Sudden troubles while gaming...

[Crios22]

I'm on my father in laws Acer desktop. Its running Windows 7 Home Premium. Its an Intel Core I3, 8 gbs of DDR3 and came with an nvidia geforce gt230 1.5gb. I'm on a wired connection to broad band.

For about 5 weeks now I've played Lord of the Rings Online and for about 2 weeks Fallen Earth with zero problems.

All of a sudden late last night I started experiencing problems while in LotRO. The game got sluggish and starting stuttering about every 7-10 seconds. I'd get a small hiccup and stuff on the screen would fast forward for like 1 second. I also got some random short lived distortion in my audio. My harddrive is wording overtime the entire time I'm playing which worries me.

The problem has persisted all day today as well. Its also doing it in Fallen Earth.

The things I've tried:

-I've run 3 kinds of virus/spyware and found nothing.
-Reset cable modem and router.
-Updated to latest video card drivers.
-Monitored video and cpu temps. Everything was fine.
-Nothing new is running in the background. I've changed nothing.
-Run chkdsk and defrag on the hard drive.
-Tried a restore to a date I wasn't having problems.
-Turned in game settings down the the very lowest and it doesn't affect it at all.

None of it works.

I'm really frustrated right now as nothing is working and the games are unplayable.

Any ideas?

[pam123]

Is it only a problem with games or are is it also giving you problems generally ?
What happens if you try streaming any video ?

[Crios22]

I've gotten some speaker distortion when I was not logged into a game I THINK but its pretty much just while gaming.

[pam123]

Have you tried reinstalling the audio drivers?

[Crios22]

Yeah from the manuftr website. No luck yet.

[pam123]

Do you have a restore point you can use?

Edit : Be sure to do a back up of any important data before we take this any further.

[Crios22]

Originally Posted by pam123 Do you have a restore point you can use? Edit : Be sure to do a back up of any important data before we take this any further.

Yeah. I've actually tried that already twice. Rolled back the updates/drivers and it still persists. Is there something different I could potentially do with a restore other than just the typical rollback?

Thanks for the help btw, at this point I'm pretty much lost. \

I'm worried it might be hardware related because it happened so suddenly and seems unaffected by my in games video/audio settings.

[pam123]

Have you contacted Acer Support ?
We're largely out of software options and that computer should still be under warranty?

[Crios22]

Wow so I downloaded a program called DPC Latency Checker. My latency should be between 500 and 1000 and it says the PC should be fine.

Once I start up LotRO my latency skyrockes up to 16k, yes 16,000. That's pretty much the maximum it records.

I tried disabling some usb ports, my sound card, etc but it didn't affect it at all.

So something the game is using is completely slow as ballz.

I tried the most up to date nvida drivers with no luck. I rolled back to a much earlier version, still, no luck.

I run LotRO in a window so I can see the DPC LC. As soon as I close the LotRO window my latency drops to below 400.

It's definitely something game related, seemingly not video or audio relates since both of those have either been disabled or have had at least 2 sets of driver used while tested.

At his point I'm seriously seriously thinking it may be a harddrive issue.

I guess I should also mention that I get the same huge and constant latency in Warhammer Online as well.

[pam123]

You have a date point.
Something happened just before the latency skyrocketed.
Any Windows updates that would have affected your internet connection ?

[Crios22]

There's been quite a few updates. I've tried rolling back but I can only go back to the 30th of last month for some reason in the restore options. (which if I remember correctly is after the problems started). I don't know why, I've been using the PC since like the 15th of last month.

Something else I noticed, when running lord of the rings online in windowed mode so I can see DPC latency, it only lag spikes when the game is in the foreground. And the game only affects the latency when I'm in a "3d" environment such as character selection or in game. If I click something outside the LotRO window, even though the window and everything in it is still visible, my latency drops down to normal.

Could that be an indicator of anything? I was thinking audio since the video is still displaying the 3d enviroment but the audio cuts out if the game isn't in the foreground. I've tried disabling my audio completely though (at least in device manager) and it doesn't help the lag spike.

[pam123]

Some things to try before we take the problem to Acer to find out if your audio is dieing on you.

You're sure processor usage doesn't spike on you (That seems unlikely since you have more than enough cpu power to see you through those games.)?
Check anyway.

Wait to reinstalled the games until after you've read through their forums to see if anyone else is reporting similar problems ( I don't remember what game engine the two run on but if it's the same one ,rebuilt as needed, it would explain the similar problems..) and if solutions were posted.
Games have their own form of "stealth updates" these days and it's entirely possible that you have tripped some form of DRM without being aware of it.
In that case the games' forums should be full of talk on the problem(s) and possibly solutions.
The DRM can make uninstall/re-install tricky if you haven't checked first and if you don't follow what the game's publisher considers proper procedure.

These are final options :

In Control Panel> Programs and Features there should be the option to view installed updates in the left Window (those should be Windows updates) .
Can you find the last set of updates from just before your Internet went wonky?
The Windows updates are dated you want to check the Windows Knowledge base for updates touching on broadband connections and/or Windows Media player and/or Windows Media Center in addition to anything that may have hit your audio directly.
If you find something relevant then we can uninstall the particular update and/or redo your broadband connection.
That last may require a call to your broadband provider's support line.

If we don't find anything or if none of the above work then it's time to consider getting you a sound card and disabling the on board if Acer doesn't have a better solution when you email their support guys.


edit : We may have overlooked something obvious, have you checked Event Viewer ?

[Crios22]

Originally Posted by pam123 Some things to try before we take the problem to Acer to find out if your audio is dieing on you. You're sure processor usage doesn't spike on you (That seems unlikely since you have more than enough cpu power to see you through those games.)? Check anyway. Wait to reinstalled the games until after you've read through their forums to see if anyone else is reporting similar problems ( I don't remember what game engine the two run on but if it's the same one ,rebuilt as needed, it would explain the similar problems..) and if solutions were posted. Games have their own form of "stealth updates" these days and it's entirely possible that you have tripped some form of DRM without being aware of it. In that case the games' forums should be full of talk on the problem(s) and possibly solutions. The DRM can make uninstall/re-install tricky if you haven't checked first and if you don't follow what the game's publisher considers proper procedure. These are final options : In Control Panel> Programs and Features there should be the option to view installed updates in the left Window (those should be Windows updates) . Can you find the last set of updates from just before your Internet went wonky? The Windows updates are dated you want to check the Windows Knowledge base for updates touching on broadband connections and/or Windows Media player and/or Windows Media Center in addition to anything that may have hit your audio directly. If you find something relevant then we can uninstall the particular update and/or redo your broadband connection. That last may require a call to your broadband provider's support line. If we don't find anything or if none of the above work then it's time to consider getting you a sound card and disabling the on board if Acer doesn't have a better solution when you email their support guys. edit : We may have overlooked something obvious, have you checked Event Viewer ?

How do I check event viewer?

Its definately not the games, I run them fine on a vista machine back home and they were running find for a few weeks. About 4 days ago I had the problem suddenly while in game and it has persisted ever since. Its two different game engines.

It says in programs and features that windows hasn't installed any updates since 6/23 which is a week too early to have caused the problem. I'm not so sure that is accurate but that is what it says.

DPC Latency checker says I'm fine until I start up the video game. After I start up the video game it says my machine has drivers that behave bad and could cause interruptions in streaming audio/video.

I've already disabled my audio device completely and I still get the latency.

[pam123]

Control Panel>Administrative Tools> Event Viewer

You've eliminated the audio as the problem source so now something is messing with your internet connection .

Check Event Viewer after it happens and see if it gives you any information we can use.

[Crios22]

Just an update, I've found the solution. I was having the following problem:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=522&pgno=0

which I found using the software mentioned in that tutorial. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do the tricks from the tutorial because its a factory desktop and thus no access to the BIOS features they adjusted.

However I called tech support for Acer and they had an updated bios that I flashed my PC with and it corrected the problem.

Thanks for your willingness to help pam123, I appreciate it. Luckily I'm back to gaming. :-)

[pam123]

Nice job !