50% framerate drop after reinstalling GPU

[boomer2point0]

Hi folks

I just bought a new case (CM ACTS 840) today and took my old rig apart to stuff it all in there nicely. Everything booted up fine and dandy. However when i fired up some games (WoW, Eq2) i noticed a 50% framerate hit in both.

I'm running a E8400 stock, 4870 512MB, MSI p-45 Platinum, 8GB of ram.

Ive been running both the above mentioned games at 1900 x 1080 for a while now and I typically see 40 -50 fps in EQ2 at high quality and 60fps in WoW on ultra settings.

Clearly something got buggered up in the transition to the new case, but I don't even know where to look. Mainly on account that by all other indicators (device manager, catalyst control centre) everything is working fine. I've even updated to the newest version of catalyst.

Suggestions?

 

[macelo]

Did you reconnect the power cable to the video card? That's just my first thought.

 

[boomer2point0]

Sure did. Card has 2 6 pin connectors. Further as the board has no onboard graphics i dont think I would even get the fps im getting in these games if it wasnt turned on.

 

[skolpo]

The only thing I can think of is not enough power is going to the card. Reseating your card, repositioning your cables, or anything else that does with giving power to the card might have to be checked.

 

[boomer2point0]

I'm going to check this again. I'm curious as to why power would be suspect. If the card is running does that not mean it has enough power? To put it another way, can it run on partial power?

 

[skolpo]

Yes, it can run on partial power. If only one 6-pin connector is correctly connected, the GPU will work, but it will run significantly slower (more than 50% slower in most cases).

 

[macelo]

It's possible it to run partial power. Many cards will power down instead of shutting down the system if it doesn't get enough power.

 

[boomer2point0]

I just reset the card and checked the 6pin connectors. Nothing.

Even tried changing PCIE slots (both are supposed to be x16) still getting subpar performance.

Im using a Ultra 750 watt power supply so I can't believe that one card doesnt have enough juice.

 

[macelo]

Crp. It's not a power issue....

Were you overclocked before? Maybe you lost your overclock settings when you migrated over. I don't know what else it could be...

 

[boomer2point0]

I'm not overclocked because i'm a relative newbie to this hardware game and haven't mustered up the courage.

New revelation though. I just ran cpu-z and in the mainboard tab it says my link width is x8 (max supported x 16). Could this mean there is something wrong in my bios?

 

[skolpo]

Even if he was overclocked, a 50% drop in FPS should rule out an OC reset in the BIOS (assuming he's not over-exaggerating the frame drop) being an issue. If it's not power, I don't really know what else. Are the temps the same as before?

 

[boomer2point0]

temps are the same. I dont know how else to measure/address the power issue

 

[macelo]

I'm not overclocked because i'm a relative newbie to this hardware game and haven't mustered up the courage.

New revelation though. I just ran cpu-z and in the mainboard tab it says my link width is x8 (max supported x 16). Could this mean there is something wrong in my bios?

There we go, I was thinking your PCI rate dropped too. Go to your BIOS and look for a setting to increase it to x16. That should fix your problem. I dunno how to do that in your BIOS though.

 

[boomer2point0]

Thanks pyscho

Im going to try and figure out how to change the link width to x16 first. First glance at the bios and I don't see anything.

 

[Shadow703793]

^ Make sure you have the card in the correct socket. Your board seems to have 2x PCIe slots.
Assuming this is your board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130179

 

[boomer2point0]

Problem solved. It does appear that the issue was caused by something in the bios (I might have reset the cmos while fumbling the mobo around). I loaded up a saved performance profile and my pcie card is back at x16 again.

... now to try this overclocking thing ...

Thanks Gang!

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Psycho, overclocking his CPU will give him a nice boost in applications, but won't solve his 50% fps drop issue. (And OCing to 4.0GHz is a lil extreme for a newcomer to OCing like him)

I think he might have driver issues or software issues...check to see if your GPU clock isn't fluctuating, reinstall drivers, use drivesweeper to clean out old drivers, etc

 

[skolpo]

He already fixed his GPU issue. It had something to do with BIOS.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

He fixed his FPS problem already. :lol:

darn me and my inability to read! >_< lol

 

[Mousemonkey]

darn me and my inability to read! >_< lol

Meh, why read when there are things to stare at?, that's my philosophy. 😉