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My wife and I each have our own desktops.

Mine:
Intel Dual-Core Processor (of some speed that I don't remember)
600W PSU
MSI 9800GT w/ 6-Pin Connector
3GB Ram DDR2 (don't recall speed)
Biostar Mobo (of some sort)
32-Bit Win 7

Hers (an off-the-shelf HP):
AMD Phenom X4 2.8Ghz
8GB Ram DDR3 (don't recall speed)
XFX 9800GT
300W PSU
64-Bit Win 7

So, since we don't really play MMOs anymore we figured it'd make sense to pull the best from each computer and just make one desktop. I pulled my PSU and 9800GT (because it ran quieter and cooled better) and I put it in her machine. I also installed SC2. When I started SC2 my MSI card started making this faint high-frequency ticking. This happened regardless of what was going on the screen or the settings. When I got into the game play every couple seconds there would be a graphical lag... things would slow or stop, then speed up. During these periods of pause, the sound would stop. This also happened during Torchlight and WoW play.

Frustrated, I plugged the XFX back her machine and tried again. Same results, less ticking, louder fan, shitty gaming experience.

1) What would the ticking on the MSI be from? I noticed it gets faster when I start Torchlight. It's also there when I move the browser window around the desktop.
2) How do I stop this graphical lag?

I don't feel like either of us had problems playing WoW, SC2 or anything else... so, what gives?

Ideas needed.

(Getting a GTX570 in a few months but I'd like to play something in the meantime.)

Sounds like a fan is obstructed or broken

What Mikebro said.

Have you completely swapped things back to 100% the way they were? 2 different PCs?

If not, I'd suggest doing that, and gradually swapping one thing at a time, and try it in each machine till you figure out what is causing the issue. Isolate the problem, and the issue will be much easier to fix.

Could it be related to the video card being more powerful than the power supply permits?

Brawlsack

Taking an extended hiatus from gaming

The fan isn't obstructed by any wires and the fan/heat sink has been thoroughly cleaned with half a can of compressed air. The PSU (Rosewill 500W) that I'm using on the card is the same one I've always used with the card - both were in my weak-sauce desktop and now they're both in my wifes better-than-weak-sauce machine. I've tried both 9800GT (The MSI and the XFX) and both perform poorly in the machine with the 500W PSU. I can only test the XFX card with the 300W PSU because the 300W PSU doesn't have a 6-Pin connector that the MSI card needs. Some guy or two over at Toms Hardware think it could be a PSU problem but they haven't replied since I've posted video of the problem.



I guess I'll take my multimeter to the PSU when I get home and see if I can't dig anything up. I'm sure I can find a FAQ for PSU testing since I've only taken my multimeter to outlets and other home appliances.

If you could, please watch the video and tell me what you think.

There are voltage monitors you can run via software, usually supplied with the motherboard software, or through them. Otherwise you have speedfan to show you that as well.

Concerning the video, there's no audio. The stutter you're showing is minor and can be from things other than the video card. Do you happen to know how to run a perfmon?

I'm watching the video and I agree it is hard to notice. It could be a lot. I'm a bigger fan of HW Monitor than Speedfan, though.

Druid: Meowth
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I'll admit it is pretty hard to notice on video but it's the worst when I'm playing on the computer. You guys could see the brief stuttering, ya? Also, there is audio but you need to really crank your speakers up since the sound is sooo faint. 0:28 - 1:02 is when you should hear the buzzing since that's the part that captures the video card with a game on.


Learned about it back in college but I've been less-than-active with hardware troubleshooting over the years. Which counters should I pay closer attention to?

Just giving you guys an update since you took the time to help out...

I just swapped the old 300W PSU and the XFX Card into my wife's computer, since they were originally in her computer and it played games well enough, despite the under-powered PSU. I fired up StarCraft 2 and the game performed the same as the other configurations. I started thinking the issue lies somewhere other than the PSU and Graphic Card. To test this, I swapped 500W PSU and the MSI card into my other desktop (the Dual Core with the 32-bit OS) to see how it performed. Starcraft 2 loaded fine and ran well with Ultra settings. Since both computers were back to their original configurations but the issue still persisted on her machine I believe the problem is more than a shitty PSU/Card.

Another clue to this problem is her computer BSODing itself at random times throughout the day. I asked my wife about this and she said the machine would reboot itself from time-to-time in the two years we've owned it. I checked the Event Logs and I have 52 Critical Events between Feb 2010 and Dec 2011, where 25 have been since I made the hardware swaps.

Cruising through the details of the event log, the source for all 52 errors is 'Kernel-Power', Event ID '41' and a Task Category of '63'. "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly." is what most of the critical errors say.

Another interesting pattern I've found (which might not mean much) is that most of the Critical Kernel-Power events are followed with a BugCheck Error, within 30 seconds of the intial reboot. The BugCheck information says stuff like, "The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000019 (0x0000000000000022, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 120911-36909-01." Not exactly sure if that's significant, but I figured I'd drop it here for safe measure.

The last stuff I have to report on the issue is the results of looking at the .dmp files:

The last couple dumps... (without all the details)


Two things jump out at me: AVG and Memory Corruption.

Although I've run Memory Diagnostics on that machine I decided I would do it again. I set it to Extended Testing, with Caching turned on, and I ran it for 50 passes. It took about 17 hours to run, but it didn't report any problems. I don't know of any other ways to test the RAM but I'm not sure the general 'memory corruption' cause is the result of faulty ram or perhaps some faulty software/driver. After running the test, I booted up SC2 and it was still playing like shit. A new problem I noticed is the audio puts itself on repeat...

The other thing I tried is uninstalling AVG. If it's causing critical errors then I figured it had to go. After uninstalling it, Torchlight and SC2 appear to be running better... hell, I was able to play a bit on Ultra settings (using the 300W PSU and the XFX card), but I stopped since I was just testing. I'll try to give it more game play tomorrow to make sure the game plays well. If it plays well tomorrow, I'll try to put my 500W PSU and MSI card back in her machine.

Now, my main concern here is the 'memory corruption' errors... does that mean my RAM is going to shit (even if Memory Diagnostic Tools is coming up clean) or could that have been caused by AVG?

Anyways, will update if the 500W PSU and MSI card work fine or if I have more problems.

Thanks for the link. I tried it and I got different results.

First, with the 300W PSU and the XFX Card (the configuration I could play SC2 in), I ran the MemTest and it ran for eight hours with no problems. Since the computer seems to be running well, I decided to try again with the 500W PSU and the MSI card (hoping that the AVG issue was the underlying cause), but SC2 was running like shit again even without AVG. With this configuration I decided to run a MemTest overnight and when I woke up this morning there were 109 errors. I left the scan running all day to see what the deal is.

From Thanksgiving through the first week of December I had 25 critical errors in the log, most for possible 'memory corruption', with the 500W PSU installed. Same PSU is giving me errors now with MemTest. I think the PSU could be the culprit but I don't know how to check for certainty. I used CPUID to look at the voltage to the processor, graphics cards, etc. and both CPUs seemed to keep voltage output the same. Is there another check I could do?

Edit: Totally skipped over Speedfan and went right for HW Monitor (I think that was the one I downloaded.) I'll try speedfan tonight. Any specific values I should be looking for?

I don't always troubleshoot, but when I do, I only change one component at a time.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

You've just been schooled by Jubber on this.

Remove the MSI, keep the 500w PSU, run the memtest. Chances are your 500w PSU is shit.

More like you touch things and they never work right again.

Druid: Meowth
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My penis is proof to the contrary.