Why Does My PC Suck?

[Jotaru]

So...

I built the machine in November with the help of an experienced friend; I hadn't built one before so he took care of helping pick out parts on a budget, setting it all up, installing correct drivers, all that nonsense... and on first boot (and many subsequent boots) it was blazing fast. Namely, I was running Team Fortress 2 on maximum settings at 1680x1050 and getting ~120 FPS at average, never really below 100.

Fast forward to present day, and I'm lucky to stay capped at 60- any lower and it starts to jerk around, something I H A T E with a passion (I'm used to living with computers that are behind the curve, so I built one that was up-to-date)... of course not so much anymore, but I'm talking the same games that used to run pretty quick, are now rather slow. I'm even benchmarking 2-3k slower on 3dmark, etc... So-

Gigabyte P35 board (I haven't flashed the BIOS as that worries me and friend is no longer around, but he had the up-to-date drivers when I set it all up)
Intel Dual Core E6850 (3.0ghz, 2mb L2Cache, I occasionally OC it to 3.4... and notice really no difference)
Nvidia 8800GT - It runs at Core Clock 675, Mem Clock 975, I occasionally OC this to 700/1000, again, to no real avail.
2GB ram - I'm a noob, I've forgotten which type I have, but can look if it helps!
No soundcard, been looking into it, someone suggested maybe sound overhead is a problem?

I have AdAware, I update and run that occasionally, I do the same with SpyBot.. I don't currently have a virusscanner but I occasionally DL one, run it, use it for the trial period (McAfee / Norton stuff) and get rid of it... this was more of a progressive thing so I don't think its a virus, it didnt happen one night.

Um, I'm sure I'm missing some information, but any advices?

[Bartylby]

defrag your computer.

after that, open steam right click tf2 >properties>local files>defragment local cache files

[Jotaru]

Oh, yes, I meant to mention, I defrag regularly. But I haven't done a Steam defrag, I'll try that. Thanks~

[Tormentormike]

I've tried defragging too in general, but FFXI slows down now after a few months after a fresh install. Is there a way to defrag FFXI or something? I used to run all over Whitegate and Dynamis with 29 FPS, now it drops to 15-20. Halp :<

[Bartylby]

it might help a bit with tf2, i couldn't explain why you're benchmarking slower than normal though.

maybe a memory leak somewhere slowing things down? it's a fairly new computer, i doubt much else could be wrong... but i could be off. fucking computers, a thousand solutions to a thousand problems and they all link together somehow to stick it in your ass.

this of course if you're sure you dont have anything software slowing your system down.

[Jotaru]

I'm pretty sure, I've done registry checks, regularly uninstall stuff I don't know / remember what it is or don't use.. bleh...

[Jotaru]

Did that, and ended ALL processes except vital ones.. even killed explorer at some point to test. More or less same results. Not cool :/

[Epical]

I know everyone hates it when people say this, but you might want to try reformatting. Seriously.

[Kurp]

You could try a new user profile. Or, possibly a Windows repair from the install CD. Back your stuff up first.

Reformatting and reinstalling is almost sure-fire as long as it's not a hardware problem, it's just a huge pain in the ass.

[Reality]

sounds like a windows reformat is in order! that'd be my recommendation anyways

also, just an interesting read incase some of you with G92 cards weren't aware of this

http://www.gpureview.com/nvidias-g92...ticle-721.html

[shinoniken]

Gonna agree with the reformatting here. It's amazing how often an old/suffering computer just needs a clean os install.

You didn't mention what OS you run off of. If it's vista, that could be the problem in and of itself, seeing as you only have 2gb of ram, and vista is a known memory rapist.

[mootsfox]

You need to reformat Windows every 6-15 months to keep it fresh. Just backup and do it.

[Fhqwghads]

If you're a hardcore gamer, and the PC in question is for nothing but games, something that might help out as others suggested is reformatting and reinstalling everything.

It's a massive pain in the ass, but one thing that can help alleviate some of this pain for future reinstalls is to get another drive (if you don't have one) with lots of space. After you format the drive with your windows partition on it, and reinstall windows + all other essentials (including games, patches, service packs, etc) is make an image of that partition, and store it on the other drive. Most partition image software will allow you to compress the image to save some space, so I'd do that.

Now, in the future when Windows starts to bog down, all you have to do is a quick format and slap that image back on. Applying an image to a partition takes around an hour, as opposed to reinstalling everything, which can take half a day or more, depending on how many applications/patches/service packs you have to burn through. This is what I do here at work, anyway, for test machines, and it works perfectly. I can have a completely "new" machine in less than an hour (usually about 15 minutes.)

[Shuemue]

Yeah, reformat. You might also want to open her up and dust her at the same time, make sure fans aren't clogged up.

[Olo401]

Are you using a stock Intel cooling fan & heatsink with your E6850? Check how much heat your CPU is putting out (and your GPU as well) and based on that you might want to consider an upgrade. High heat can really kill the performance of your machine.

[mootsfox]

Are you using a stock Intel cooling fan & heatsink with your E6850? Check how much heat your CPU is putting out (and your GPU as well) and based on that you might want to consider an upgrade. High heat can really kill the performance of your machine.

The only thing it's going to affect is if it reaches 140-160F, the CPU will start to throttle performance to cut heat output.

You don't need aftermarket cooling for stock speeds.

[Olo401]

I mentioned it because he said he did some minor overclocking..

[Jotaru]

Temperature runs alright, and its clean, I open it up weekly or so because I had an older PC that would always throttle itself... not a big fan of spending big money just to have it throttle itself.

I'll probably pick up a 2nd hard drive soon and do the partioning thing, people keep recommending it and I just haven't bothered. It sounds great though; the ability to reformat without having to back everything up. That's really the only thing holding me back at the moment; I have no good idea to back up everything I really would want to.

Thanks for all the info btw, I'll try this stuff out and see how it goes.

Edit: Even OC'd, under full load, it hits maybe 50' C. Normally it idles around 35-40, gets up to 45 or so at highest, without OC