PC strongly underperforming.

[nick3318]

Alright I'm going to get some sleep before I do any of this. I'll try flashing the BIOS when I wake up tomorrow. It's 5 AM where I'm at and I've been up all night

Thank you for all the suggestions so far!

If anyone has any more ideas please post them here, I'll be back on this thread tomorrow. (Monday)

 

[yonef]

You can also try to reset the BIOS to Optimized defaults as well, because some of the settings may conflicting.

 

[SiliconX]

Definitely check your BIOS version and look at flashing to the newest. Alot of the BIOS updates for the Asus ROG boards have been for CPU and memory compatibility and browsing the Maximus ones seems there's a lot of other CPU tweaks in them.

Do the Asus EZ Flash 2 through the BIOS with a USB stick. Just did it the other day on my Rampage Formula and it's very easy and the safest.

 

[nick3318]

I successfully flashed the bios but when I ran the benchmarks again I had nearly the exact same results.

Anything else I could try?

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Do you have any extra programs running in the background? Antivirus, instant messaging, etc. Antivirus like Norton and Macafee can be real resource hogs if running one of those.

 

[nick3318]

Do you have any extra programs running in the background? Antivirus, instant messaging, etc. Antivirus like Norton and Macafee can be real resource hogs if running one of those.

Nope I'm not running much of anything.

 

[Zorg]

I don't have Vista, but I can't imagine that much of a difference. You could Google for a post of the bench with Vista. Even though it is unlikely that it is causing the problem try disabling Vanderpool, unless you are planning on running virtual machines.

 

[nick3318]

Blah this is terribly frustrating. Is there anything I could run to get more information on the processes my CPU is running?

 

[bpogdowz]

You sure one of the processors didn't go poof because the heat generated from the other processor is enough to move the thermal diodes on the dead CPU.

 

[nick3318]

You sure one of the processors didn't go poof because the heat generated from the other processor is enough to move the thermal diodes on the dead CPU.

All the cores are getting used when running Prime95 if that's what you mean.

 

[Zorg]

Blah this is terribly frustrating. Is there anything I could run to get more information on the processes my CPU is running?

Windows Sysinternals Process Explorer v11.21

 

[nick3318]

Anything look strange? There's a bit more if I had scrolled down but nothing too important I think.

 

[Zorg]

Yeah, 23.26% for hardware interrupts is way way way too much. I suspected something was stealing cycles.

Mine sits at either 0 (no entry) or .38. (deleted) getting 2 similar threads mixed up again.
That percentage probably correlates with the difference in the bench.

Something to Google, interrupt and driver problems, I'm sure there are other people with the problem and a fix.

 

[nick3318]

Yeah, 23.26% for hardware interrupts is way way way too much. I suspected something was stealing cycles.

Mine sits at either 0 (no entry) or .38. I say it's that kicka$$ Nvidia mobo. Save yourself a lot of grief and get a cheap P45 it's worth the cash.

That percentage probably correlates with the difference in the bench.

Something to Google, interrupt and driver problems, I'm sure there are other people with the problem and a fix.

So this is possibly the problem then? What exactly are hardware interrupts? If you don't mind me asking.

Also, there's an error with the "SM Bus Controller" in device manager, it says i need drivers. Could that be whats causing the interrupts?

2nd edit: Or maybe the Killer network card i have installed (but am not using) is causing conflicts with my motherboards build in network stuff? ( For wayy lack of a better term)

 

[Zorg]

Interrupt - Wikipedia

This is old but still accurate enough, I think. System Management Bus

Anything in the device manager with an exclamation, needs to be addressed when you have a problem. That is really the first thing to do.

You need to install the chipset drivers. Go to Asus's forum and determine which is the best driver set for your mobo, the latest isn't always the best although with the Intel chipset they probably are, download and install them. Your problems may disappear.

The extra card could certainly be causing interrupt conflicts, but it's more likely the chipset drivers. If you aren't using it, then remove it. I always remove all USB drives, printers etc. and any other cards/peripheral that I can remove when testing and then put them back one at a time and test. It's the same method with the OS and programs.

This assumes, of course, that the problem can't be isolated without the more drastic measures.

 

[nick3318]

Where would i find the chipset drivers?

Are you talking about this?

"Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility V8.3.0.1013 for Windows 2000/XP & 64bit XP & 32/64bit Vista(WHQL)."

 

[Zorg]

I assume it's this one, so yes.

 

[nick3318]

Looking good so far!

50.96GIPS

43.03GFLOPS

Ill update once i do more testing.

 

[Zorg]

Cool, I think it's fixed. Whenever you get a new mobo always download and install the latest BIOS and driver revisions.

 

[nick3318]

By the way. While the chipset drivers resolved the device manager alert it was taking out the network card that took care of the hardware interrupt. There's still a hardware interrupt but its taking up maybe .73 at the most processin power. Im not sure how normal that is.

 

[bpogdowz]

My hardware interrupts is under .05%.

 

[Zorg]

I haven't had any problems with IRQ conflicts since Windows 98, so I really haven't payed attention. I wouldn't loose any sleep about .73%. If you really need the NIC you can manually change IRQ to resolve the conflict. With two gigabit connections I don't know why you would need it.