Mother Technology hates me. But that's okay.. this is not.

Thanks for the link, my PSU (350W) is well above the necessary power to run my machine.

Now for my second question, some more information:

My soundcard is a Realtek AC97 Audio.

Thankyou for your time,

Toiletman. =D

P.S. I am going to try and find some updated drivers for this thing.

 

There also seems to be a physical installation error, and I've used my wonderful Picasso Paint skills to show and enlighten your mind:



Could this be the real problem?

 

Well the picture is overly exaggerated, it's just that the VGA Port is SLIGHTLY slanted, so I don't know whether that could be a problem or not.

 

Uh, that power tool is horribly bogus. Anyone who knows computers should realize that the rating on a given PSU means absolutely nothing. The rated "wattage" is just what the PSU is technically capable of when under a "THEORETICAL" 100% load on every volt rail. In reality, however, such a load never comes up unless you intentionally cross every rail to ground with the apropriate resistors.

More important than what the company claims of their unit's wattage is the current allocated to each volt rail, and the brand name of the PSU. I deal exclusively with PC-P&C (PC Power & Cooling, for all you nubs out there), and have never recieved a single DoA from them, nor have I ever had a single problem yet. I've already lost count of how many other brand of PSUs I've replaced: Antec, Aspire, Enermax, and countless generics (Allied Tech, Deer, etc). For my tastes, even IF they're sufficiently rated for your system the voltages tend to vary too much for safe, prolonged operation under load (I.E. gaming)

Also, an off-center VGA port isn't really a bad thing by itself, but you want to make sure that the card is indeed properly mounted to the mobo. Is it pushed in completely? If the mobo has a clip that holds the AGP in place, is that tight? And what of the holding screw that keeps the card in line? Under most circumstances, a droopy card isn't anything to be worried about, but when you're dealing with a piece of a computer that costs almost as much as an overpriced Dell Trash-tination XPS, you can never be too careful. Warrantee doesn't cover damage due to incorrect installation.

To help clear your computer from crap that doesn't need to be running in the first place, head on over to the following URL and read their downloadable guide on this matter:

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

After that, make sure you keep up-to-date with your Antivirus program (I personally suggest the use of Avast! Antivirus: Free for home use), keep up with Ad-Aware and SpyBot S&D (both are freeware also), and you should be fine on the OS side of things. Run 3DMark03 or 05 edition and compare your scores to those of other people who have similar systems. If your results are still unsatisfactory, the drivers may be the issue.

As for the drivers, make sure you have updated AGP/IDE/Chipset drivers from your motherboard manufacturer (assuming your system isn't an OEM - Dell, HP, or other trashy brands), and it is especially important to keep updated with Windows Update (assuming you use Windows as your primary OS). Next step is to download updated drivers for your other devices from the manufacturers' websites, and to do clean uninstalls for each device you're updating. I can't emphasize the importance of this enough. I've fixed countless "IRQ_NOT_LESS...." stop errors by simply doing a clean uninstallation/reinstallation of the display and sound drivers. As for exact instructions, you should be able to pull those up from the manufacturers' websites. For VidCards, it really is a good idea to also download a driver-cleaner of some sort to aid in the clean removal of all associated files prior to the reinstallation. They're free, and can save you a HUGE number of painful headaches. Also, make SURE your 3D preferences in the control panel are all set to "Application Preference" where applicable. If you run 3DMark05 with them set to "Always On" in the control panel, your bench score will greatly decline (since your drivers are forcing those options to be used instead of the benchmark, so it won't be calculated into your final score). Same thing can be said for games, too. In general, you want to have the game determine what's used and what isn't (but if you have an LCD monitor with a super-fast response time *like me!*, you may want to set the v-sync to "Always On" simply because it will result in no tearing during high-movement sections - but it can cause a minor delay between movement and response if your computer can't handle it).

With all that said, you should now be in good order. If not, the problem is no longer software-related, and we must then travel into the vast realm of hardware issue troubleshooting. Time to get your multimeter (or borrow from a friend if you don't have one) and report back here if you still seem to be getting lower results than you should.

 

Well I did a clean reinstall of the latest drivers, and while I uninstalled my "test game" (Which was the F.E.A.R. demo by the way, lots of people seem to have problems with it, otherwise a stunning demo), I have been playing all the great new releases out without a hiccup.

However, these great new releases are nowhere near as graphically intensive nor splendorous as F.E.A.R., so we'll see if I still have my problem.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try and correct the slanted X800 port. Right now the games I'm talking about are: Dungeon Siege II, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Advent Rising.

 

Toiletman , have you tried the radeon catalyst 5.8 driver http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1159 the latest VIA chipset drivers i could find were the 5.00a http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1085 ... what fps you getting in the CS:S stress test

 

I should be getting the ones from MSI (my motherboard brand) instead of ATi? Why so? Is it because MSI provides the drivers they fully support?

 

I'm quoting him. =D

 

Toiletman, when you say you did a clean uninstall did you follow it up by using driver cleaner pro in safe mode after to remove any trace of the old driver ?

 

i have my aperture set at 256
64 seems awfully low

 

Yes.

In my previous posts I have set it to 256, so it's all good. =D

 

I think I've found my problem! It's Texture Thrashing, I found the description here:

http://doom.neoseeker.com/DOOM_3/PC/pages/problems_and_fixesa/

That pretty much describes my whole problem with most games.

Of the recent games released, F.E.A.R. had the most texture thrashing. When I exit F.E.A.R, Windows gives me the "Low on Virtual Memory" Error.