Solved 8-Core, overclocked machine slow...

[JoesMorgue]

In late July, I built what I thought would be a POWERHOUSE of a machine for our living room family computer. 8-Cores running at 4.139 Ghz, 16 Gigs of RAM [4 Gigs set up as a RamDrive to reduce wear of 120 Gig SSD]

My daughter plays a flash game on it, and it's SO CHOPPY! It is actually spending more time frozen than animating! Outside of one of those system test programs, I've never had even 4 cores maxed, let alone 8.

I know Microsoft has not written good drivers for it, so I do take that into some considerations, but this thing should fly even if only using a single core.

 

[OldMX]

Update videocard driver and flash version?

 

[x BlueRobot]

Is the flash game online? Have you installed the latest graphics drivers and flash versions as suggested by OldMX, have you considered updating to the latest chipset drivers?

 

[mrmah]

what is the game your daughter is playing?? is it a new released game or an old one?? also make sure that every thing on your PC is up to date

 

[JoesMorgue]

One of the games my daughters try to play [and it acted up] is Cosmic Crush. My youngest spends a lot of time on MostFunGames.Com.

I've done all the updates. Although, I think there was a flash update on yesterday's reboot [from a BSOD]

 

[x BlueRobot]

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

Use the tutorial to upload your dump and other necessary files to this thread in your next post.

 

[JoesMorgue]

OK. I attached the dump from my last BSOD.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but this machine does not get shut down very often. It sleeps after 20 minutes, so it hasn't been powered down for an hour since it was put together.

After the BSOD, I did check for updates, and there were two that I added.

 

[x BlueRobot]

Both of the BSODs are pointing to:

STOP 0x00000050: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

[B]Usual causes:[/B]  Defective hardware (particularly memory - but not just RAM), Faulty system service, Antivirus,  Device driver, NTFS corruption, BIOS

The BSOD probably caused line pointed to:

Driver Reference Table - win32k.sys

[B]Probably caused by :[/B] [COLOR="Red"]win32k.sys[/COLOR] ( win32k!MulDeleteDeviceOrRedirectionBitmap+21 )

Image path: win32k.sys
    Image name: win32k.sys
    Timestamp:        [COLOR="Red"]Wed Jul 18 19:14:37 2012 (5006FD0D)[/COLOR]

I don't think the Windows driver is the problem, I would suggest running these two programs:

• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html
• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/101379-driver-verifier-enable-disable.html

 

[JoesMorgue]

Both set up. Ready to start testing...

 

[JoesMorgue]

Just started the Memtest. A few details:

Memtest86+ v4.2 Right now, it's at: Pass 6%

Tst Pass Failing Address Good Bad Err-Bits Count Chan
--- ----- ----------------------------- -------- --------- ---------- ------ -----
3 0 0011936ad78 - 4499.4MB 7f7f7f7f 7f5f7f7f 00200000 1

I think this is a bad sign...

Looking over it, it says 58 errors. I'm thinking about uploading a pic of the screen, but I want to let it run before [SHOULD I?] I do [IF I do]

 

[JoesMorgue]

I spent time on the phone with Corsair. They said the memory problems I had was due to the DRAM settings were improperly set in BIOS. I set them to their recommendations and Memtest86+ went to 10% without errors.

Now, my daughter is trying to read a news story. A total of 3 browser windows are open, less than 5 tabs total, and it's acting slow! One is on Ninja Kiwi's BTD5 title screen. [Only flash game up]

iexplore.exe had the highest CPU in Task Manager with a CPU of 17-21 [keeps changing] and using about 379,000k. The other 7 processes have a load of less than 09. The rest of the 69 processes are at 00.

CPU load is 54% at the time the screensaver kicked in. Core loads are 61%, 68%, 67%, 67%, 69%, 74%, 74%, and 45%. Those are typical to what I was watching before I started writing this [on a different machine.]

 

[Solarstarshines]

Well have you thought about some of the sites you visited left little gifts behind ?

that ussually happens if you play games from, a free game site you have alot of stuff thrown in there with your cookies

I would do a full virus scan and full history and browser sweep

I can assure you it isnt the hardware it sounds more of a virus and browser-ware issue

 

[x BlueRobot]

Some free programs you can use to scan your system for viruses and other malware:

• Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Windows
• Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller

Has the memory test found any errors after changing to the recommended settings in the BIOS?

 

[Wrend]

Your CPU (unless it is amazingly bad) shouldn't be loaded that much by the sound of what you have running. My CPU only gets to about maybe 10% playing new high-end video games. I donate the extra clocks to BOINC to keep my CPU loaded to about 85% and go about my normal business with that running in the background.

I've heard AMD doesn't perform quite as well as Intel these days, but surely not that poorly.

 

[JoesMorgue]

Updates for you:

I forgot to turn of Verifier, once I did that, my CPU loads dropped down to almost Zero!

I ran the MemTest86+ last night, actually let it run all night, and I had errors in the same place [4499.4MB]

I'm thinking about pulling 3 sticks and running the test tonight. [It's hard to do it during the day, it's the main PC in our house]

 

[Layback Bear]

I noticed this in your specs, (Memory 16 Gigs [4 as RamDrive]). I don't understand the meaning. Could you explain.

 

[Solarstarshines]

Updates for you:

I forgot to turn of Verifier, once I did that, my CPU loads dropped down to almost Zero!

I ran the MemTest86+ last night, actually let it run all night, and I had errors in the same place [4499.4MB]

I'm thinking about pulling 3 sticks and running the test tonight. [It's hard to do it during the day, it's the main PC in our house]

Uhmmm hate to be a Killjoy but if your running 12 Gb of ram AMD will run it in single channel i don't think it really functions properly with 12gb installed ussually 4-8-16-32 those are about the best you would get intel untalizes ram installed like that really well you should just run with 8gb im sure it will kill the memtest error

 

[JoesMorgue]

The machine has 16 Gigs [four 4-Gig sticks] of RAM, but because it has an SSD, I create a 4 Gig RamDrive at boot, and have %Temp%, %Tmp%, and my browser's cache use the RamDrive, leaving 12 Gigs for Win7 to use.

When I was first setting up the machine, I did some research on SSDs, and this method makes less writes to the SSD. Somewhere, I found how to set up a RamDrive, I added folders [\Temp\, \Cache\], then I made an .IMG, and made it so the .IMG gets loaded to the RamDrive upon boot. It's not a speed boost, [OK, it is, but nothing the normal person will ever see] but a less wear thing.

Is there a better way for me to list it in my System Specs? I think it should be listed, as it's part of every boot...

Tomorrow, I will pull two sticks and do a memory test to see if I can identify which stick is bad.

 

[x BlueRobot]

I would test RAM stick individually, and run the test overnight, and if an error is found with the RAM stick, place the same RAM stick in a different motherboard slot (repeat for all the slots), if an error is found in all the slots for the same RAM stick then you have a faulty RAM module.

However, if no errors are found for the RAM module in a different slot, then you have a bad motherboard DIMM slot. Remember, to make sure the contacts on the RAM modules are clean and the motherboard slots are not covered or full of dust.

Run the test for least 6-7 passes.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

also note that most java and flash around are mostly single or two-threaded programs. That means all cores beyond the 4th are there just to keep time because there are only two "streams" of instructions to process. Having more cores means that each core taken alone is weaker than a processor with less cores but still running at the same frequency. Given modern needs, it's not a so good idea, as lots of programs (and games) aren't going to multithread over 4 cores, go figure over 8. So you have half of your processing power that is basically wasted.

AMD stuff shines when you are doing heavily multithreaded things (basically workstation or server stuff), but for gaming and personal use the best one is around the i5 3750k, performance-wise.

Also, now that you mention overclocking, AMD cores do a trick when reaching dangerous temp, and this could cause the CPU to run like a crappy i3 as overheated cores downclock to 1 Ghz or so. Your processor is a Bulldozer series, which is known for heavy power use (and high thermal output).

Check if your cores are cooled well enough to keep their stated max frequency even under real loads with programs like CPUz. This page tells more details, although it's for a slightly more modern processor of the same family.
It could be likely that you need to decrease your overclock or get better cooling to keep them from auto-downclocking.