quad core PC can't play games anymore??

[B737Pilot]

I've been playing Flight Simulator X for a while now, as well as other games. A few days ago my games have been very laggy (dropping to 1-5 FPS) and I have no clue why. I've cleared my temp folders, updated my graphics card driver (it fixed it for about 5 seconds) and everything I can think of. Flight Simulator X could play as smooth as it gets on high settings but even on low settings it is very laggy and slow. I did buy and add a payware addon aircraft (PMDG 737) and I believed this could be the reason it was so slow due to being so detailed, but sadly wasn't the case after uninstalling and trying again. I've tried to use the Razer Cortex to boost my game but it only upgraded 2-5 FPS.
My PC specs are:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 Processor (3.20 GHz)
8.00GB RAM
64 Bit
GeForce GT 520 Graphics Card


Just to add: I checked my CPU usage and the regular percentage is 2-5 percent but even starting the Flight Simulator X menu it shoots up to 70+ percent.

Cheers

 

[COLGeek]

Have you scanned your system for viruses/malware lately? Also, what are your CPU and GPU operating temperatures at idle and under load?

 

[B737Pilot]

Have you scanned your system for viruses/malware lately? Also, what are your CPU and GPU operating temperatures at idle and under load?

GPU without load is roughly 49 degrees and core 1-4 is 27 degrees.
Under load it is near the same for both. Would it be a good idea to overclock it?

 

[COLGeek]

How about the scans? Temps look okay.

 

[B737Pilot]

How about the scans? Temps look okay.

added anti-virus (Kaspersky internet security) and malwarebytes a few days ago. found a load of viruses but they are gone. checked today and all fine. no viruses or anything else.

 

[COLGeek]

Good. So no odd processes running in the background?

Have you installed any other mods to FSX (other than the 737)? Any other apps been installed recently?

 

[B737Pilot]

Good. So no odd processes running in the background?

Have you installed any other mods to FSX (other than the 737)? Any other apps been installed recently?

Only thing is the uninstallation of REX as I thought this was the case as it causes me some lag, but I was wrong. I have the Aerosoft Airbus X but that worked fine before the lag came.

 

[COLGeek]

You have more than enough CPU horsepower for FSX. Your GPU is a bit underwhelming though and is really an entry level model. I suspect the GPU is getter hotter than you realize and is throttling itself (thus the questions earlier).

Do you have any other games installed? If so, are they performing as expected?

 

[B737Pilot]

You have more than enough CPU horsepower for FSX. Your GPU is a bit underwhelming though and is really an entry level model. I suspect the GPU is getter hotter than you realize and is throttling itself (thus the questions earlier).

Do you have any other games installed? If so, are they performing as expected?

its a custom built 2 month old PC but I do have 2 games and the other apart from FSX is farming simulator 2015, which performed great until the lag like FSX.

 

[Lam1080p]

Try getting a game booster program: www.razerzone.com/gb-en/cortex/game-booster

Or try de-dusting, despite it being 2 months old, or atleast check it.

I hope this helps

 

[logainofhades]

I would try a system restore. Could be something that caused an issue with some kind of update. Restore to a system restore point made prior to your issue.

 

[B737Pilot]

Try getting a game booster program: www.razerzone.com/gb-en/cortex/game-booster

Or try de-dusting, despite it being 2 months old, or atleast check it.

I hope this helps

Technically, it has helped, it upped the FPS a bit but I still can't understand why my games are now slow... very confusing haha.

 

[Lam1080p]

Try getting a game booster program: www.razerzone.com/gb-en/cortex/game-booster

Or try de-dusting, despite it being 2 months old, or atleast check it.

I hope this helps

Technically, it has helped, it upped the FPS a bit but I still can't understand why my games are now slow... very confusing haha.

Glad it helped,
Try virus scanning,
check your hard drive, if it's quite full, that may cause lag.

If worst comes to worst, reset if it's Windows 8, I think it'll need resetting, because I have had to reset my laptop loads.

 

[B737Pilot]

Try getting a game booster program: www.razerzone.com/gb-en/cortex/game-booster

Or try de-dusting, despite it being 2 months old, or atleast check it.

I hope this helps

I would try a system restore. Could be something that caused an issue with some kind of update. Restore to a system restore point made prior to your issue.

I opened the PC up and cleaned a bit of dust (wasn't much) tried the games again but no change. I also tried a system restore but the last backup was after the problem and even then it failed, so. I can't understand why one day the games work great then next day they slow down to 2 fps.

 

[UnitedExpress4180]

Given nothing else has worked, you might consider reinstalling Windows (do a backup first, of course). Not ideal, I realize, but I've had this happen once, reinstalling fixed it.

When you do your backup, copy the entire directory for each of your games (plus any gamesaves) over to your backup drive. That way, after doing a reinstall, you can install those games back onto your system, then overwrite the entire directory to get them back the way they were before you reinstalled (mods/addons and all).

 

[B737Pilot]

I do believe I've done it.
This is how I fixed it:

In System properties I clicked system protection and then onto configure and moved the slider to the far right so it was on max. Being as it was supposed to be system protection, I'm surprised that it worked. After starting Flight Simulator on i started a flight with the default aircraft (ultralite) on Friday Harbor and was getting around 100-200 FPS, I then proceeded to load up the PMDG, in other words, very very detailed aircraft, and got around 30 FPS, I upped the settings and got 15-20, which is very very minimal lag, if any. After 5 minutes or so it became very slow again but after starting task manager and checking what was chewing up the CPU in processes, "Steam.exe" was consuming around 30 percent, I closed that process and everything was fine.

I'd like to thank everybody on this thread for helping, it is appreciated.

 

[Lam1080p]

I do believe I've done it.
This is how I fixed it:

In System properties I clicked system protection and then onto configure and moved the slider to the far right so it was on max. Being as it was supposed to be system protection, I'm surprised that it worked. After starting Flight Simulator on i started a flight with the default aircraft (ultralite) on Friday Harbor and was getting around 100-200 FPS, I then proceeded to load up the PMDG, in other words, very very detailed aircraft, and got around 30 FPS, I upped the settings and got 15-20, which is very very minimal lag, if any. After 5 minutes or so it became very slow again but after starting task manager and checking what was chewing up the CPU in processes, "Steam.exe" was consuming around 30 percent, I closed that process and everything was fine.

I'd like to thank everybody on this thread for helping, it is appreciated.

Sorry we couldn't fix it, but congratulations on finding a solution

 

[yumri]

to fix that thing with steam you should probably uninstall and reinstall steam as it is most likely due to something in steam not working right anymore on your system and a uninstall / reinstall should clear it all up