frustration factor. The Battlefield 3 thing is separate from the lag spike (presumably).
Edited, Sep 29th 2013 8:14pm by Internuncio
Edited, Sep 29th 2013 9:17pm by Internuncio
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