Hi Guys/Girls

I have recently built a new computer & seem to be having some difficulty with it and any help would be greatly appreciated. Ill start by listing my system components and then the problems i seem to be having.

OS: Vista Home Premium
MB: Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6
CPU: Intel E6600 core 2 duo/ Thermaltake Typhoon
RAM: OCZ PC2-8500 DDR2 SLI Ready 2 x 1GB
GPU: BFG 8800GTX OC2
PSU: Atrix Extreme 600W
HDD: Samsung 500GB 7200rpm
Broadband 1500DL/256UPL

For some reason unknown to me this machine does not seem to want to run efficiently. I mainly play BF 2142 and my computer lags out and starts freezing/ not badly but is still quite noticable and also slows desktop down for a minute or so after logging out of games. I have updated all drivers and activated SLI settings in Bios for my Ram to get full potential out of it.

I have run 3DMARK 06 and i got a score of 9107 marks yet of the 120 systems configured the same mine is the slowest with the fastest being very close to 13000 marks (a fair difference). breaking down the scores were as follows

Return to proxycon: 34fps
Firefly forest: 35fps
Red valley 1: 0.517fps
Red vally 2: 0.921fps
the last 2 i cant remember their names but were:
46fps and 45fps

I have done plenty of reading on the net and apparently there is not a great difference in score for xp compared to vista.

So Question time:
1. Is it possibly vista causing this issue (havnt tried to restore back to factory and run xp yet)?
2. dodgy drivers even though they are current ?
3. Maybe some Bios settings that i havnt enabled that i should have enabled ??
4. Bottleneck between CPU and GPU?? If so how do i attempt to correct that issue ??

My knowledge is limited and these are only some of the things i can think of, if anyone can think of any other issues or has some answers as to how to fix my pc i would be forever indebted to you and extremely grateful.
Cheers

Hello Riddler6777
That sounds like a nice system you've got. Are you experiencing these difficulties while playing online? If so, can I ask you to give me some information about where you are and your internet connection.

If you don't wish to do so, my advise would be to do some research yourself. Perhaps ringing your provider and see where you are connected, and what issues may arise from the region you are in? I've known people to experience problems because they are on the 'end of the line'.

Also, have you tried opening the Task Manager (press Ctrl+Alt+Del) to check the performance of your PC while the game is running? Check your memory usage and wether the paging file is hitting its' limit during play and as you are loggin out.

Is there a control panel for your graphics card? If there is, what are the current settings? If there isn't you might want to take a look on the Nvidia site and see what useful downloads they have for use with your graphics card. A useful control panel can let you see a change a lot of the settings for your card. But as always be careful what you are doing!

I think the graphics card you've purchased was designed to resolve any issues with the CPU, although it's still a possibility.

You can check your bios settings to see what rate the graphics card is set at.

Finally can I just ask what the other '120 systems configured' are i.e. is it a network you are on? Like you I'm trying to elimate everything else, and I'm wondering what you are comparing your system to.

Regards

Martin

Hey Martin,

I live in wagga wagga, NSW, Australia and my broadband connection is adsl 1500dl/256upload it does happen while online although it slows my pc down for a minute or so after i stop playing also. i havent tried opening the task manager while i play ill give it a go and see what happens.

as for the120 systems it compares me against, i believe some of them systems may be on xp but their hardware i think is exactly the same, i tried overclocking my FSB & CPU multiplier just to see what score i had and it then compared me to about 220 PC's with a score of 15000marks (mine recieved 10700 whilst overclocked as apposed to the 9100 previously).

Hope this helps a bit more,
cheers

Hello Riddler6777,

I've had a little look around and found somebody that had a similar problem, which was resolved by 'lowering' their graphics card settings.

Have a go and let me know how you get on, perhaps your graphics card is too good?!

Cheers,

Ill give that a go and post back soon thanks

Doh,

No luck with dropping the video card settings i tried to no avail, It really has me stumped.

The only thing i could find that i didnt know is there is a post on anandtech under motherboards and there is a new version for bios F4E which is supposedly fixing memory performance issues but the problem i have there is i have no idea how to use it, i downloaded it and couldnt work out how to use it. Im running version 1.06.65 (I think). could this perhaps be the cause ?

Hello, If there is a known memory performance issue then this could well be the problem.

Check your motherboard manufacturers' website for instructions on flashing your bios.

Alternatively try this tutorial: PC Technology Guide: Tutorials/Upgrades/How to Update Your System BIOS
but be sure to read it all very carefully!

Don't be put off by the earlier sections describing the removal of your bios chip.

Regards

Martin

Ok i have flashed the bios and i am now running bios F4f (thanks Martin for the help) it didnt make a difference but not too worry im going to try formatting back to XP Pro ill see how that goes and keep you posted

Thanks Riddler, yes please let me know how it goes. As vista is new and very different to XP, and there are already issues arising with the new OS, it would be very useful to everybody to see if there is a difference while playing on vista.

Regards

Martin

Hey Martin,

It did make some difference especially to the gaming side of things so far at least, however as for the 3dmark06 scores it went from 9100ish to 9656 (better but not quite the 12000 or so that others with my configuration are getting) hmmm any ideas with that one