Games run choppy

[Jack_Kevlar]

I just upgraded a few computer parts lately as well as my version of Windows.
I used to have:
Vista Business 32 bit edition
asus A8R-MVP motherboard
AMD Athlon 3700 processor
ATI Radeon 1900 Graphics Card
2 GB DDR RAM

I Upgraded to Vista Business 64 bit edition, an ASUS M2N-VM DVI motherboard,
a AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor 6000+ and 4 GB OCZ DDR2 RAM.
I have the same graphics card but now I'm having all sorts of problems with
my display driver. All games (Hitman Bloodmoney, COD4) run fine for about 5
seconds then start running really, really choppy for about 5 seconds. This
cycle repeats. It only happens while running games, and usually only while
playing, not at menu screens. I can get the driver to work by randomly
re-installing drivers, DirectX 9 or rolling back to old drivers but everytime
I restart my computer the problem comes back. To fix it again I just have to
mess around with my drivers some more - there seems to be no method that
always works, it's totally random. I've done a lot of experimenting and I can
say for certain that it is not my RAM that is causing the problem. I'm fairly
certain it is a software issue but it's not as simple as just updating my
drivers. Please help. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

I just upgraded a few computer parts lately as well as my version of
Windows.
I used to have:
Vista Business 32 bit edition
asus A8R-MVP motherboard
AMD Athlon 3700 processor
ATI Radeon 1900 Graphics Card
2 GB DDR RAM

I Upgraded to Vista Business 64 bit edition, an ASUS M2N-VM DVI
motherboard,
a AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor 6000+ and 4 GB OCZ DDR2 RAM.
I have the same graphics card but now I'm having all sorts of problems
with
my display driver. All games (Hitman Bloodmoney, COD4) run fine for about
5
seconds then start running really, really choppy for about 5 seconds. This
cycle repeats. It only happens while running games, and usually only while
playing, not at menu screens. I can get the driver to work by randomly
re-installing drivers, DirectX 9 or rolling back to old drivers but
everytime
I restart my computer the problem comes back. To fix it again I just have
to
mess around with my drivers some more - there seems to be no method that
always works, it's totally random. I've done a lot of experimenting and I
can
say for certain that it is not my RAM that is causing the problem. I'm
fairly
certain it is a software issue but it's not as simple as just updating my
drivers. Please help. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

My guess..

Your video card is overheating and begins to crash, Vista realizes this,
pauses your card for a moment until it can start running normally again.

At the menus and at the windows desktop your system runs at normal speeds,
not a lot of heat generated. Kick it into a full res 3D game and your video
card starts working, HARD.

Your chipset either isn't getting cooled enough, or it's failing/defective.
Heat does this, moving your card around alot not being properly grounded
might cause problems, or just more wear than the card is used too, who knows
for sure.

Try opening your computer case, pointing a large fan at your video card (not
too close, just enough to get a lot of cool air flowing) and try the game
again. Might help.

If you don't have a fan, try running the game at the lowest settings with
V-Sync on so your system isn't working too hard, it'll suck to play, but see
if it's more playable, or just try an older game that isn't gonna tax your
system too hard.

If that doesn't solve the problem then it's something else I guess. Try
drivers. If you're overclocking, don't. Download a copy of MemTest86 (google
it, it's a bootable CD ISO) and run it for at least 1 full pass, if not 2,
should take 1-2 hours at least. If you get any errors, then it is your ram.

Like I said, something is failing, Vista unlike XP won't blue screen because
of this, but won't exactly tell you what's going on. You can check your
Event Viewer though, look for errors, it might say something like "Video
driver crashed and had to be restarted" (Just type "event viewer" into your
start menu to bring it up and select Windows Logs > System or any other
entry, look for errors)

For those of you reading along, the Vista Reliability and Performance
Monitor has some great tools for troubleshooting hardware problems. Everyone
who's into hardware hacking at all should at least poke around in here,
espically after a crash.

-Andy

 

[Mike M.]

My guess..

Your video card is overheating and begins to crash, Vista realizes this,
pauses your card for a moment until it can start running normally again.

At the menus and at the windows desktop your system runs at normal speeds,
not a lot of heat generated. Kick it into a full res 3D game and your video
card starts working, HARD.

Your chipset either isn't getting cooled enough, or it's failing/defective.
Heat does this, moving your card around alot not being properly grounded
might cause problems, or just more wear than the card is used too, who knows
for sure.

Try opening your computer case, pointing a large fan at your video card (not
too close, just enough to get a lot of cool air flowing) and try the game
again. Might help.

If you don't have a fan, try running the game at the lowest settings with
V-Sync on so your system isn't working too hard, it'll suck to play, but see
if it's more playable, or just try an older game that isn't gonna tax your
system too hard.

If that doesn't solve the problem then it's something else I guess. Try
drivers. If you're overclocking, don't. Download a copy of MemTest86 (google
it, it's a bootable CD ISO) and run it for at least 1 full pass, if not 2,
should take 1-2 hours at least. If you get any errors, then it is your ram.

Like I said, something is failing, Vista unlike XP won't blue screen because
of this, but won't exactly tell you what's going on. You can check your
Event Viewer though, look for errors, it might say something like "Video
driver crashed and had to be restarted" (Just type "event viewer" into your
start menu to bring it up and select Windows Logs > System or any other
entry, look for errors)

For those of you reading along, the Vista Reliability and Performance
Monitor has some great tools for troubleshooting hardware problems. Everyone
who's into hardware hacking at all should at least poke around in here,
espically after a crash.

-Andy
I partially agree with Andy but in the same breath I would look into the automatic updates that you have already scheduled for anything, IE: windows, apple any component that might have an update associated with it. It just sounds like it is a cycle thing.

Good luck-Mike