9800 Pro and Aquamark 3 (huge performance hit)

[Fitz]

I benchmarked my system using Aquamark 3, and found that performance had
degraded over 50% from when I originally built the system. Original score of
44000+ was down to 21000, same configuration. I installed the newest Omega
ATI drivers, and improved to 32000. The CPU score is down from 9900+ to
just over 4000.

Changes since first benchmark:
Installed DirectX 9c, Installed SP2, Upgraded to Norton AV 2005 from 2003.

System:
Gigabyte K8NNXP w/AMD64 3200+
1 GB Mushkin Level 1 PC3500
2X36GB SATA Raptor (RAID 0) and 1 IBM Deskstar ATA HD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
Plextor 708A CD/DVD RW
Crystal Fontz 634 LCD
7-in-1 card Reader

WinXP w/SP2

Any idea what may be causing the problem, or what to try to resolve it?

Thanks,
Fitz

 

[fish]

I just scored a 48,620 with a 9800Pro, P4 at 3.3GHz, 512MB at 200Mhz cl2,
WinXP, DX 9c, Cat 4.9 drivers. So I would imagine something is eating up
performance. Something running in the background - spyware or a utility of
some type?

 

[Fitz]

That was my initial thought. I've run a virus scan, AdAware SE, Window
Washers, and Diskeeper. Are you running SP2?

Fitz

 

[Chip]

That was my initial thought. I've run a virus scan, AdAware SE, Window
Washers, and Diskeeper. Are you running SP2?

Fitz

I know its a stupid question, but have you checked your bios settings
rececntly. The other day I thought my PC seemed a bit sluggish and for some
reason I decided to check things with cpu-z. To my amazement, it was
running 1100MHz (11x100) instead of the normal 11x218 settings I have for
day to day use.

I went into the bios and sure enough it was set to 11x100. How and why this
got changed, I have no idea ???!?!?!

Just a thought

Chip

 

[fish]

Yes, SP2.

Are you sure, AA or AF arn't on. Or howabout v-Sync

 

[First of One]

You did completely disable the virus scanner (including any and all
background file I/O scanners), right? Norton AV is notorious for gobbling up
resources.

 

[@ndrew]

Yes, SP2.

No ... I am betting Norton try disabling it and run the tests again.

regards

@ndrew

 

[@ndrew]

You did completely disable the virus scanner (including any and all
background file I/O scanners), right? Norton AV is notorious for
gobbling up resources.

Agree entirely they should be horsewhipped for the way their programs
work. The only decent program of Norton's that I will use is Ghost.

regards

@ndrew

 

[fish]

I have been using Symantec's AV Corp edition for a few years.
I have run bench testes from Sandra for memory and CPU, 3D Marks with and
without it and there is never any differences in performance, ever. I don't
think that Symantec's AV is the culprit. I would agree that Norton System
works and all the other useless utilities could be.

 

[Fitz]

After much discussion about which program(s) could be using up resources,
and the possibility of a virus/worm, I decided to eliminate those potential
problems. I did the following:

Flashed BIOS
Deleted RAID array and reformatted both SATA HD and one ATA HD (low-level
format using BIOS utility on SATA drives)
Re-created RAID array
Clean install of Windows XP (slipstreamed with XP2)
Installed chipset drivers
Installed ATI Omega drivers
Installed Aquamark 3
Ran benchmark- SAME RESULT. Absoluely no difference at all.

Are we down to hardware?

Fitz

 

[Cappy]

Programs that I run all the time that greatly effect benchmarks is Mother
Board Monitor (MBM), Winfast TV, the program for my PCI TV card, Icon
Monitor (A tool for my 6-in-1 reader and Crystal Control for my LCD display.
You would be surprised how much these little programs steal from your
performance.

 

[Fitz]

Found it! It was the chipset drivers. I was using the latest from the NVidia
website. I uninstalled them and used the drivers from the motherboard
(Gigabyte) website and performance improve drastically. Overall score 45000+
with CPU up over 9000 again.

Thanks for the input...
Fitz