PC games lag and Graphic's card not seen by PC

[BorisTheAnimal]

Through the years I have tried Driver Programs and all they did was cause problems and took forever to hunt them
down and remove all the foot prints.

With that birds nest of wires and harness how would one even know if the video card was even plugged in properly and the
proper harness plugged into the proper places?
Their is enough crud in that computer to start a potato patch.

So my suggestions are simple starting with some basics.

1. Clean the filth out of the computer.
2. Clean up that birds nest of wiring and then verify everything is plugged in properly. It's called cable management.
3. Verify that the proper drivers are installed from the manufacture of the video card.
4. Do as Golden suggested; run sfc /scannow and see if Windows 7 System is having any problems.
-----------
When those things are done we need to know the results. Then we can give more guidance.
Their may or may not be more problems.
If the power supply fan and innards have the crud I think it has, its probable well done toast.
DO NOT take the power supply apart to clean.

4. *Do as BTA suggested.

 

[FerchogtX]

Just for the record... are you able to test that VGA in another cappable PC? Just to know if it is not dead...

 

[ICIT2LOL]

How will a ckdsk fix a graphics card issue?

Hmm just thought it a bit logical to do one if the SFC is going to be done anyway I will keep out of this one.

 

[mesmerrow]

Well presumably it is the power cables you are seeing those are the only ones that are plugged into the graphics card inside the case and it seems Acer has done some cable management.
But yes please a picture might come in handy.

Or if this is becoming too technical for you then you can bring it to the shop where you bought the computer and get help there, but that means that you need to have the receipt and warranty under control.

I turned the pc on while having the upper metal plate off, and the AMD graphics card's fan is running fine, as well as the other fans inside the pc, i spotted nothing unusual.

PS: I do remove the dust very carefully once in a while.

It's an old desktop from 2012 from an official electronics's store, i don't think they will.

Uhm, alright well sorry for not replying sooner I'm just baffled as what the issue might be.

Not that this has anything to do with this specific error but could you perform this:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

Just to make sure that we aren't looking at this issue in the wrong way.

Just did as you recommended and it found no issues, i even ran it twice just to be sure.

 

[mesmerrow]

Just for the record... are you able to test that VGA in another cappable PC? Just to know if it is not dead...

No i only have one desktop pc, but maybe i could try to connect it from my pc to my smart tv, would that count ?

 

[mesmerrow]

Through the years I have tried Driver Programs and all they did was cause problems and took forever to hunt them
down and remove all the foot prints.

With that birds nest of wires and harness how would one even know if the video card was even plugged in properly and the
proper harness plugged into the proper places?
Their is enough crud in that computer to start a potato patch.

So my suggestions are simple starting with some basics.

1. Clean the filth out of the computer.
2. Clean up that birds nest of wiring and then verify everything is plugged in properly. It's called cable management.
3. Verify that the proper drivers are installed from the manufacture of the video card.
4. Do as Golden suggested; run sfc /scannow and see if Windows 7 System is having any problems.
-----------
When those things are done we need to know the results. Then we can give more guidance.
Their may or may not be more problems.
If the power supply fan and innards have the crud I think it has, its probable well done toast.
DO NOT take the power supply apart to clean.

To be honest i have not touched the inside much and i have done some dust cleaning on it very carefully before.

i have checked that everything is properly connected and (nearly) dust free twice since this problem started.

 

[mesmerrow]

Yep well I would even throw in http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html < if necessary include the /f and /r in the command line as per Option2

But see my pics for testing the volts - the important thing is you keep yourself grounded by touching the case a few times and NOT touching the PSU

Just did a disk check but nothing new.

 

[mesmerrow]

I am sorry for being away for so long but i had some personal matters to take care of, well i am back !

And i still need help with this sadly.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Mate if you can test that PSU because if the machine is that old then it is indeed a likely cause of problems
Just to remind you
Using HW Info
PART A:
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic. In my pic the section (Nuvoton) with VBATT is a dead give away you are in the section for the rail voltages. There are other section titles and one that pops up often is ITE
Now the voltage on the different rails have to be within 5% =+/- of what is required or the machine will not work properly if at all.
ATX Minimum Specs:

3.3v Rail (ORANGE) (Min: 3.14v Max: 3.47v)

5v Rail (RED) (Min: 4.75v Max: 5.25v)

12v Rail (YELLOW) (Min: 11.4v Max: 12.6v)

(GREY CABLE PIN 8 - 5v = Power Good signal)

0v “Rail” (ALL BLACK cables, case, and board fixing screws)
See this for the rail voltage info
Power Supply 101: A Reference Of Specifications - Power Supplies (Section 2.)
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
PART B:
Open each small square with + in it on the section the components are in and then click on the individual component/s (it will highlight in blue) - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that particular device. See pic for example.

Now all I want to see is that section as in the pic of the voltage rails - if you have problems posting a pic just type what the voltages are or ask

 

[mesmerrow]

Mate if you can test that PSU because if the machine is that old then it is indeed a likely cause of problems
Just to remind you
Using HW Info
PART A:
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic. In my pic the section (Nuvoton) with VBATT is a dead give away you are in the section for the rail voltages. There are other section titles and one that pops up often is ITE
Now the voltage on the different rails have to be within 5% =+/- of what is required or the machine will not work properly if at all.
ATX Minimum Specs:

3.3v Rail (ORANGE) (Min: 3.14v Max: 3.47v)

5v Rail (RED) (Min: 4.75v Max: 5.25v)

12v Rail (YELLOW) (Min: 11.4v Max: 12.6v)

(GREY CABLE PIN 8 - 5v = Power Good signal)

0v “Rail” (ALL BLACK cables, case, and board fixing screws)
See this for the rail voltage info
Power Supply 101: A Reference Of Specifications - Power Supplies (Section 2.)
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
PART B:
Open each small square with + in it on the section the components are in and then click on the individual component/s (it will highlight in blue) - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that particular device. See pic for example.

Now all I want to see is that section as in the pic of the voltage rails - if you have problems posting a pic just type what the voltages are or ask

As i stated previously this program is a bit too complicated for me and the screenshots only add's to the confusion since i am looking at different words and numbers (not the percents)

But i tried one more time and here is the results.

PS: I am not 100% sure what you want to see so i took screenshots of it all.

 

[mesmerrow]

I can confirm that my AMD graphics card is running without being plugged in, but only seated or plugged in from below.

 

[mesmerrow]

It's been sometimes since i started this thread and i wanted to go back to the main core issue for a moment and mention where everything started.

It was just another day on my pc, after playing Warframe a video game on Steam i chose to update my display drivers using Driver Booster and go to bed, sadly the next morning the very same game was now unplayable, everything was going slow-motion and the effects and lightning shines and pops up all over the place, it seemed more like the pc was trying to load far too many things at a time but the weird thing is that the sound worked perfectly normal, of course i tried to fix it my self at the beginning (while still being very careful) but no luck so i decided to seek help on Toms hardware sadly never got more then 2-4 responses so i came here and was blown away with how helpful people where.
While the issue is still there, i believe it is fixable since the AMD graphics driver fan is running.

I have also collected all the screen-shots and pictures i have taken over the time of this issue right here Acer trouble - Album on Imgur

I do have another program called speccy from piriform that might provide more information.
But here is the requested info.

Um is this a laptop or are you using a desktop?
Have you tried going to the respective graphics card websites using their auto-detect utility?

AMD:
AMD Driver Autodetect

NVIDIA:
NVIDIA Driver Downloads - Automatically Detect NVIDIA Products

That's the main problem, my pc can't see anything other then the Intel display driver,
and because of that the auto detect can't do anything.

the AMD catalyst won't work properly, it seems to install just fine but it never boot's up, not even in safe mode that means the pc has no means of detecting that there is any AMD card at all, since there is nothing to prove it.

Think about it like a cycle pc can't see AMD display driver > AMD auto detect won't work because the pc can't see the AMD display driver > AMD Catalyst won't boot up so there is nothing proving to the pc there is anything AMD related>



Or at least that's how i see it.

 

[FerchogtX]

The fan spinning is meaningless... a dead GPU or CPU can still have a working fan...
I really suggest to check if your VGA is dead... there is a high possibility it is... BUT there is also a possibility your PCI-e Slot is dead and the VGA works... if it's the later, it won't be as expensive as buyng another VGA...

Try to see if someone in a shop or somewhere can see if your VGA works by plugging it on another PC... if it does, its the PCI-e Slot... if not... well, bad news...

 

[ICIT2LOL]

The fan spinning is meaningless... a dead GPU or CPU can still have a working fan...
I really suggest to check if your VGA is dead... there is a high possibility it is... BUT there is also a possibility your PCI-e Slot is dead and the VGA works... if it's the later, it won't be as expensive as buyng another VGA...

Try to see if someone in a shop or somewhere can see if your VGA works by plugging it on another PC... if it does, its the PCI-e Slot... if not... well, bad news...

Yep I just mentioned the fan to see if power was getting through I kow it doesn't necessarily mena the guts of it are ok

 

[mesmerrow]

The fan spinning is meaningless... a dead GPU or CPU can still have a working fan...
I really suggest to check if your VGA is dead... there is a high possibility it is... BUT there is also a possibility your PCI-e Slot is dead and the VGA works... if it's the later, it won't be as expensive as buyng another VGA...

Try to see if someone in a shop or somewhere can see if your VGA works by plugging it on another PC... if it does, its the PCI-e Slot... if not... well, bad news...

Well as i stated earlier it's an old pc from 2012, i doubt fixing it would be worth it here in Denmark.

The process would be like this
*throw it in some pc workshop
*wait a couple of days
*pay for a checkup
*wait for it to be repaired
*pay for the repair costs
*and at the end of it all you realize you just payed half of the price you bought it for back in 2012.

you see where i am going with this ? i could have gone directly to some workshop nearby without even coming here or wasting over a month testing my luck with this issue, sadly the repair costs here would end up costing nearly half of what the pc was bought for back then if not half of the price.

I am not angry in any way shape or from, i am simply frustrated, specially since my pc decided to break down at a time where i don't exactly have many options if any.

 

[FerchogtX]

Sorry if I gave the wrong impression...

What I meant is that, probably a fella can help you testing the VGA out, so you don't have to pay... I feel it's an important step to discard that your VGA is dead, since it exhibits all the symptoms of a dead hardware (some PCI LAN cards did this when they died, the OS simply won't detect them anymore)... Other thing is that maybe a die on the GPU might be loose, so it looks like the card is dead, but could use some reballing (common on laptop systems, but I've seen a pair of comrades that did this as well on a desktop).

Again, this totally sounds like a hardware issue for me, if not, the drivers should work and recognize the card installed, even Windows cannot see it from what I've read... I really hope you can find someone that would help you test your VGA, so you can discard that either the PCI-e port is dead, the VGA, or it just needs a reballing to go as better as new.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I can't remember seeing it but have you tried reseating RAM sticks and maybe a memtest - just to rule it out??

 

[mesmerrow]

I have read every comment here multiple times and tried every suggestion commented so far, and here is my final explanation.
"PC's are strange beasts" Driver Booster 3 started all of this according to my first comment, it made sense that it should have been the core to my issue, but the more i think about it the less i believe in it,
Driver Booster 3 might have updated my display adapters that night shortly before it automatically shutdown my pc as requested, but my graphics card might already have been dying, in fact it might already have been struggling and Driver Booster 3 was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, since my computer generated no log or detected any issues while this happened, it leads me to believe that it might have already been an issue.


From different sources around the internet and from Seven-forums it self i have come to the conclusion that i need a new graphics card.

I found one that seemed decent here:

https://www.computersalg.dk/i/1156595/xfx-radeon-r7-360-core-edition?sq=r7

It's newer then my current (dead) graphics card and reviews praise it (mostly) and has a fair price label.
However i will still get it checked at some pc workshop.

PS: I will return and leave one last comment early next month once i have gotten my computer checked and new graphics card installed, with that comment i will confirm my computers current status and update my specs.

 

[FerchogtX]

I thought almost the same... while Driver Boster upgraded your drivers, maybe the VGA was just dying, then you rebooted and Windows didn't see it anymore.
That happened to me with a LAN card, suddenly, one day, it just died, and windows didn't see it anymore.

Glad to see you found a good replacement, good luck bud