[SOLVED] Gradually getting less frames and a lower performance ?

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
A while back i was playing csgo and after hitting my disk my game crashed and i had to replace my hard drive. After i installed everything on my hard drive everything seemed normal and the game was running normally with some stutters. I did some benchmarks and the results were average for my gpu in vulkan, opengl and dx12. After a while i started getting more stutters in csgo and suddenly i could not get over 60 fps and it dropped to 40 at points, i usually get about 100 fps and more. Since then every time i open the game the frames get lower and now i cant get over 30. Even when i lower my game graphics the frames do not change.

I tried benhmarking again and this time i got normal results for vulkan but really low results for opengl and dx12. I even got scores as low as 1000, then they would spark up to 9000 when the normal is supposed yo be about 15000 to 17000. I keep getting corrupt files on csgo and i have to validate too (in case this info might help). I tried taking everything out of the pc and putting it back, but nothing changed.

I have a dell optiplex 390 mini tower, 8 gb ram ddr3, gtx 750 ti 2gb gigabyte windforce, 500 gb hdd, core i7-2600
My temperature for both cpu and gpu are normal, and there is not an overheating problem.
What could my problem be, is it with the gpu, the hdd or the motherboard. Or is it something with the game or something else. I would really appreciate any help, thank you
 
Solution
Sorry for the late reply, but the scan took 13 hours for some reason. Now after i have done a full threat scan including a root kit scan, malwarebytes has not found anything and said that my pc is completely clean. I also used the chkdsk command and it came up fine as well. I would like to clarify that the pc is not at 100% usage always, but i see that happening often. I cannot pinpoint what times this happens or what might trigger it. It affects performance when sometimes the os takes time to respond like the taskbar or some apps "waiting to respond". I have also run a chkdsk /f /r and it did not give any errors with the drive.
When this kind of stuff happens it can get to the point of wanting to swap things. But since all you...

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
fresh instal of windows should be step one

clean and repaste the gpu

leave the memory pads alone, the memory doesnt run hot and never needed the pads in the first place
Thank you for your reply
I just used ddu to freshly reinstall my gpu drivers and it seemed like everything was going well and the benchmarks were back to normal, but after trying to open the game and after benchmarking again the problem came back. I will try your other solutions and see what might fix it
Thank you again
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
I tried this and i did a fresh install of windows but the problem still persists.
Did you have an external hard drive when you banged it. It's possible you damaged your computer if you banged the computer. Or the game is using your drive for cache and wearing it out, or the game is messed up, or the game is using virtual memory using your hard drive for memory. Can you tell if your ssd is getting hot when you play the game. I guess all games are getting low fps. Otherwise we'd know its the game itself.
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
Another thought, is it possible your bios is set to throttle power saving. This could account for low heat and other symptoms. I forget the bios setting, but there should be choices of running full power all the time. Throttling causes latency problems and can throw the timing off with your video card. Also monitor your voltage settings and make sure you don't have a sagging power supply.
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
Another thought, is it possible your bios is set to throttle power saving. This could account for low heat and other symptoms. I forget the bios setting, but there should be choices of running full power all the time. Throttling causes latency problems and can throw the timing off with your video card. Also monitor your voltage settings and make sure you don't have a sagging power supply.
Thank you for your time and replies
I will teat everything you mentiones as soon as i can.
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
Another thought, is it possible your bios is set to throttle power saving. This could account for low heat and other symptoms. I forget the bios setting, but there should be choices of running full power all the time. Throttling causes latency problems and can throw the timing off with your video card. Also monitor your voltage settings and make sure you don't have a sagging power supply.
I cannot find anything related to this in my bios, probably because it is kind of old. I did not have an external hard drive plugged in and i do not have an ssd. I hit the table and not the pc directly, which probably caused some issue in the hard drive because hdd do not like vibrations. I replaced the old hard drive and the new one has no issues since i have done so many tests on it. How can i check if my game is using my drive for cache or if it is using virtual memory? I do not really have other intensive games that i can check with, but the low benchmark results point out that the problem is not the game itself. The most confusing thing is that when i use ddu to remove my gpu drivers and i use NVIDIA's website to download them, the results are pretty normal for a while, but then everything worsens again. I am thinking kf getting a new gpu but i do not know if this is really the gpu being broken or if it is something else. My pc is kind of slow sometimes but not that much. I appreciate your help.
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
One more thing that confuses me is that no matter how i change the quality of the graphics, i still get the approximately same frames. So on high i get 30 to 40 fps, but on low i get about 60 and sometimes more. Yes the frames increase and the game is smoother, but 40 fps max is the difference
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
Ok, I see what you did, and it sounds like you shook the drive and messed it up. You can disable your page file and it will eliminate using your hard drive for virtual memory. Then play your game. The game may crash indicating your out of memory. I think the page file is under computer management. Probably set to "let windows decide". Turn it off, but considering the game gets worse over time after a fresh video install it's probable not the virtual memory but if the game has a cache that is building up in size it may start using virtual memory and that will slow up everything. So check on the ability to clear your game cache if there is one first. I see you have 8 gig of memory, with new video games its possible they actually use that much. That's when the virtual memory kicks in. But 40 fps sounds pretty good anyway. Most broadcasts use to be appx 30 and it never bothered me. You eyes have a memory so fps is a bit overrated to me.
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
Ok, I see what you did, and it sounds like you shook the drive and messed it up. You can disable your page file and it will eliminate using your hard drive for virtual memory. Then play your game. The game may crash indicating your out of memory. I think the page file is under computer management. Probably set to "let windows decide". Turn it off, but considering the game gets worse over time after a fresh video install it's probable not the virtual memory but if the game has a cache that is building up in size it may start using virtual memory and that will slow up everything. So check on the ability to clear your game cache if there is one first. I see you have 8 gig of memory, with new video games its possible they actually use that much. That's when the virtual memory kicks in. But 40 fps sounds pretty good anyway. Most broadcasts use to be appx 30 and it never bothered me. You eyes have a memory so fps is a bit overrated to me.
I disabled my game file and the game did not crash. I would like to clarify that the problem is not with the hard disk since i got a new one and installed a fresh copy of windows 10. Also, the problem is not with the game since the benchmarks show that the gpu is under performing as well. What matters most to me is not the fps, but knowing what caused this issue since the difference in performance is huge. I want to know which part might be broken so that it does not cause any more issues in the future. Also, there is a lot of stuttering that does not make the game that playable anyways.
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
I disabled my game file and the game did not crash. I would like to clarify that the problem is not with the hard disk since i got a new one and installed a fresh copy of windows 10. Also, the problem is not with the game since the benchmarks show that the gpu is under performing as well. What matters most to me is not the fps, but knowing what caused this issue since the difference in performance is huge. I want to know which part might be broken so that it does not cause any more issues in the future. Also, there is a lot of stuttering that does not make the game that playable anyways.
Well, the game file is not the page file. However when there is a lot of studdering it can be induced when the game is loading from the drive. I had some studdering and recently added two nvme ssd drives to the machine. Then I striped them using raid 0; this makes an extremely fast drive to deliver data to the game. After doing so the studdering is also extremely fast but it is not annoying because a short studder is not the same as a long studder. So it seems logical to conclude the hard drive delivery to the game contributes to the studdering. But on occasion something is wrong and any game can studder so bad I have to exit the VR system altogether and start over. Once it's locked on and everything is in sync like it's suppose to be it really works good.
Some older chipsets were real dogs. We could use the same processor on different mother boards and some performed better than others but some were so bad we returned them.
I'm not really up on the new stuff but with all the complaints, I'm beginning to think it's still a problem. I think you only have 8 gig of memory and I need to know if you turned the page file off, not the game file which may have been a cache or something. Have you located the page file in windows. We need to turn that off to see what happens. To help you understand this, the page file is virtual memory. When the memory overflows the computer uses the hard drive for main memory. Obviously a hard drive is a lot slower than main memory so if your computer starts using the hard drive for memory it will really really dog down. So turn off the page file and see what happens. With no page file the computer might run out of memory. If it does then we will know you need more main memory. Which could be your problem. Go here and follow the instructions. Choose "no page file". Restart the computer, play your game and get back with me. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-manage-virtual-memory-pagefile-windows-10,36929.html
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
Well, the game file is not the page file. However when there is a lot of studdering it can be induced when the game is loading from the drive. I had some studdering and recently added two nvme ssd drives to the machine. Then I striped them using raid 0; this makes an extremely fast drive to deliver data to the game. After doing so the studdering is also extremely fast but it is not annoying because a short studder is not the same as a long studder. So it seems logical to conclude the hard drive delivery to the game contributes to the studdering. But on occasion something is wrong and any game can studder so bad I have to exit the VR system altogether and start over. Once it's locked on and everything is in sync like it's suppose to be it really works good.
Some older chipsets were real dogs. We could use the same processor on different mother boards and some performed better than others but some were so bad we returned them.
I'm not really up on the new stuff but with all the complaints, I'm beginning to think it's still a problem. I think you only have 8 gig of memory and I need to know if you turned the page file off, not the game file which may have been a cache or something. Have you located the page file in windows. We need to turn that off to see what happens. To help you understand this, the page file is virtual memory. When the memory overflows the computer uses the hard drive for main memory. Obviously a hard drive is a lot slower than main memory so if your computer starts using the hard drive for memory it will really really dog down. So turn off the page file and see what happens. With no page file the computer might run out of memory. If it does then we will know you need more main memory. Which could be your problem. Go here and follow the instructions. Choose "no page file". Restart the computer, play your game and get back with me. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-manage-virtual-memory-pagefile-windows-10,36929.html
Thank you for your response and sorry for my mistake. I turned off my page file and the game did not crash. I also monitored my ram usage in game and i always have at least 1.5 gb free.
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
Thank you for your response and sorry for my mistake. I turned off my page file and the game did not crash. I also monitored my ram usage in game and i always have at least 1.5 gb free.
Ok, so let's look into your cpu throttling. Most bios settings allow full power all of the time without slowing down the processor when high power is not needed. It's also possible the processor will throttle down to minimize heat under heavy loads. If so, this could be your problem. Let's try that next and see what happens. If I remember your speed was good with a fresh install of the video drivers and is getting worse but I'm not sure if each session is getting worse or the game always starts out good, then deteriorates the longer you play. Which is it? Also Win 11 has a game mode which turns off background services during gaming. Can you get Win 11 under updates. If not, check to see if you have the latest bios and flash the new version, it may then be win11 compatible. Just don't turn off the computer during a bios update. Some computers can't recover, newer ones are getting smart and have the bios stored in a rom to get it going again. Go ahead and turn the page file back on.
 
Last edited:

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
Ok, so let's look into your cpu throttling. Most bios settings allow full power all of the time without slowing down the processor when high power is not needed. It's also possible the processor will throttle down to minimize heat under heavy loads. If so, this could be your problem. Let's try that next and see what happens. If I remember your speed was good with a fresh install of the video drivers and is getting worse but I'm not sure if each session is getting worse or the game always starts out good, then deteriorates the longer you play. Which is it? Also Win 11 has a game mode which turns off background services during gaming. Can you get Win 11 under updates. If not, check to see if you have the latest bios and flash the new version, it may then be win11 compatible. Just don't turn off the computer during a bios update. Some computers can't recover, newer ones are getting smart and have the bios stored in a rom to get it going again. Go ahead and turn the page file back on.
I did turn the page file back on. Ihave the latest bios for my motherboard and it does not seem like anything is limiting my cpu in anyway, and i did multiple cpu tests using an integrated program and i also downloaded another cpu benchmark which showed that my cpu is fine and it passed every test. To clarify the drivers part, whenever i freshly install my graphics drivers and test them, everything is going normally, but after a couple of minutes i lose a lot of fps and benchmarks show bad results. It does not worsen any more, it just becomes this bad. Even if i download the drivers and test them then leave the pc for a while, when i come back all results are way worse. So if im getting 30 fps right now, i could reinstall the gpu drivers to get 100 fps with no problems like i did before, but after a couple of minutes my game goes back to 30 fps. It is not only limited to this game. For example, on my gpu benchmark i get 16000 as a result with the fresh drivers, then if i test again after a while the resulting score goes down to 9000 and sometimes even much less than that. I turned off all background apps, and the problem is not with windows since i got a new hard drive and downloaded windows on it, formatted the hard drive and the installed a fresh copy of windows, yet the problem did not go away. Thank you for your replies and your time.
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
I did turn the page file back on. Ihave the latest bios for my motherboard and it does not seem like anything is limiting my cpu in anyway, and i did multiple cpu tests using an integrated program and i also downloaded another cpu benchmark which showed that my cpu is fine and it passed every test. To clarify the drivers part, whenever i freshly install my graphics drivers and test them, everything is going normally, but after a couple of minutes i lose a lot of fps and benchmarks show bad results. It does not worsen any more, it just becomes this bad. Even if i download the drivers and test them then leave the pc for a while, when i come back all results are way worse. So if im getting 30 fps right now, i could reinstall the gpu drivers to get 100 fps with no problems like i did before, but after a couple of minutes my game goes back to 30 fps. It is not only limited to this game. For example, on my gpu benchmark i get 16000 as a result with the fresh drivers, then if i test again after a while the resulting score goes down to 9000 and sometimes even much less than that. I turned off all background apps, and the problem is not with windows since i got a new hard drive and downloaded windows on it, formatted the hard drive and the installed a fresh copy of windows, yet the problem did not go away. Thank you for your replies and your time.
Well, no matter how you look at this, something is throttling performance. Considering the longer it is on the worse it gets, it could be a thermal problem. Is it possible the new hard drive is getting hot? I assume its an SSD. So far several things are pointing toward the drive itself, poor FPS, excessive studdering. You say your old drive crashed? How so, did you replace it thinking it would solve your problem, or was this happening and another drive didn't fix it. If the old one crashed and the new one is doing this but not the old one it may boil down to one of two things. Your mother boards hard drive controller is having problems and there is a lot of data retries or the hard drive itself is causing problems. But still something is probably getting hot and chipsets can throttle data transfers to protect the drive itself. Did you get an SSD m.2? Does it contact a heatsink? Did you forget to use thermal compound. Basically, is it getting hot??? Can you test your drive when the machine is cold and test it again later to see if the transfer rates have slowed down? Is this point we've covered most of the software basics, not it's time to look at the hardware side of things. Do you have any freeze mist?, if so you can try to cool down the drive and observe the bench test. If the performance shoots back up, your narrowing down your problem. Another method is just the opposite by using a heat source. Perhaps a hair dryer will do. Shut it down and let it cool. With it off take a hair dryer to it and carefully warm up the machine. Then turn it on and immediately run your benchmarks. If the machine is slow compared to a normal cold start then yes, you have a thermal problem. I repaired electronics full time for 45 years, trust me on this one. Don't use high heat and melt the plastic or cable, point the hair dryer at it and warm it up. If you can leave the hair drying on to keep it warm when you run your diagnostics. Lets find out if it's a thermal problem. If you do then shut it down, let it cool the localize the heat. Try warming up your hard drive and nothing else. I have a pin point heat gun so it's easy, you may have to blow the heat thru a tube like the inside of a paper towel roll. Anything to isolate the warming. let's just say I've been there and done that. Get back with me, I think were on the verge of discovery.
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
Well, no matter how you look at this, something is throttling performance. Considering the longer it is on the worse it gets, it could be a thermal problem. Is it possible the new hard drive is getting hot? I assume its an SSD. So far several things are pointing toward the drive itself, poor FPS, excessive studdering. You say your old drive crashed? How so, did you replace it thinking it would solve your problem, or was this happening and another drive didn't fix it. If the old one crashed and the new one is doing this but not the old one it may boil down to one of two things. Your mother boards hard drive controller is having problems and there is a lot of data retries or the hard drive itself is causing problems. But still something is probably getting hot and chipsets can throttle data transfers to protect the drive itself. Did you get an SSD m.2? Does it contact a heatsink? Did you forget to use thermal compound. Basically, is it getting hot??? Can you test your drive when the machine is cold and test it again later to see if the transfer rates have slowed down? Is this point we've covered most of the software basics, not it's time to look at the hardware side of things. Do you have any freeze mist?, if so you can try to cool down the drive and observe the bench test. If the performance shoots back up, your narrowing down your problem. Another method is just the opposite by using a heat source. Perhaps a hair dryer will do. Shut it down and let it cool. With it off take a hair dryer to it and carefully warm up the machine. Then turn it on and immediately run your benchmarks. If the machine is slow compared to a normal cold start then yes, you have a thermal problem. I repaired electronics full time for 45 years, trust me on this one. Don't use high heat and melt the plastic or cable, point the hair dryer at it and warm it up. If you can leave the hair drying on to keep it warm when you run your diagnostics. Lets find out if it's a thermal problem. If you do then shut it down, let it cool the localize the heat. Try warming up your hard drive and nothing else. I have a pin point heat gun so it's easy, you may have to blow the heat thru a tube like the inside of a paper towel roll. Anything to isolate the warming. let's just say I've been there and done that. Get back with me, I think were on the verge of discovery.
I think that we are close too! Unfortunately i will not be able to test this out until about after 13 hours. Im sorry if this is taking too much of your time and I want you to know that i really appreciate your help and persistence to try and help me. Thank you
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
I think that we are close too! Unfortunately i will not be able to test this out until about after 13 hours. Im sorry if this is taking too much of your time and I want you to know that i really appreciate your help and persistence to try and help me. Thank you
No big deal, I'm retired and thought it would be fun to try and fix this. Freeze mist is expensive but can really help to identify the part that's getting hot. Is there a way to run a benchmark test the doesn't stop? If so, cooling or warming something you suspect can be monitored on the fly. Cool it down and the specs get better, warm it back up and things get worse. Pretty simple yet very effective in proving it's a thermal problem. You might just need more fans. If you turn a can of canned air upside down it sprays out the cold stuff, a quick squirt can cool down a chip very fast. The fact it has a tube on the can help you localize the spray. I hate to see you waste money of freeze mist, but it can save a lot of time. I'd warm it first and then turn the computer on and immediately do the benchmark and compare it to a dead start cold computer. If it's poor compare to a cold start, you have your answer. However locating the specific chip or card is difficult without freeze mist. Take your time, I hope we get it narrowed down too.
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
No big deal, I'm retired and thought it would be fun to try and fix this. Freeze mist is expensive but can really help to identify the part that's getting hot. Is there a way to run a benchmark test the doesn't stop? If so, cooling or warming something you suspect can be monitored on the fly. Cool it down and the specs get better, warm it back up and things get worse. Pretty simple yet very effective in proving it's a thermal problem. You might just need more fans. If you turn a can of canned air upside down it sprays out the cold stuff, a quick squirt can cool down a chip very fast. The fact it has a tube on the can help you localize the spray. I hate to see you waste money of freeze mist, but it can save a lot of time. I'd warm it first and then turn the computer on and immediately do the benchmark and compare it to a dead start cold computer. If it's poor compare to a cold start, you have your answer. However locating the specific chip or card is difficult without freeze mist. Take your time, I hope we get it narrowed down too.
Hello again. I have done multiple tests to see if it is a thermal issue and it does not seem like one. I could not get any freeze mist but my hair dryer has a cold option which managed to lower the temperature by a few degrees. Here are my results for all of my tests. I used basemarkGPU for my gpu benchmarks and passmark performance test for my hdd.
Cold start results hdd 41 degrees Celsius
Vulkan 17037 normal
Dx12 16870 normal (used to get much less i dont know why it went up)
OpenGL 9097 below average
Hdd 164 read score 149 write score
When hard drive is cooled 34-35 degrees Celsius
Vulkan 1707
Dx12 16956
OpenGL 9181
Hdd 168 read score 137 write score
System heated before start and hdd heated 49 degrees during test
Vulkan 16818
Dx12 16800
OpenGL 9151
Hdd 162 read score 148 write score

I do still think that it has something to do with the hard drive since i noticed that the task manager shows that i am at 100 percent disk usage even when almost nothing is running. My startups have been way slower than my older hdd too. Yes, i did not get an ssd but i might just get one if it will end my issues. I also tried cooling the gpu during testing and the benchmark scores did not change.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alan Alan

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
Hello again. I have done multiple tests to see if it is a thermal issue and it does not seem like one. I could not get any freeze mist but my hair dryer has a cold option which managed to lower the temperature by a few degrees. Here are my results for all of my tests. I used basemarkGPU for my gpu benchmarks and passmark performance test for my hdd.
Cold start results hdd 41 degrees Celsius
Vulkan 17037 normal
Dx12 16870 normal (used to get much less i dont know why it went up)
OpenGL 9097 below average
Hdd 164 read score 149 write score
When hard drive is cooled 34-35 degrees Celsius
Vulkan 1707
Dx12 16956
OpenGL 9181
Hdd 168 read score 137 write score
System heated before start and hdd heated 49 degrees during test
Vulkan 16818
Dx12 16800
OpenGL 9151
Hdd 162 read score 148 write score

I do still think that it has something to do with the hard drive since i noticed that the task manager shows that i am at 100 percent disk usage even when almost nothing is running. My startups have been way slower than my older hdd too. Yes, i did not get an ssd but i might just get one if it will end my issues. I also tried cooling the gpu during testing and the benchmark scores did not change.
Well good, do you know how to use chkdsk to check your hard drive. Right click properties> tools> check and test it anyway. But before doing that ,is it possible you have a virus? I know it's a new windows install but I've heard the master boot record can be infected and reinstalling doesn't wipe it. There are methods to wipe it, perhaps try that first. If there's little running in the background it's possible a virus is using the disk. Try this, something I found in microsofts forums. Malware bytes is free with a 14 day trial. This is what was written.
If you want the best on-demand scanner download and install Malwarebytes from https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/
In it's Settings > Protection > Scan Options enable Scan for Rootkits.
Then on Scan tab choose Threat Scan and Run Scan.
Clean up anything found, restart PC and then run again until it comes up clean.

Hope it's just a virus, but ssd's are pretty cheap if the drive is flaky. Malwarebytes is really a good program. Has been for years.
 

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
Well good, do you know how to use chkdsk to check your hard drive. Right click properties> tools> check and test it anyway. But before doing that ,is it possible you have a virus? I know it's a new windows install but I've heard the master boot record can be infected and reinstalling doesn't wipe it. There are methods to wipe it, perhaps try that first. If there's little running in the background it's possible a virus is using the disk. Try this, something I found in microsofts forums. Malware bytes is free with a 14 day trial. This is what was written.
If you want the best on-demand scanner download and install Malwarebytes from https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/
In it's Settings > Protection > Scan Options enable Scan for Rootkits.
Then on Scan tab choose Threat Scan and Run Scan.
Clean up anything found, restart PC and then run again until it comes up clean.

Hope it's just a virus, but ssd's are pretty cheap if the drive is flaky. Malwarebytes is really a good program. Has been for years.
Sorry for the late reply, but the scan took 13 hours for some reason. Now after i have done a full threat scan including a root kit scan, malwarebytes has not found anything and said that my pc is completely clean. I also used the chkdsk command and it came up fine as well. I would like to clarify that the pc is not at 100% usage always, but i see that happening often. I cannot pinpoint what times this happens or what might trigger it. It affects performance when sometimes the os takes time to respond like the taskbar or some apps "waiting to respond". I have also run a chkdsk /f /r and it did not give any errors with the drive.
 

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
Sorry for the late reply, but the scan took 13 hours for some reason. Now after i have done a full threat scan including a root kit scan, malwarebytes has not found anything and said that my pc is completely clean. I also used the chkdsk command and it came up fine as well. I would like to clarify that the pc is not at 100% usage always, but i see that happening often. I cannot pinpoint what times this happens or what might trigger it. It affects performance when sometimes the os takes time to respond like the taskbar or some apps "waiting to respond". I have also run a chkdsk /f /r and it did not give any errors with the drive.
When this kind of stuff happens it can get to the point of wanting to swap things. But since all you did was bang the desktop and it was originally working fine, I would suspect one of two things. I'd ask myself, did I crack a circuit board and did I really need to replace my hard drive. I'm hoping you have your old drive as you might put it back in and see if the computer still acts the same way. Also, think hardware and forget about software for a bit. Let's take a flash light and a magnifier and examine the circuit boards carefully. Especially around any area where two heavy items interface. Be careful in there, turn off the power, unplug the computer and hold in the power button 10 seconds to facilitate capacitor discharge. Also beware there can easily be high voltage stored in the capacitors inside of the power supply protective case even with the power off and it's unplugged. Don't touch those parts without using a non conductive tool. When you look around always keep one hand on the computers metal to prevent static. Also get some cardboard to set the computer on. It helps to wipe it with a damp cloth first just to get some moisture in the cardboard. It's an old anti static thing. Your probably going to have to pull the cards out to examine it. So get plenty of cardboard to lay your cards on. Pull the panels so you can really see that mother board on either side. Look around the heat sink area because it's pretty heavy with the fan on it. Hopefully the heat sink area where the screws are didn't crack the circuit board. Same goes for heavy graphic cards and so on. Also examine the capacitors on the mother board. The larger ones are vented and if they have problems they can swell on the top. Old boards subjected to a lot of heat can dry out the electrolyte inside the caps and cause unstable computers but you can't see that. But look carefully for any signs of discoloration. This is common when a hot running part is right next to it. You may see this more inside of your power supply than the computer itself. However given the timing and all was fine before you jarred it, it's probably cracked or has a loose connection somewhere. It doesn't necessarily mean a circuit board has physically cracked but a heavy or hot running part with a prior partial solder joint may have broken apart. This is the most likely problem, so lightly touch each large part and gently move it around. Most parts should not budge but if something does where it is soldered this may be the cause of your intermittent problem. It doesn't take much to move a leg that is suppose to be soldered. Most likely you won't find anything as most modern boards solder things well but its still worth looking. You may have a dirty circuit board and want to clean it. This is where it gets tricky, you have to use Anti Static ESD Brushes that don't build up static and don't even think about using the vacuum cleaner.

For starters I'd try swapping the hard drive with the old one as it may actually be ok. If it is then before spending any hard earned money take a serious good look at it. You might not be able to repair a cracked pcb but at least you'll know what to do.

If you don't find anything physically remember that you are effectively cleaning the contacts when you plug things in and out. I normally use a chemical called De-Oxite - G5. It comes as a spray but I spray an anti static brush with it and brush the contacts clean before reassembly.

So even though it sounds like a lot, it's something that couldn't hurt because at least you have cleaned your connections. Note that de-oxite may need to dry 15 to 30 minutes before power as reapplied. It is non conductive but it can act as an electrolyte and cause instability. So if you do use it, make sure you get any excess out. You can blow excess out with canned air but it can blow right back in your face, not good.

So just think of it as giving your computer a good cleaning. I hope it's not full of cigarette smoke. Believe it or not, that can cause problems and there are special chemicals to remove it.

I'm thinking you may find loose connectors as you disconnect and re-seat them. Especially those large 8 or so pin power supply connections. It's very possible one of those is loose and causing intermittent problems. Most definitely check and clean those contacts first. It may be the very heart and soul of your problem. Poor power connections cause all kinds of problems.

That's a head full huh. Good luck and go easy, one step at a time. Don't loose your cool, somethings gotta give.

Almost forgot to ask, was the hard drive you got brand new? 13 minutes for a full scan could be normal if the drive has a lot on it. But if you bought a used one, it may have been someone elses junk.

Also you need to monitor the power supplies with software under heavy use and make sure the mother board is properly powered. A slight under voltage to the micro or memory can cause problems. Do that first, I think we missed that software step even though it is hardware power your observing. There are lots of voltage monitors, I have an Asus mother board and it has it own software for that. Not sure what yours has, but definately monitor your voltages before doing a visual check. You may have power supply issues.
 
Last edited:
Solution

amjedfiras

Honorable
Jun 11, 2018
103
7
10,585
When this kind of stuff happens it can get to the point of wanting to swap things. But since all you did was bang the desktop and it was originally working fine, I would suspect one of two things. I'd ask myself, did I crack a circuit board and did I really need to replace my hard drive. I'm hoping you have your old drive as you might put it back in and see if the computer still acts the same way. Also, think hardware and forget about software for a bit. Let's take a flash light and a magnifier and examine the circuit boards carefully. Especially around any area where two heavy items interface. Be careful in there, turn off the power, unplug the computer and hold in the power button 10 seconds to facilitate capacitor discharge. Also beware there can easily be high voltage stored in the capacitors inside of the power supply protective case even with the power off and it's unplugged. Don't touch those parts without using a non conductive tool. When you look around always keep one hand on the computers metal to prevent static. Also get some cardboard to set the computer on. It helps to wipe it with a damp cloth first just to get some moisture in the cardboard. It's an old anti static thing. Your probably going to have to pull the cards out to examine it. So get plenty of cardboard to lay your cards on. Pull the panels so you can really see that mother board on either side. Look around the heat sink area because it's pretty heavy with the fan on it. Hopefully the heat sink area where the screws are didn't crack the circuit board. Same goes for heavy graphic cards and so on. Also examine the capacitors on the mother board. The larger ones are vented and if they have problems they can swell on the top. Old boards subjected to a lot of heat can dry out the electrolyte inside the caps and cause unstable computers but you can't see that. But look carefully for any signs of discoloration. This is common when a hot running part is right next to it. You may see this more inside of your power supply than the computer itself. However given the timing and all was fine before you jarred it, it's probably cracked or has a loose connection somewhere. It doesn't necessarily mean a circuit board has physically cracked but a heavy or hot running part with a prior partial solder joint may have broken apart. This is the most likely problem, so lightly touch each large part and gently move it around. Most parts should not budge but if something does where it is soldered this may be the cause of your intermittent problem. It doesn't take much to move a leg that is suppose to be soldered. Most likely you won't find anything as most modern boards solder things well but its still worth looking. You may have a dirty circuit board and want to clean it. This is where it gets tricky, you have to use Anti Static ESD Brushes that don't build up static and don't even think about using the vacuum cleaner.

For starters I'd try swapping the hard drive with the old one as it may actually be ok. If it is then before spending any hard earned money take a serious good look at it. You might not be able to repair a cracked pcb but at least you'll know what to do.

If you don't find anything physically remember that you are effectively cleaning the contacts when you plug things in and out. I normally use a chemical called De-Oxite - G5. It comes as a spray but I spray an anti static brush with it and brush the contacts clean before reassembly.

So even though it sounds like a lot, it's something that couldn't hurt because at least you have cleaned your connections. Note that de-oxite may need to dry 15 to 30 minutes before power as reapplied. It is non conductive but it can act as an electrolyte and cause instability. So if you do use it, make sure you get any excess out. You can blow excess out with canned air but it can blow right back in your face, not good.

So just think of it as giving your computer a good cleaning. I hope it's not full of cigarette smoke. Believe it or not, that can cause problems and there are special chemicals to remove it.

I'm thinking you may find loose connectors as you disconnect and re-seat them. Especially those large 8 or so pin power supply connections. It's very possible one of those is loose and causing intermittent problems. Most definitely check and clean those contacts first. It may be the very heart and soul of your problem. Poor power connections cause all kinds of problems.

That's a head full huh. Good luck and go easy, one step at a time. Don't loose your cool, somethings gotta give.

Almost forgot to ask, was the hard drive you got brand new? 13 minutes for a full scan could be normal if the drive has a lot on it. But if you bought a used one, it may have been someone elses junk.

Also you need to monitor the power supplies with software under heavy use and make sure the mother board is properly powered. A slight under voltage to the micro or memory can cause problems. Do that first, I think we missed that software step even though it is hardware power your observing. There are lots of voltage monitors, I have an Asus mother board and it has it own software for that. Not sure what yours has, but definately monitor your voltages before doing a visual check. You may have power supply issues.
I have checked every part of the motherboard and it does not seem like there are any cracks anywhere. All of the parts are well seated and do not move easily. All of the capacitors looked fine. Nothing in the motherboard moved at all. I took out all of the parts and wires and put everything back in checking that there are no broken parts but i could not get to the cpu since i could not remove the screws for some reason. I tried the old hard drive again but it still did not work. The story in detail is that after i hit my disk (not the desktop directly) the pc crashed into a blue screen. Since then everytime i tried to boot it up it got stuck on the windows loading screen. I tried using windows advanced repairs multiple times but they did nothing. There were corrupted files and the system could not start or even reinstall windows. I could only access it through safe mode but not in any other way. Then when i tested my parts with the dell integrated diagnostic program it gave me error messages that indicated that the hard drive is not fully functional and i finally admitted that it was beyond repair. At this point i bought the new hard drive and downloaded windows. Now the pc seemed slower to an extent but during gameplay it ran fine with minimal stutters from time to time. After a week i noticed that the game has dropped a lot in performance and was barely playable and the next two times the game kept getting worse until it was mostly playing on 30 fps with a lot of stutters. The performance has seemed to increase a bit but after trying some fixes but it was still a pretty horrible experience. Now after i have pulled everything a part then plugged everything again i realised that i had an hdmi port going to the motherboard, which means that i could test out the CPU's integrated graphics. I did not think that this was possible before because i thought i only had a vga port since this is not a modern motherboard and my monitor does not have a vga input port. I have an intel hd 2000 integrated gpu which is not really good at anything but it can run csgo to some point. I tried running the game on the lowest settings and i got a stable 30 fps with almost no stutters. This started my suspicions that the gpu might be the problem. I tried doing a benchmark but during the benchmark the screen glitched, the pc froze and a buzzing sound was heard from inside the desktop. I turned off my pc and when i tried turning it back on it was a black screen with the numbers 1 and 3 lit up on the case, which according to dell is a problem with the ram. I tried reseating them and switching their places a few times but the same problem happened each time. I plugged the old gpu back in and the pc turned on normally.
I forgot to mention this, but as i was checking the motherboard there was not discoloration and i was not able to clean it since i almost have no equipment except for some air that i used to blow out some dust. I do not smoke at all so that cannot be a problem too.
Its really hard to tell if its a gpu problem from my intel hd 2000 testing since everything was lowered too much and the performance for yhe card isnt great anyways.
 
Last edited:

Alan Alan

Prominent
Aug 9, 2022
218
9
595
I have checked every part of the motherboard and it does not seem like there are any cracks anywhere. All of the parts are well seated and do not move easily. All of the capacitors looked fine. Nothing in the motherboard moved at all. I took out all of the parts and wires and put everything back in checking that there are no broken parts but i could not get to the cpu since i could not remove the screws for some reason. I tried the old hard drive again but it still did not work. The story in detail is that after i hit my disk (not the desktop directly) the pc crashed into a blue screen. Since then everytime i tried to boot it up it got stuck on the windows loading screen. I tried using windows advanced repairs multiple times but they did nothing. There were corrupted files and the system could not start or even reinstall windows. I could only access it through safe mode but not in any other way. Then when i tested my parts with the dell integrated diagnostic program it gave me error messages that indicated that the hard drive is not fully functional and i finally admitted that it was beyond repair. At this point i bought the new hard drive and downloaded windows. Now the pc seemed slower to an extent but during gameplay it ran fine with minimal stutters from time to time. After a week i noticed that the game has dropped a lot in performance and was barely playable and the next two times the game kept getting worse until it was mostly playing on 30 fps with a lot of stutters. The performance has seemed to increase a bit but after trying some fixes but it was still a pretty horrible experience. Now after i have pulled everything a part then plugged everything again i realised that i had an hdmi port going to the motherboard, which means that i could test out the CPU's integrated graphics. I did not think that this was possible before because i thought i only had a vga port since this is not a modern motherboard and my monitor does not have a vga input port. I have an intel hd 2000 integrated gpu which is not really good at anything but it can run csgo to some point. I tried running the game on the lowest settings and i got a stable 30 fps with almost no stutters. This started my suspicions that the gpu might be the problem. I tried doing a benchmark but during the benchmark the screen glitched, the pc froze and a buzzing sound was heard from inside the desktop. I turned off my pc and when i tried turning it back on it was a black screen with the numbers 1 and 3 lit up on the case, which according to dell is a problem with the ram. I tried reseating them and switching their places a few times but the same problem happened each time. I plugged the old gpu back in and the pc turned on normally.
I forgot to mention this, but as i was checking the motherboard there was not discoloration and i was not able to clean it since i almost have no equipment except for some air that i used to blow out some dust. I do not smoke at all so that cannot be a problem too.
Its really hard to tell if its a gpu problem from my intel hd 2000 testing since everything was lowered too much and the performance for yhe card isnt great anyways.
Well, nice job, but I'm confused. You say you have a mobo graphic section. But you couldn't get the video card out because the screw was too tight or something. The you said you plugged in the old video card. Did you have two video cards in there at one time? The old one and the new one. And the intel hd 2000 is the old card. I'm lost, but I can tell you this, it's possible the computer capacitors are causing stability issues. Here's how to find out. Turn the computer on and run a complete system test for a week or two. Do not turn off the computer but work it with a mild self repeating stress test. This procedure effectively revitalizes old capacitors that haven't been used much and have been stored for a while. I'm not sure I your computer sat around for a long time or not. If it did then leave it on and work those capacitors. After a week or so they can run a long time. However you have the opposite scenario. It get worse with use which is a sign of aging capacitors. Something is unstable and is gets worse after time, You have a new hard drive, so that's probably not it unless it's defective. You have an old video card which works better than the newer one as the newer one cause the computer to crash and the system thought it was ram. But the oldest video card works good and tests ok even though it's limited. If I have this right, I agree, the newer video card seems on its way out. I had one that lasted 4 years, it was getting longer and longer to turn on after boot and finally quit. I bought a new one and all is well. Maybe it is your video card. I'd try to get that screw out with a drop of penetrating oil. Let is set a while, turn the screw inward first until it moves then back it out. I use Kroil oil for that, but any penetrating oil can work, You may have to get another video card and try it out. I was hoping it wasn't the card, they are expensive. But if you can get one used from someone who just wanted to upgrade it should be pretty cheap. Just ask to be sure you can return it if it doesn't work. It's possible someone is trying sell one in the same shape as yours but not necessarily. Any friend where you live who will let you try their card in your machine? That's a great thing there....