Problem

[Saxif]

Ok, I DLed Darkfall and patched it up, today being the first day I can play it.  I start it up and within a few minutes it crashes, something about clocks being out of sync.  Now my whole pc is lagging, the sound is messed up and my clock is about 10 minutes slow on my machine (date is correct) and I have noticed some small changes, simple things like the size of the - min/max and x icons at the top of firefox.  I am of course worried I have a virus along with Darkfall (which has already been uninstalled), so far AVG hasn't picked anything up though.

The main problem is the sound, although folders and programmes are opening slower and lagging as they open, Task Manager doesn't suggest any obvious culprits though.

I really am stumped and am thinking maybe this is a wipe the hard drive and start again scenario.  Anyone have any ideas?

p.s I used CCleaner to wipe as much as possible and am not logging into any accounts other than this one.

Sax.

[Cernos]

You certainly manage to get the wierdest computer problems Sax!

Perhaps your sound drivers have got corrupted by the install and are causing knock-on effects. Sound drivers are a bit notorious for wierd problems. Try completely uninstalling your sound card drivers and physically removing your sound card (or if it is onboard sound from the motherboard, disable it in BIOS). With the sound drivers gone and sound card disabled do your problems persist?

What happens if you set your clock correctly, does it go out of sync again? Can you see anything in your process list in Task manager which is eating up lots of CPU cycles? Make sure you click the box "Show processes from all users" at the bottom of the processes list in Task Manager, as there may be something nasty running as a different user.

Have you tried running something like Malwarebytes as a second opinion to AVG? See http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Keep us posted.

[Saxif]

Good spot, System Idle Process was eating equal to or greater than 94% of my CPU.  Bah and now I know that's just a representation of what my system isn't doing ...

Got to cook dinner now, any ideas?  I'll google it after though!

Cheers,

Sax.

[Lasiien]

System idle is fine, thats just the cpu doing nothing.

I'm guessing you probably crashed in a different resolution to what your desktop is normally set at and that might explain odd sizes of icons? Dunno about the sound problems but remember darkfall was notoriuosly buggy on release (dunno if thats still the case)...might be worth looking in their tech support forums.

Did you reboot btw? And everything still came back screwed up ? (in which case I would be worried!)

[Cernos]

As Las says, don't worry about the System Idle Process being high CPU, that's normal. It's a bit misleading, worried me when I first encountered it.

First port of call would be uninstalling and reinstalling your sound and video drivers and then take it from there.

[Saxif]

Yeah, the first thing I did was turn it off and then back on, to find the problem still persisted.

I uninstalled the sound card itself and then made it detect hardware at which point it came back.  I will remove it from the machine though and turn it on but I won't do anything else tonight otherwise I'll get stressed and go to bed annoyed.

The icons being different is subtle, the 3 icons in the top left of any screen are smaller, the game was running in 800x600 so I restarted and put it back in 1920 x 1200 (or whatever the second number is).  The machine beeps and grunts at me occasionally as well (not very loud), video's on Youtube for example don't play because the sound it all messed up and distorted.  Screens lag a little as they open, though when I played DemiGod it still ran at >55 FPS although the sound was all messed up ...

Like I said tomorrow, I'll turn the system on and see if the problem persists, then I will remove the sound card and turn it back on and see if it is still a problem.  If it is, I'll prolly scratch my head (and maybe my balls).

Sax.

[Saxif]

System F.U.B.A.R.

Well not quite but cannot find the cause of my problem, because it has slowed down so much I am having trouble running Ad-aware or Malware Bytes.  The clock is loosing time still, despite the fact I reset it, the Ad-aware I am running now pushes forwards at about a rate of 1 second for every 3 real time seconds.  I cannot download system updates, the other day internet programs (chrome, firefox and IE) wouldn't work.  The sound is still mushed up blah blah blah.

I might just send it the shop with my Vista disc and get the guy to wipe everything and start again, fixing pc's is dull (especially when it takes 3 times as long cos it is running slow).  Generally I cannot find anything on the task manager that shouts out at me, the programs such as malware bytes, AVG and Ad-aware that have run didn't pick anything up.  Going to kill Ad-aware and re-instal gfx and sound drivers and then give up.

Is a 50% RAM load normal when running vista, anyone know (4 gigs).

Sometimes it boots up alright only to start lagging later and this takes about 60 secs to start up, other times it boots up bad and can take as long as 140 seconds to boot up.

Sax.

[Cernos]

Hrm this one has got me a bit stumped Sax, you always get the wierdest PC problems

I wouldn't worry too much about the 50% ram load. Vista is pretty memory hungry and it tends to like to reserve a lot of memory for itself (and then give it up if an application requests it). What's your processor load like at idle?

Assuming its not a virus, the general lag, slowdown and clock issues seem to point to a hardware problem, perhaps a motherboard problem. It might just be a coincidence it coincided with your installing Darkfall. Perhaps the game pushed some already failing hardware over the edge.

You could try a reinstall of Windows and see if that helps. But if you're going to do that I would *strongly* suggest taking this opportunity to break free of Vista and get Windows 7. Win 7 is a huge improvement on Vista, and on the same hardware you'll find it significantly faster, less resource hungry, more stable and secure. Windows 7 is the OS that Vista should have been (just like Win 98 was to Win 95 and XP was to ME).

Keep us posted.

[Saxif]

I posted this on a(nother) tech help forum 

Hey Guys,

I have managed to break my pc in a new and wonderful way and was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers as to what the problem might be, I'll list symptoms and cause and what my friends think it is!

Primary Symptom: The pc boots up no prob but when it does the sound is way off, stuttering would be the best description and the clock loses time. Video's cannot be played, though I have not tried a CD from the DVD drive, I doubt it'll work. Screens open and close as though laggy, there are always system resources available according to Task Manager.

Secondary Symptom: Something interesting that I noticed is when I was playing Demigod I was using both EVGA precision and GPU-Z, my FPS were >50, yet I could see the graphical lag and the sound was corrupting (this particular time it started ok and got worse over a 15 minute period).

Cause: I downloaded Darkfall to try and after playing for about 2 minutes the game (not the pc) crashes out with a msg about the clocks not syncing, and low and behold I notice that my clock is wrong (did not realize it was loosing time then) as well as my sound being funky.

What my friends think: They reckon it has changed some BIOS settings somehow, or done something to the gfx card, though I uninstalled and re-installed the gfx drivers, I also updated the sound drivers to the Creative Audigy SE 2009 drivers which are the newest I can find. Could a BIOS problem be stopping it from all working in sync?

This problem doesn't present itself on every boot up, just the majority.

Thanks in advance,

Law.

It is a better and more coherent description of the problem. 

I don't believe in coincidences!!  However coincidentally, I had the same thought Cern, I was thinking if I do a re-install I will prolly move over to Win 7.   The only bad thing I have heard from it though is the fact that some older games don't run very well in Win 7 as they were made for Vista or older OS's.

I have plenty of CPU power left over, sometimes AVG hogs up to 45% of it, but generally I have >90% left over.  I started going through my list of tasks on Task Manager looking for anything that didn't fit but couldn't find anything that jumped out at me.  I have run a couple of full virus scans and got nothing, gonna put the machine on and leave it checking through with Malware byte and ad-aware but I don't think I am infected.  The icons in the tops of windows being shrunk still freaks me out though!

Cheers,

Sax.

[Cernos]

There's nothing that runs under Vista that I've found won't run under Windows 7. In fact Win 7 runs some older stuff that Vista doesn't, it has a better XP emulation than Vista. If there's some really old games that don't work and you absolutely must have running then you can always get the Professional version of Win 7, which has an XP Mode that isn't an emulation but a fully functioning install of XP. I have Win 7 Pro and I've never needed to activate this feature because I've not run across anything that I use that doesn't work with Win 7.

[Lasiien]

Yeah agree with Cern, I had so many problems with Vista and Win7 has been the product it really should have been!

You do really have a nightmare PC i think Sax Best get it checked out as you say, could be quite a number of things (cern mentioned most of what I would)

[Saxif]

What are the differences between the Premium, Professional and Ultimate editions of Windows 7?

I was looking on Scan from the link below:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Shop/Computer-Hardware/All/Software/645/676/677

Wondering what to buy and why if I upgrade to 7.  A guys in a shop was trying to flog me an edition of Win 7 for ?88, now I realise I need to phone and find out what type he is trying to sell me.

Sax.

[Cernos]

You should be fine with Home Premium, you only need Professional if you want the special XP Mode. I got Pro for XP Mode and I've never used it. Forget Ultimate, too expensive and you don't need the extra fluff.

For ?88 it was most likely Home Premium he was trying to sell you. But it could be an upgrade version, which you definitly DON'T want.

Make sure you get a clean install version of Win 7. Under no circumstances get an Upgrade edition, Vista upgraded to Win 7 runs like a dog. And besides should you ever need to reinstall Win 7 you don't want to have to install Vista again first.

From Scan, this is the one you want if you can support 64-bit and don't want XP Mode:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/microsoft-windows-7-home-premium-64-bit-operating-system-single-oem

[Saxif]

Just to update incase anyone is interested (and to keep post counting - only I can breach 1000 with pc problems!!).

It is either the BIOS, the CMOS battery or the mobo has packed up.  I un hooked the old HD and put a new never before used one in, then dled Win7 to it, no problems with the install e.t.c but I still had the problem.  So gonna change the CMOS battery on advice (though I don't believe it to be the problem given the pc only looses time when turned on), then ask someone to play with my BIOS and then if that doesn't work it is a new mobo ...

 

Sax.

[Lasiien]

grats@1000 posts you spammer !

Sounds like a new mobo to me Sax then. But new mobo often means new memory as well !