PC Performance Issues

[coldfront212]

Hey everyone-

You guys may remember this complaint from me before, sorry for the repeat post.

I just recently (last month) built my first pc. It was a little shaky at first and i didnt get some of the drivers on right. I posted here about problems and i was advised to intall the northbridge drivers (doh, i forgot about them...lol). Well, I did that, and performance improved, but then it slumped again.

Sooo, I reformatted my computer and cleared the CMOS and started all over again, this time doing everything right (i think). Unfortunately, I dont have any friends who know more about computers than me so no one can take a look and see if i missed something obvious. So lets see if i can give a good description of my problem...

My hardware is as follows:
ASUS P5VDC-MX Mobo
Intel D 930 (3 Ghz Dual core)
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 SDRAM (I know, no one has heard of them, but they look cool and were 150 for the 2 sticks on newegg)
ASUS Nvidia 6800 512MB AGP GFX (ok, b4 anyone says anything, yes i was stupid for getting this card. If i could return the whole build and redo, i would, but no such luck :P. The AGP and the 512 MB were both dumb ideas on my part )
Rosewill 500W PSU

So, even with all my issues mentioned above, my computer should perform respectably well at things such as Empire Earth, Quake 4, FEAR, Warcraft 3, NFS Most Wanted, and Civ 4. In addition, I should have no issues running everyday things right?...wrong.

My computer boots great, and will initally run well. However, I get software crashes and high cpu usage on simple programs (Windows media, VLC media, AIM, Google Talk, MS Word, etc). The lodas in some cases go up to over 50% which makes absolutely no sense (who ever heard of Windows Media needing 6.0 Ghz of juice??). So to put it bluntely, my sytem lags.

To fix this, I ran spybot, adaware and virus scans. I installed thermometers and extra fans. My sistem hardly ever tops 40 C, even when under load. (i have had cooling issues in the past, so i have an Atrix mesh sided case with 6 fans...lol). I replace the thermal paste with artic silver and put in a 3rd part heatsink. I checked cables and jumpers and updated all my drivers.

My roomate at college had a equivalent system (i have .4 Ghz more and a different gfx, he had a 6800 with 256MB) and he is off tearing up oblivion while im trying to run Windows media without a crash :/.

I apologize for the long post, but i think i either have some hardware that isnt performing or some other problem i dont even know about. Any advice that u guys can give would be greatly appreciatted. Thanks in advance!

-coldfront

[Grater]

I would run memtest86 to rule out the memory as a problem or to see if it is the culprit. A sluggish system with application crashes sounds like bad memory to me.

[mystvearn]

you can try memtest. I suggest you reboot and go to the BIOS and find what is the mb allocated for the graphics. I think its called AGP apperture size. Correct me if I'm wrong

[Delrone]

i personally love G-Skill memory every system i have built they were always compatible with no problems.

does the PSU satisfiy all the Currents, on each rail voltages for all the loads (vid card CPU memory etc.)

[glc]

This may be a Via chipset with an Intel processor issue. You have to find the right combination of drivers - you need Via chipset drivers and Nvidia video drivers that won't fight with each other.

[coldfront212]

Thanks for the quik replies!

Ok, let me see. I ran memtest and everything came back good, so i dont think its the mem. The PSU is supplying the correct power pased on Mobo readings and using my trusty tester.

As far as the video mb, i have it set to 512, since that is what the card is, but idk if thats in fact correct... if u could assist me with that, that would be great.

I have heard of the via/ intel issues, but i dont know exactly what to do about it. I am currently using the drivers that came with the hardware, but i do have the latest drivers as well.

On a side note, i downloaded the current drivers ASUS lists on their site for the GFX card and when i unzip and try to install, they say ASUS Video Device not found. Not sure what that means either.

Thanks for your help.

-coldfront

[glc]

No, set the AGP aperture to 128mb.

Get your video drivers from Nvidia, not Asus. Get your chipset drivers from Via, not Asus.

[mystvearn]

I thought it should be set to 16 mb? The bigger the card mb, the smaller the AGP mb aperture. I have mine set on 16mb, and I am using 256mb card

[glc]

Rule of thumb is 128mb or 1/2 the installed system ram, whichever is less. Set yours where you want, but that's the old rule.

[coldfront212]

Sorry for taking so long to post back, its been a busy week.

The aperture fix worked great, it helped my performance a lot. I was looking throught my bios config to see if i had screwed up any other settings. Can anyone give me advice for setting my memory timings manually so they are optimized? Or, should i leave them all at auto... i dunno. Everything is doing pretty good, but there still seems a little room for improvement, is there some CPU stuff that I can set? (My mobo is all with jumperfree config, so everything is done through the bios)

Thanks everyone!

-coldfront

[glc]

Tweak it if you want, but the difference between auto ram timings and tweaked timings will barely be noticeable.