I need the help of someone that knows a lot about PCs (performance issues after upgrading PC)

So... that. I have these performance issues with only 2 games, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine and Portal 2, they worked perfectly before I upgraded my PC, but now, they always run at around 15 FPS. Even with everything on low, or everything on high, it doesn't make a difference. I'm not sure what's the cause. As I said, before upgrading my computer they worked fine, so now they should even work better, not worse.

I upgraded my CPU to a AMD FX-4100 Quad Core 3.6GHz and my RAM to 8 GB (can't remember how much I had before, but I was using a Windows 7 32-bit, now I'm Windows 7 64-bit because 32-bit doesn't support more than 3 GB of RAM).

What I'm doing wrong? I already tried updating video drivers (been having this issue for A LONG time), changing all the settings in the game, even resolution, vertical sync, everything, I make sure I installed all the necessary resources like vscredist or something like among other things, DirectX updated, EVERYTHING.

I don't know what to do. It's really sad, I really loved playing Space Marine's multiplayer... So... after almost a year of having this issue, and no one able to help me, I thought maybe someone of this forum can help me.

My graphics card is AMD 5770 (or 60 can't remember).

I'm not an expert so if someone else chimes in listen to them instead of me but....

It sounds like there's either a driver or software conflict going on. A couple things are butting heads and not allowing the new stuff to work properly.

skarekrow13 wrote:I'm not an expert so if someone else chimes in listen to them instead of me but....

It sounds like there's either a driver or software conflict going on. A couple things are butting heads and not allowing the new stuff to work properly.

I already redownlodead and reinstalled the game several times and changed drivers too.

Do you have a PS3 controller plugged in? If so unplug it and try again.
The drivers can cause problems.

If not, then i'll write you up a list of things to try.

LordRevan wrote:Do you have a PS3 controller plugged in? If so unplug it and try again.
The drivers can cause problems.

If not, then i'll write you up a list of things to try.

Nope, strangely enough, I used that in the past and worked fine lol, but after I upgraded my computer and had to reinstall everything, I tried it and it worked like ****, I didn't use the MotionInJoy with Space Marine, though after some time I installed it and I used it with other games. Even then, I tried uninstalling it and all it's drivers and no better.

Sounds like your FPS got capped if this happens in all games. Could be fixed by checking the config for your drivers. If not that, you might have a hardware that isnt toned for this kind of use.

tinypantha wrote:Sounds like your FPS got capped if this happens in all games. Could be fixed by checking the config for your drivers. If not that, you might have a hardware that isnt toned for this kind of use.

It doesn't happen in all games, just in these two. Rest of games work great. And I have gaming PC, made by myself, I've been upgrading my PC since 1999 part by part, so I don't know what's wrong.

Okay, so here's somethings to try:


-Firstly try verifying the game cache in steam.

-Make sure all your hardware drivers are up to date, BIOS, motherboard etc. Try make sure you have no leftover drivers from your old hardware that you replaced.

-Espcially update the BIOS, AMD bulldozers need it done else they can have problems. Just saying twice so you don't miss it lol

-You said you've re-installed the drivers, make sure you did a full clean install of them. Google for instructions if you don't know how.

-Open the ATI Control Center and make sure you aren't forcing any graphics options on, and that nothing weird is enabled.

-You said you've tried all the in-game options. just for the sake of it, try just the more distinct ones again. Vsync, multicore etc. Not resolution or texture kind of things.

-Could try opening task manager and setting the priority of the game to 'High'.


If none of that works, try to monitor your GPU's clock speeds while you play the game and see if they are performing properly.

Oh and what was your old CPU?
That's all i can think of for now...

Issues with 2 games, Sounds like software issues. Clean install all drivers. ... Check the game websites for same issues, could be a fix for it. .... And... You said you built it in 1999. Has it ever been wiped clean and a fresh install of windows. Or did you just throw win64. On top of win 32. ( an upgrade).
When I used to use my pc for gaming, most game issues were Video card driver related. Or conflicts with settings.

You might also want to double check that your games will work on a 64 bit operating system.

Odinbear wrote:Issues with 2 games, Sounds like software issues. Clean install all drivers. ... Check the game websites for same issues, could be a fix for it. .... And... You said you built it in 1999. Has it ever been wiped clean and a fresh install of windows. Or did you just throw win64. On top of win 32. ( an upgrade).
When I used to use my pc for gaming, most game issues were Video card driver related. Or conflicts with settings.

You might also want to double check that your games will work on a 64 bit operating system.

Lol I didn't built it in 1999 haha, I meant I've been upgrading and changing my PC's parts since 1999, obviously right now it's a completely new PC. What I meant with was that the problem is not because I don't have enough "firepower" or that something is not made for gaming.

-Firstly try verifying the game cache in steam. -I've already done it, I even redownloaded the game completely twice.

-Make sure all your hardware drivers are up to date, BIOS, motherboard etc. Try make sure you have no leftover drivers from your old hardware that you replaced.

-Espcially update the BIOS, AMD bulldozers need it done else they can have problems. Just saying twice so you don't miss it lol -How to update BIOS drivers and motherboard drivers? I just thought I had to replace GPUs' drivers. Where do I find these kind of drivers?

-You said you've re-installed the drivers, make sure you did a full clean install of them. Google for instructions if you don't know how. -I've already done it

-Open the ATI Control Center and make sure you aren't forcing any graphics options on, and that nothing weird is enabled. -I've already done it, I even tried putting all the graphic settings to "Performance" which made all games look ugly as hell (though work a bit better) and still these two games still worked bad

-You said you've tried all the in-game options. just for the sake of it, try just the more distinct ones again. Vsync, multicore etc. Not resolution or texture kind of things. -I've already done it, I've tried tweaking all the settings, everything on low, everything on high, different things disabled or enabled.

-Could try opening task manager and setting the priority of the game to 'High'. -I'm 99% sure I've already done this too


If none of that works, try to monitor your GPU's clock speeds while you play the game and see if they are performing properly. -I will try this.

Oh and what was your old CPU? -Can't remember exactly to be honest, but it was somekind of AMD Athlon Dual Core, can't remember the number, 5000? or something like that
That's all i can think of for now...

ChizFreak wrote:-Make sure all your hardware drivers are up to date, BIOS, motherboard etc. Try make sure you have no leftover drivers from your old hardware that you replaced.

-Espcially update the BIOS, AMD bulldozers need it done else they can have problems. Just saying twice so you don't miss it lol -How to update BIOS drivers and motherboard drivers? I just thought I had to replace GPUs' drivers. Where do I find these kind of drivers?

Find out what motherboard you have, then go to the company site for it. Drivers page, and enter that model. and then it should show a list of them to download.

For example; if it was Asus. Then you'd go to http://support.asus.com/download/options.aspx?SLanguage=en
And enter the model number, then download what you need.

LordRevan wrote:

ChizFreak wrote:-Make sure all your hardware drivers are up to date, BIOS, motherboard etc. Try make sure you have no leftover drivers from your old hardware that you replaced.

-Espcially update the BIOS, AMD bulldozers need it done else they can have problems. Just saying twice so you don't miss it lol -How to update BIOS drivers and motherboard drivers? I just thought I had to replace GPUs' drivers. Where do I find these kind of drivers?

Find out what motherboard you have, then go to the company site for it. Drivers page, and enter that model. and then it should show a list of them to download.

For example; if it was Asus. Then you'd go to http://support.asus.com/download/options.aspx?SLanguage=en
And enter the model number, then download what you need.

BIOS and Motherboard drivers are same thing? Or do I have to update them separately?

BIOS updates are one of many different things for your motherboard.

There should also be some drivers for other things like networking, USB, audio, vidio, chipset etc on the site too.

They nearly all come with your computer, but a lot get updates to them.
BIOS is the important one to do though. Although no harm in making sure you're fully up to date, but most other ones are pretty small changes. They usually say what the update is for somewhere on the page.

Go to Black Box and ask for a computer repair. They can make your computer have better preformance too. I have used this shop many times for when my computers have broken, and they have always fixed it right up, usually with a software upgrade.

RenegadeCop wrote:Go to Black Box and ask for a computer repair. They can make your computer have better preformance too. I have used this shop many times for when my computers have broken, and they have always fixed it right up, usually with a software upgrade.

Because we all live in the UK/US... Okay sorry for being sarcastic...

LordRevan, I just wanted to say that I googled the issue some time ago and: I haven't found ANYONE with my problem in Portal 2, and in Space Marine the only people that had the same problem I did was caused by the MotionInJoy/PS3 controller issue.

I assume you've tried completely getting rid of motionjoy then though?
Never mind just remembered you said earlier that you had the problem before you even had that.

I'd just say for now try those updates and see if they fix anything.

LordRevan wrote:I assume you've tried completely getting rid of motionjoy then though?
Never mind just remembered you said earlier that you had the problem before you even had that.

I'd just say for now try those updates and see if they fix anything.

I just checked, no updates...

But I made a huge finding! And I think this is the reason why I'm having problems!

In the page of the motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3645

It says this:

* If you install AMD AM3 CPU on this motherboard, the
system bus speed will downgrade from HT3.0 (5200MT/s) to HT1.0 (2000
MT/s) spec; however, the frequency of AM3 CPU will not be impacted.
Please refer "CPU Support List" for more information.


Now, I don't quite understand it, but I get that if I put somekind of specific AMD CPU in with this motherboard, I will get performance problems or something like that. Now that makes sense, since things stopped working fine since I upgraded my computer, I only changed the CPU, and added more RAM. That's why I was so lost, because it should work better, not worse, and I think THIS is the reason. It seems this motherboard (GA-M68MT-S2), is not compatible with my CPU: AMD FX-4100 Quad Core 3,6 GHz

Lord Revan, could you confirm this?

delete system32

Ashran wrote:delete system32

Hope this is a joke.

ChizFreak wrote:

Ashran wrote:delete system32

Hope this is a joke.

O.o of course it is. Never heard that joke?

Ashran wrote:

ChizFreak wrote:

Ashran wrote:delete system32

Hope this is a joke.

O.o of course it is. Never heard that joke?

Nope.

ChizFreak wrote:It says this:

* If you install AMD AM3 CPU on this motherboard, the
system bus speed will downgrade from HT3.0 (5200MT/s) to HT1.0 (2000
MT/s) spec; however, the frequency of AM3 CPU will not be impacted.
Please refer "CPU Support List" for more information.


Now, I don't quite understand it, but I get that if I put somekind of specific AMD CPU in with this motherboard, I will get performance problems or something like that. Now that makes sense, since things stopped working fine since I upgraded my computer, I only changed the CPU, and added more RAM. That's why I was so lost, because it should work better, not worse, and I think THIS is the reason. It seems this motherboard (GA-M68MT-S2), is not compatible with my CPU: AMD FX-4100 Quad Core 3,6 GHz

Lord Revan, could you confirm this?

Okay so basically it means that if you install a AM3 CPU (yours is one) it will decrease the system bus speed. This will basically only effect have any effect if you are using integrated video (i.e Not a graphics card). Since you are using a card then it will make effectively no difference.

Although if it was to make a difference it would do it to you entire computer too not just a couple of games, so that's not the problem. But it's a good thing to check that before upgrading next time.


I was just reading something else though might have found what the problem is...


Okay so there was apparently a problem with bulldozer CPU's with some Motherboards(including yours), as they arent offcially supported until the BIOS is updated, and yours has no updates. However it looks like those problems were more to do with blue screens than slowdowns. But i'll leave it for now as the fix was custom BIOS's and I dunno if you want to do that or not

But there were these two windows hotfixes that were to do with faulty code in your CPU:
(THE FIRST ONE MUST BE INSTALLED BEFORE THE SECOND)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2645594
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2646060

You can read the page to see what they are about, never know they might fix it.

Oh just found something else, there were two versions of your motherboard. revision 1.3 and 3.1.

You linked to 1.3, and it has no BIOS updates, it's older etc. But 3.1 does as it's new etc, are you sure your is rev 1.3? Because it'd make a big difference.


Here's the pages:

1.3 http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3645#ov

3.1 http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3967#ov

I will check the box of my motherboard, to see if I can figure out which one is. I guess that when I upgrade my GPU in the near future I should change my motherboard too right?