Weird Problem

2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Reading through this, given where we are, it should not surprise you that you are getting primarily hardware type answers. But in truth I think it's probably a timing issue... (i.e. drivers)

1) Go into Control Panel-> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler.
Shut down everything you don't absolutely need to do your day to day computer tasks. Especially disable Microsoft's spyware, background diagnostics, full time virus scans, etc.

2) Set Automatic Updates to manual, so that you have to go and get them.
Old technician's adage: "If it ain't broke... don't fix it". I NEVER use automatic updates and I've run a single installation of win2000 from 1999 to 2006, replacing it with a single installation of XP from 2006 to early this year... Now I expect to run a single installation of Win7 x64 for another 5 years. I install service packs, pick and choose my updates and always get drivers from the manufacturer's website... I've never yet had a problem.

3) Remove/disable ALL virus scanner software... that's right ALL of it.
Think about it... when's the last time it actually did anything? Most home users probably get one virus threat a year but run 3 and 4 background scanners that do nothing but wast CPU time for the other 364 days. If you suspect a virus on your computer, scan it manually. A good manual scanner is HERE

4) Get hold of the DPC Latency checker and run it.
This tool will tell you if your system is multitasking smoothly. Any large spikes on the graph (over about 500us) should be considered problematic and you should read the page for detail about how to track them down (the checker just checks, it doesn't diagnose).

5) Keep a real close eye on your system temperatures CPU, GPU, ChipSet etc. any marginal overheating could be causing "micro-stutters" where the device's thermal protections are kicking in for a few microseconds causing a system lockup. Cooler is better and often when overclocking you will find yourself wanting a full-out liquid cooling system to keep things sane. I can attest with highest confidence that the "stock" coolers supplied by AMD are not going to be anwhere near good enough for consistent overclocking.

6) Go into your BIOS and look for a setting named "PCI Latency" or similar.
This setting controls how long a PCI device can hold the I/O buss before the system shuts it down. You want to find the lowest setting that gives reliable operation. (Not all MBs have this feature, but if it's there, it may simply be set too high.)



Hope this helps...
 

TheCrimsonStar

Tech Monkey
Alrighty...
1.) Done
2.) Done
3.) Umm...I'll keep it on. I've never had issues with it before..I use PC Tools Spyware Doctor/Antivirus and it only runs early in the morning when I'm asleep. If I'm gaming it automatically puts itself into Game Mode (doesn't run scans and puts itself into minimal memory usage mode). Just 2 months ago I got a rogue spyware program on my computer running just MSE...so I reinstalled SD on my computer.
4.)Tried it, and I got a few spikes of 1000 - 1300, but at random times...they're not consistent and it only happened a few times. hasn't happened in the last ten minutes or so. It never rose above 230 when I was playing BC2. It's currently hanging around 170.
5.) I've been keeping an eye on my temps...CPU never rose above 44C ingame, and my GPU hasn't EVER gone above 75C ingame...that was only once. It stays around 65C.
6.) I'll try that. Thanks for the info.

Maybe I should just reinstall windows and solve all these problems :p
 

TheCrimsonStar

Tech Monkey
Omg...I just saw something in Tom's Hardware forums. Someone is having the SAME issue I am, and recently too. Like 3 weeks ago recently. One person asked if he runs MSI Afterburner for overclocking his GPU, and says that it has a conflicting problem with BC2.

I just downloaded MSI Afterburner 2.1, after upgrading from 2.0...that's when the problem started. I can't believe I didn't see it before...I just removed it and I'm installing 2.0 again. Gonna test in a few minutes.
 

2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
4.)Tried it, and I got a few spikes of 1000 - 1300, but at random times...they're not consistent and it only happened a few times.

That's not good... The spikes are not random, something is causing them... background services that don't multitask well (The disk and media center indexers are prime suspects), drivers holding timeshares (wireless is bad for this, as are some sound drivers) or software that uses really tight loops (Norton and variuos DVD burners are bad for this)... You should experiment, turning things off one at a time and watching for a while... if the spikes stop turn it back on and see if the spikes resume.

One other thing you can try, is to disable the superfetch service (one of Microsoft's poorly enacted wonderful ideas)...

Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services -> Superfetch == disabled.

DPC spikes are not a minor issue... I've seen all kinds of crap caused by them, including one system that constantly lost it's BIOS settings until I found a bad Atheros driver and replaced it... Weird stuff... truly weird stuff.

Oh and FWIW... DPC on XP and 2000 typically runs 17 to 20us.
 

TheCrimsonStar

Tech Monkey
WELL THEN. It was MSI Afterburner. Apparently BC2 does not like the newest stable build (2.1)...so I reverted back to 2.0 and played for about 2 hours with no issue. Not gonna order the PSU right away now...but it's on my buy list for Battlefield 3.
 

marfig

No ROM battery
Can't you just use MSI to OC the card and then exit it, or you need the the other functionality? I can't say I ever used it for anything other than OC. I then use FRAPS for recording or OSD.
 

marfig

No ROM battery
Hmm... now I'm confused.

When I use MSI (granted it's not something I use often) I just set an OC, apply it and then close the program. My OC stays activated until I reboot, at least judging from AIDA64 reporting.
 

DarkStarr

Tech Monkey
Its because MSI AB goes to the tray by default if I recall correctly so it seems like its closed even when its in the tray.
 

marfig

No ROM battery
Its because MSI AB goes to the tray by default if I recall correctly so it seems like its closed even when its in the tray.

I see no trace of Afterburner either on the tray or on my processes list after I close it. can it be that AIDA64 doesn't update correctly after I close Afterburner?

I know this if off-topic. But the original problem is solved anyways. :) Just got curious because I never knew MSI Afterburner had that behavior exactly because of how it is being reported to me. I will definitely take a better look at this. I don't OC often. So I always assumed this was MSI typical behavior.
 

TheCrimsonStar

Tech Monkey
haha...Kayden, I didn't get the new PSU yet. I'm going to wait to get that along with my second 6870 for BF3 in a month or so. My current PSU only has two 6-pin PCIe connectors, and the 6870's take 2 each. I don't want to use molex to PCIe adapters...noooo way. lol
 

Kayden

Tech Monkey
Yeah I don't trust PSU with out the proper connections myself either, good call. Just glad you didn't burn that cash on the PSU just yet if you didn't need to (c:

Next time you hop on raptr I got something to tell you when I see you.
 
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