Severe System Degradation w/BVE

[cts125]

I'm hoping someone here has some help for me.....please forgive this question as it's mostly technical and not restricted only to BVE.

In the last week I have suffered severe system slow down whenever I run any application (game) that uses graphics. (system specs listed below). In the past I've had excellent frame-rates for everything. The best example I can give is in BVE. When I run this game and turn on the frame rate counter, when it's fully loaded I can actually watch as the frame-rates drop from 25-32 to 5. In MSTS, if I can get it to load the frame rates are in the 2-3 and it usually just locks up. Restarting takes about 10 minutes to fully load everything and then the system performs very slow.

No new software has been added...no other changes that I can recall. I've tried creating a hardware profile with a stripped down list...same results. Dell suggested reinstalling Windows....that's the only thing I haven't tried yet. Run virus, spyware, etc...all clear.

If anyone has any ideas I'd be most appreciative....I'm tearing my hair out here!

System:
Dell Inspiron XPS
P4 3.4Ghz
1GB Ram
ATI 9800 mobility radeon

Cts125

[call2]

RE: Severe System Degradation w/BVE

It might be a good idea to check to see if the graphics card is running cool enough. The fans on most graphics cards are very poor and are only 40mm usually. They tend to seize and then the board just sits there sizzling. If it is a fan most good computer parts stores sell (better) replacements.

Tony H
NWM

[ferrovipathe]

RE: Severe System Degradation w/BVE

>It might be a good idea to check to see if the graphics card
>is running cool enough. The fans on most graphics cards are
>very poor and are only 40mm usually. They tend to seize and
>then the board just sits there sizzling. If it is a fan most
>good computer parts stores sell (better) replacements.

Hi !
Yes, Tony H ask a good question.
I got the same problem last year with a new graphic card, it freeze my pc after 10 minutes playing games. It was a card's failure, and my dealer change it (it was new).

You can test your PC by yourself, and it is quite simple:

There are three things to do after verifing that your fan are running (CPU, graphic card,...), and cooling your PC as usual.

- First, run XP, and nothing else.
Push Ctrl-Alt-Del.
You will be able to see if something is running or not in the background (cpu charges...). If inactive system is about 99 %, everything run well, you have no trojan, virus, or 'extra' malicious software in your PC.

- Test your PC with some software like word, excel, or better pkzip, ace, some software using a lot the CPU (compressing and decompressing data is a good way to do that), but not the graphic card. If, as I expect, nothing wrong append, CPU, mother card, memory and hard disk are good.

- Then, if your pc is not slowing down with softwares except games, it's certainly a graphic card defect, a 'thermal failure'. Games push graphic card very hard, and it warm up a lot. It's normal. To prevent excessive temperature, there are thermal harware security in the GPU, as in the CPU, witch slow or stop them to prevent any damage.
That's certainly what append to your PC, and it is a Hardware failure, not a software problem. Reinstalling everything is not the soluce, but dealer as Dell suggest always reinstalling windows because hardware fealure is not frequent ( some %), and they don't want to spend too more time with calling people (and sometime, hotline don't know what to do.....)

Test your pc with something like 3D Mark 05 or 06 (http://www.futuremark.com/download/?3dmark05.shtml), it push your graphic card very very hard (nothing bad can append, because the harware security), and it's made for it, testing hardware's performances. And your card MUST support that test.

If your card is bad, it'll freezze in few minutes, and must be changed. If changing fan can be usefull when overclocking graphic card, in other cases 'poor' fan is enougth to refresh it, because it is build for that. And card's maufactors don't want to see their products back.

So, test your card with 3D Mark. If it freezze, it's a hardware failure, and the only soluce is to change that graphic card because it's out of range, and don't support to warm up normaly. There is no other way, and it is not a good new, because, with Dell, you must send back your pc to it.
That's why there is a garanty on harware, because most of failures like these append during first year of use.

And don't forget to save your data before sending back to Dell your PC, in case of they send to you a new PC .

All the best.

[nigelb]

RE: Severe System Degradation w/BVE

Only re-install windows as a last resort! Dell so-called "customer support" has the habit of telling that to anyone with a problem that the Dell techs can't identify and fix. With the level of tech knowledge at Dell, that means a lot of re-installs, most of which were probably not needed.

If it is the graphics card and if it was part of your Dell purchase and still under waranty, demand a new replacement from Dell.

[tof63]

RE: Severe System Degradation w/BVE

Dell Inspiron XPS is a notebook...

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspn_xps?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~tab=viewstab#tabtop

May it be you have set (not willing) any battery charge saver option?

Luigi Cartello

http://bve.altervista.org/

http://web.tiscali.it/lcartello/

[J_Legrand]

RE: Severe System Degradation w/BVE

I would also say that's a Fan problems.
I've had the same problems with a home PC, but it was my CPU Fan.

You can also try SpeedFan (google it) to see if your PC/CPU temperatures are too high. If that's a notebook.. Don't know many things about it.. But you can try to clean the fan(s).

Also, if nothing help, Google is your friend :-P.