Goddamn it, why can’t I just play the game like everyone else? Why do I have to spend so insanely much time into troubleshooting my constantly cranky computer? Is this my destiny? Am I somehow cursed? Those thoughts are currently whirling in my head.
I’m sorry to disappoint you if you were looking for a cheerful rant, giving you hope and energy to deal with your own challenges in WoW. In this post I’ll fail miserably to live up to the sweet link description that Hatch has given me on his blogroll “Larisa keeps me positive”. I hope you can forgive me. This isn’t exactly an ordinary post. I’m sharing and I’m ranting, because if I don’t get any outlet for the sadness and frustration that is boiling inside me, I’ll probably explode. So, if anyone is still reading, you can hereby consider yourself an appointed therapist, I hope it’s OK with you. I don’t ask for much. Just listen and give me a gentle pat if you want to.
Fps problems
So, what’s up? Well, this isn’t the first time I’m dealing with technical problems. I’ve written about my constantly bad fps before.
This problem remains and is an eternal source of annoyance. If you see it from the positive side, it makes raiding more challenging than it already is. “Move out of fire! – What fire! Oh, that fire, now it appeared on my screen. Let’s move then… am I moving? No idea… yeah, apparently I did, it finally responded to my hammering on the buttons, Larisa took a big jump forward.”
I’ve sort of become used to it and normally I get along decently well, even though I’m pretty sure that I would perform better with a smoother gaming experience. So this isn’t my major problem this time.
And it isn’t the vent hiccups that sometimes hit me, making it lag for short moments, where the ping rushes up to never-seen heights, the chat goes silent for a few seconds, and the all voices come at the same time. After all, this phenomenon doesn’t appear every night, most of the time I’m fine.
Computer shutting down
No, this time it’s worse, much worse. The computer has started to suddenly shut itself down completely, without any previous warning, as I’m playing WoW. It can happen once or several times in a raid. I can’t predict it and I get no warning about it whatsoever. Of course it’s not recommendable to raid under such conditions.
I’ve done the basic work… opening the pc, blowing away the dust, making sure that the fans work and running a program to check the temperature. So far no luck. Heating still is what comes first into mind, since we’ve had extremely high outdoor temperatures the last couple of weeks, affecting the indoor climate as well. But since the fans work I’m not entirely sure about it.
Yesterday night I finally had to give up and leave the raid after hours of unwelcome shutdowns. There was a stand in raider available and I was only a burden, not an asset, so there was no question about it. Still I felt smashed. I just couldn’t help it, but I cried out of sadness and frustration. Silent tears ran down my cheek as I tried to feel any joy in levelling my druid, something I can do without causing any harm to anyone else.
I cried, feeling hopeless and lonely, since I’m more or less helpless when it comes to technical matters. I’m like Elnia, who wanted a car that just works and doesn’t constant fixing and repairs. I want a computer that just works. I want to put my effort and energy into learning how to become a better WoW player, not into trying to figure out what’s up with the intestines of my machine.
The end?
Tonight I’m supposed to participate in the Twisted Nether Podcast. As I’m writing this I can’t guarantee it will happen. Since the computer seems to restrict its shutdowns to my WoW gaming sessions, I nourish a hope that it will work anyway. Skype and an Internet reader hopefully don’t put that much strain on the system, as long as I’m not playing. So hopefully I'll make it after all.
But in the long run. What will happen? Will I pull myself together once again, sorting this out, leaving the pc to some people trying to repair it once again (how many times is it worth keeping doing this)? Or will I even manage to persuade my family that it’s OK that I spend a fortune on a new computer, letting go of this wreck?
It’s not that I don’t have the means to buy a gaming computer, I’m a grown up and have a good income; it’s just that the difficulty of balancing family interests with my own interests once again will be spotlighted and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to take the discussion this time.
Will the lack of a reliable, good-enough computer be what puts and end to Larísa’s fantastic adventure in Azeroth earlier than I had though or wanted? It’s a worst-case scenario, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t come true. The future will tell.
So… this was the end of my sad rant. I’m rising up from the therapy bed, moving away to the armchair in front of the fireplace, where I’ll sit and sulk a bit until it the tears will stop falling altogether and I’m back to my normal self again.
I’m sure I’ll be able to write something positive next week. Just not right now.
I’m sorry to disappoint you if you were looking for a cheerful rant, giving you hope and energy to deal with your own challenges in WoW. In this post I’ll fail miserably to live up to the sweet link description that Hatch has given me on his blogroll “Larisa keeps me positive”. I hope you can forgive me. This isn’t exactly an ordinary post. I’m sharing and I’m ranting, because if I don’t get any outlet for the sadness and frustration that is boiling inside me, I’ll probably explode. So, if anyone is still reading, you can hereby consider yourself an appointed therapist, I hope it’s OK with you. I don’t ask for much. Just listen and give me a gentle pat if you want to.
Fps problems
So, what’s up? Well, this isn’t the first time I’m dealing with technical problems. I’ve written about my constantly bad fps before.
This problem remains and is an eternal source of annoyance. If you see it from the positive side, it makes raiding more challenging than it already is. “Move out of fire! – What fire! Oh, that fire, now it appeared on my screen. Let’s move then… am I moving? No idea… yeah, apparently I did, it finally responded to my hammering on the buttons, Larisa took a big jump forward.”
I’ve sort of become used to it and normally I get along decently well, even though I’m pretty sure that I would perform better with a smoother gaming experience. So this isn’t my major problem this time.
And it isn’t the vent hiccups that sometimes hit me, making it lag for short moments, where the ping rushes up to never-seen heights, the chat goes silent for a few seconds, and the all voices come at the same time. After all, this phenomenon doesn’t appear every night, most of the time I’m fine.
Computer shutting down
No, this time it’s worse, much worse. The computer has started to suddenly shut itself down completely, without any previous warning, as I’m playing WoW. It can happen once or several times in a raid. I can’t predict it and I get no warning about it whatsoever. Of course it’s not recommendable to raid under such conditions.
I’ve done the basic work… opening the pc, blowing away the dust, making sure that the fans work and running a program to check the temperature. So far no luck. Heating still is what comes first into mind, since we’ve had extremely high outdoor temperatures the last couple of weeks, affecting the indoor climate as well. But since the fans work I’m not entirely sure about it.
Yesterday night I finally had to give up and leave the raid after hours of unwelcome shutdowns. There was a stand in raider available and I was only a burden, not an asset, so there was no question about it. Still I felt smashed. I just couldn’t help it, but I cried out of sadness and frustration. Silent tears ran down my cheek as I tried to feel any joy in levelling my druid, something I can do without causing any harm to anyone else.
I cried, feeling hopeless and lonely, since I’m more or less helpless when it comes to technical matters. I’m like Elnia, who wanted a car that just works and doesn’t constant fixing and repairs. I want a computer that just works. I want to put my effort and energy into learning how to become a better WoW player, not into trying to figure out what’s up with the intestines of my machine.
The end?
Tonight I’m supposed to participate in the Twisted Nether Podcast. As I’m writing this I can’t guarantee it will happen. Since the computer seems to restrict its shutdowns to my WoW gaming sessions, I nourish a hope that it will work anyway. Skype and an Internet reader hopefully don’t put that much strain on the system, as long as I’m not playing. So hopefully I'll make it after all.
But in the long run. What will happen? Will I pull myself together once again, sorting this out, leaving the pc to some people trying to repair it once again (how many times is it worth keeping doing this)? Or will I even manage to persuade my family that it’s OK that I spend a fortune on a new computer, letting go of this wreck?
It’s not that I don’t have the means to buy a gaming computer, I’m a grown up and have a good income; it’s just that the difficulty of balancing family interests with my own interests once again will be spotlighted and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to take the discussion this time.
Will the lack of a reliable, good-enough computer be what puts and end to Larísa’s fantastic adventure in Azeroth earlier than I had though or wanted? It’s a worst-case scenario, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t come true. The future will tell.
So… this was the end of my sad rant. I’m rising up from the therapy bed, moving away to the armchair in front of the fireplace, where I’ll sit and sulk a bit until it the tears will stop falling altogether and I’m back to my normal self again.
I’m sure I’ll be able to write something positive next week. Just not right now.
36 comments:
Jus because the fans work, doesn't mean that the CPU isn't overheating. I had this problem on my previous PC which has AMD chip - apparently the temperature tolerances are much less forgiving on AMD chips. Like you I scraped out the dust, checked the fans were working etc. I eventually took the heat sink off and then I could see that the thermal layer which protects the chip was almost completely gone. I got some Arctic Silver and applied that and the CPu chugged happily on until I replaced the PC a year later.
I had also installed s/w to monitor the CPU temp, the problem was that it takes such a small increase to shut down an AMD chip it didn't have time to alert me to the rise before the PC shut itself down.
*hug*
It does sound like overheating to me. My husband actually takes the side off his PC and points a normal fan at it, so that might be worth a try. I think Hulans' suggestion is more sensible though.
On your FPS problems, I had them at patch time, too, but upped my memory to 4 gigs and everything smoothed out. There's a significant difference between "recommended" and "useful" memory, apparently.
How much RAM do you have?
A seperate issue is the instability.
I tend to agree that overtemp is a good possibility, though it could be a FALSE overtemp as well. I use a program called SPEEDFAN (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) to monitor my system and figure out what the CPU core temp is, etc. A healthy system should probably be in the neighborhood of 30-45C for the average consumer (non-overclocked) rig.
While your system seems normal w/o WoW, consider that WoW is probably the biggest CPU hog on your PC, thus the CPU will work hardest and generate the most heat under these circumstances. Vent and whatever you use for TN's podcast are probably not even close.
What kind of CPU temp do you see at rest and under load?
Second in my hit list is the power supply (PSU). It may be providing marginal power, good enough for normal circumstances, but not under heavy load, such as when WoW is running.
Do you know the power rating of your PSU (how many watts), and what kind of CPU do you have (is it an appropriate pairing?)
A final troubleshooting suggestion is - if you are comfortable with this - to go into the BIOS and - if it is turned on - turn of overtemp protection at the BIOS level. You should only do this if you have NO REASON to believe that you are actually going over temp! It may be that the BIOS-level overtemp protection is tripping for no good reason, and this step would at least give you a workaround until you could remedy the situation. (In this case, time for a new motherboard and/or CPU, as it is not component-repairable).
Hope there's something here of use to you. I know how frustrating it is, had a close call myself this week!
Feel free to email me if you need to work out details on any of that crap I just posted.
(1) a hug from me.
(2) Actually, the first culprit that that I would look at is memory. That's far more likely to have bitten the dust than anything else. Overheating is a real possibility too but it could be the CPU or the GPU that's overheating. Most, but not all, modern computers have a BIOS setting that can be check the temperature with a software program. If you have an AMD it can be downloaded from their website. And there are boot programs that check memory but they are a little more complicated to use. And the PSU could be the issue to. I once had a bad PSU that actually melted my graphics card. But if it's a PSU problem normally it will affect the system at all times, not just under load. PSUs typically don't go bad slowly.
Computer hardware does wear out and go bust. Sometimes it's easier just to start replacing old stuff rather than wasting all the time checking each part.
The single best thing that made me happy with WoW was upgrading my GPU and memory. The new graphics card cost me $100 US and the additional memory $20. But it made a world of difference (pun intended) to my gaming experience and was worth every penny or euro.
Oh thank you all! Nothing beats a listening ear and a few hugs to cheer you up a bit.
I don't have access to the faultering PC right now, but I have a few figures.
I ran Speedfan during wow playing. its not entirely easy to figure out what it means. GPU it says is 49 degrees, guess its ok. Then there's the readings I don't know what it is...
Temp 1=45 degress
Temp 2= 90
Temp 3 = -2
Temp =0
HD0=52C
HD1=51C
Core0=94C
Core1=94C
Mothercard, processor and additional RAM memory are recently updated to try to help with the lag... It didn't improve much, but as long as I play with every setting at a minimum it's... well... doable.
I have no idea about the power supply.
Thanks for offering me support Grimm! I may very well get in touch with you unless I can solve it somehow else. If I've got more information that may help figuring out the problem I may post it as well.
I don't want to quit the game because of this. I really don't.
You have my support! My computer has become so run-down that I can only run WoW on windowed mode, with 1/4th the resolution of my monitor (surprisingly, this makes dual-boxing quite ideal). Most importantly, my choice of firewall leaves me unable to log onto ventrillo and inelligible to raid on progression content. Quite frustrating indeed.
My advice for you is to try your best to not be affected by things you can't control or really have not much of a choice over. A balanced life comes first, and while priorities may be put where they are, emotional investments can be subconsciously weighted differently.
@Larisa,
Holy crap, 94C on the cores? What kind of motherboard and processor do you have?
I have a very strong suspicion that the interface between the CPU heat sink and CPU is not good, or that SpeedFan is lying to you.
In the former case:
You need to remove the heat sink, clean the bottom of it, clean the top of the CPU, re-apply thermal compound, and re-attach the heat sink. Make VERY sure that it sits perfectly flat on the chip. I had real problems finding a heat sink that set well on my wife's mobo before I found one that fit.
In the latter case:
There are other free temp reading proggys out there, a little digging will turn them up. Let me know if you need suggestions. If you find 2 or three that agree on the core temp, then you can start trusting the numbers. One thing you can do is go into the BIOS and you will find a 'tab' that has the temp and fan controls. It will also usually have the current readings, and if they are close to what you are seeing in SpeedFan, then that also gives confidence to the numbers.
I won't let the PSU off the hook quite yet, but right now those core temps got me a little freaked out.
And whatever you do, don't plug those core temps into a C/F converter.
I don't know anything about computers other than how to turn one on but I'm just sending you fluffy, encouraging thoughts Also you shouldn't feel bad about ranting sadly or frustratedly - it's your blog, after all. That sounds like a really misery-inducing situation; our network is a little bit dodgy and that's annoying enough on its own account. I can't imagine how much worse it would be if it happened in a raid when people were depending on me.
First of all /hug and don't worry all will be well :)
Secondly, some technical matters:
1. Someone mentioned turning off overtemp protection on the BIOS. *Do not* do this under any circumstances, this prevents your computer from frying itself. Better a forced shutdown or reset than a dead computer...
2. In your comment you mentioned upgrading your system components yet still running at minimum settings. That doesn't make sense. Can you give us more hard data? What is your CPU model? GPU? How much RAM? The OS can also be an issue, do you use Windows XP or Vista or something else? One other thing - how much free hard-disk space do you have? When did you last defrag it? Also, what size screen do you have and what resolution are you running WoW at?
3. Although the above information might be helpful to help you debug the problem, based on the FPS and shuttdown problem I would say the problem is overheating, maybe of the GPU instead of the CPU. As a test, try the following: First of all open the side of your PC case. Secondly, turn on WoW and stand in Dalaran at a busy hour (good stress test :)). Now try to get a view of your CPU fan (should be easy) and GPU fan (might require a bit of crawling and a flashlight). Are both turning okay? A friend of mine had a brand new computer start to shuttdown when playing WoW and he found out his GPU fan was dead.
Your temp readings that you posted are way too high. Something is wrong - either your GPU fan is not rotating, or the airflow in your case is very bad. As a short term solution keeping the case open and a large fan pointed at it (assuming you have a case airflow problem) should work, but you might want to go to a few review sites, read some reviews and find a quality case and fans (stock case fans are not recommended for gamers). If it's the GPU fan which is dead, you need to replace it ASAP.
However make sure to try to get readings first from another program, your readings are a bit strange. I use CPUID-hwmonitor (http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php).
Damned if I understand your Vent problems. Maybe they will be solved if you manage to solve your other problems...
Last suggestion - install Runes of Magic (a F2P WoW clone, not bad actually), set the graphics to maximum and try it out. Still having problems? It's a way to check if your problems are not directly WoW related...
Best of luck and keep us updated :)
*hug*
Everyone are suffering for computer break-down, you are not alone.
Even for a computer geeks, we take hours for fixing up our own computer, it's only matters if we got spare machine to operate or not. The suffering is the same.
It sounds like a overheat problem to me as well, on a side note, the heatsink compound u need to buy that from a computer story, since the old one that you used to install your cpu, tends to be dried out already.
And on a side note, if you run window and without reinstall it, it's invetiable that it will run slower and slower, even if you keep it good.
*hug*
Everyone are suffering for computer break-down, you are not alone.
Even for a computer geeks, we take hours for fixing up our own computer, it's only matters if we got spare machine to operate or not. The suffering is the same.
It sounds like a overheat problem to me as well, on a side note, the heatsink compound u need to buy that from a computer story, since the old one that you used to install your cpu, tends to be dried out already.
And on a side note, if you run window and without reinstall it, it's invetiable that it will run slower and slower, even if you keep it good.
My computer has started doing the very same thing, except i KNOW it's the GPU, because of the sudden increase in endless polygons and the distinct sound my GPU makes when it reboots itself..
G'Luck!
If the core is 95C you can be happy that it's still alive. Do as Grimmtooth said. If you can't do it yourself, bring it to a shop.
Download CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) and run it. Make screenshots on the CPU, Mainboard and Memory pages and post it on the blog. The people will tell you what to do then.
Some more about the pc, stuff I found in the system description:
IntelCore 2 Duo CPU
E 8400 @ 3,00 Ghz, 3.25 GM RAM,
Graphic card: Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
windows XP professional, think the mothercard is called Gigabyte GBB3X6X (not entirely sure what's what in the list)
It's not more than one or two months since I reinstalled everything from scratch, installing new mothercard, processor and RAM.
And I've got space enough for wow.
When I'm not running wow the core temp is at 75 degrees.
75C idle temperature is a LOT. I have 37 now (idle too).
The fan is either terribly weak or its not properly installed. If you can't fix it, bring it to a shop.
If they say you need a "case cooler" or "house cooler" say no and simply remove the side of the case.
I too run with a fan pointing at my pc in the heat of the summer.
With those specs you should be able to play with the setting turned considerably higher. In addition to the very sensible suggestions you have received thus far, I would suggest looking at the environment around your pc. Does it have sufficient empty space around it for air movement? Is it next to anything that gives off additional heat?
If you have the income to support a purchase without hardship, it might be time to get yourself a new computer, since you don't enjoy the technical aspects. It isn't selfish to want something for yourself every few years, and your current pc would provide an additional system for your children to use. It's not wrong for you to enjoy wow any more than it is wrong for your daughter to enjoy sims. Everyone in the house does not have to enjoy the same hobbies to make it worthwhile to invest in the supplies for a hobby.
I second what Gevlon and Christina said, with 2 caveats:
Regarding what Gevlon wrote, if you have a friend who knows how to build a computer from parts s/he should easily be able to diagnose if you have a fan/airflow problem and solve it cheaply. So while I agree you should take your computer to be repaired (75 celsius idle is way too hot), a computer shop is not your only option.
Regarding Christina's post, she wrote "With those specs you should be able to play with the setting turned considerably high" but later she added "If you have the income to support a purchase without hardship, it might be time to get yourself a new computer". I agree with the first part and think the second contradicts, or at least makes no real sense given the first part. Your CPU is top of the line and your GPU is not bad either, certainly good enough for WoW at high settings (well except shadows). Unless you're planning on playing other games soon that require more GPU power, I don't see any reason to upgrade. Even if you do, you can much more easily upgrade only the GPU card instead of buying a whole new computer.
@I'm agreeing with SolidState on this one. Your graphics card is just slightly worse than the one I upgraded to and the processor is much much better than the one I use. You also have more memory than me. You should not be having any hardware problems at all. I run mine on max settings.
Something else is going on here. Either some part is failing or some setting is not correct.
You do not need a new computer. A new part, maybe.
oddly enough I've been having the same sudden reccent crashes of my PC which has never before done this. It's been very very warm in my apartment of late so I've assumed that despite the fans on the PC, the added external temps have played a part.
I too suffer with horrible FPS in Wrath. I never had an awesometastic system in BC, but in Wrath it's beyond non awesome to like 1-3 fps on some bosses depending on how much AOE splash damage there is.
My poor little computer needs an overhaul or I simply need a new system but unfortunately, a new computer just isn't in the cards for me atm cause of RL job issues.
Sob.
You have my sypathies!! Let us both pray to the happy computer gods to make our systems start performing better!
Last summer I had the same issues - random PC shutdowns when playng WoW, not whe doing anything else.
This was when daytime temps hit 28C. I had to run with a big room fan pointing at the PC and the side off the box.
Annoying and noisy but it worked.
This summer I had to swap out my PSU and splurged on a fairly fancy modualar unit that is way overspecced for my current PC. Old PSU was chap and 550W. New one if highly efficient (less heat) and 1000W (plus has two huge fans in it).
We've had temps of 32C+ and no problems at all.
Larisa,
no more tears!!!
and one thing ppl have missed out on...how many addons are you using? are they upto date? sounds trival, but they also can put some strain on your pc.
Cack
Dear Larísa,
I simply can't give you any technical advise, since I am a noob with machines.
If you raise this with Blizzard they will probably tell you to delete you WTF folder blah blah blah crap crap /yawn.
All I wanna do is give you a gnomely
/woohoo
/hurrah
to cheer you up a bit and /comfort you that it will be ok sooner or later :)
/big hug!
Dizzy
The support from the community leaves me stunned. You're amazing, do you know that, PPI readers? I seriously appreciate it, it means more to me than you can understand.
I've downloaded a couple of the programs suggested and made a picture of the readings if it makes sense to anyone.
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/905/pcproblemq.
jpg
This was taken after the pc had been going for a while, but without any heavy work (no gaming), just plain surfing.
Side of the pc open, but no external extra fan.
I'm currently leaning towards leaving it to some professionals to tend to. If nothing else I'd like the pc to be in decent shape even if I'll eventuall buy a new one, since one of my daughters is likely to take it over from me.
Still, even if I'll end up leaving it to more knowledgable people, my experience is that it's more likely that they'll do a good job if I can help them out, pointing them in the right direction.
about addons cack: I use a few, but not that many. in raids I always bring it down to a minimum, turning off things as ARkinventory, Cartographer etc. Basically I use DBM, Omen, X-pearl, MSBT, Magefever, Quartz, Grid and Clique. That's all I can think of at least.
Not much of an UI fanatic.
BTW: then computer stayed alive during the TN show, yay! Skype lagged terribly so I didn't hear half of what people said, but at least it didn't shut down.
My expectations on what my computer should deliver are currently very modest....
Your CPU temperature is about 20 degrees too high. Your system temperature also seems a tad high, although I would have to check back at home what my readings are (currently writing from laptop). Please note that playing with open case and no external fan to move the air does very little...
Do you use the default CPU fan that is solved with it or did you upgrade to a better one? If you have not upgraded, the Cooler Master V8 is really a very good CPU cooler, and will set you back very little.
You should run your system under load (WoW running) and re-check your hwmonitor readings. If temperatures continue to rise, consider taking a break from gaming till your can get a proper CPU fan installed.
As someone mentioned, sometimes a simple PSU upgrade can help. Computers (well silicon chips to be exact) work better (faster) based on 2 seperate external conditions: the higher the operating voltage is (up to a limit) and the lower the temperature is. Upgrading your CPU fan should help with the 2nd. Upgrading your PSU, assuming your voltage supply is marginal, will help with the first. Again I don't remember exact values and will have to check at home but off hand I don't see any specially low voltage reading. Do you know your PSU model? If you have you case open, it should be written on the side or bottom. For your computer a 550W model should be plenty.
Cheers,
Solid
Oh boy Larisa. :( Sounds bad. My previous PC did this... getting worse and worse as it went. I started by setting it up in the coolest spot in the house, which helped for a while, then I moved to using an external fan which also helped for a while. Eventually, in desperation, I tried putting cold things (ice packs, frozen peas) between the fan and the pc to see if blowing colder air would help... Eventually I couldn't play WoW anymore at all. Until I got a new pc.
But mine was very old, and didn't have the components yours has... your components are better than the ones I'm using now, and I'm running wow at medium-high settings with no problem.
Whatever you decide to do, I hope you get it sorted out quickly, so that you (and your guildies) don't have to be so sad and frustrated anymore. I hate to see it, you're such a happy person usually.
/hug
Get a new PC. It's not going to be worth the money to try to keep fixing it.
You can get some really good deals online now. And if it is the fancy video card you are worried about, if it is PCIe, you can probably just move it to the new computer.
It's possible that the PSU is slightly low... a Corsair 450W.
The CPU processor is original.
And yeah, Eaten by a Grue, I'm so sick and tired of repairing this machine that you have no idea. It's a little more then 3 years old though. It feels strange if I should trash it. So even if I'll end up buying a new computer, in spite of the protests of my family, I want this one to work properly. I intend to give it to one of my daughters, who has a WAY old and crappy computer...
And if I could just make it work a little bit longer I could buy myself some time while deciding where to go next...
450W is a bit marginal for that class of processor, but it should not make it run hot. I think that issue can be deferred for now while you work out the temp thing. Could be all you need is a $5 tube of thermal paste and a re-seat of the cooler.
Try downloading Ccleaner if you do not have it- it's an amazing program that will scan and clear out unneccesary files and will ALSO scan your registry to see if there is unnecesary entrys in there, too.
It's amazing what a Ccleaning can do.
You also might try downloading Registry Mechanic, which is also an amazing program that can also scan your registry, but it can also tune your computers "services", which are essentially just features, to where they should be.
For instance, my computer had a Bluetooth technology thing running. My computer is not a bluetooth computer. It took care of it.
Other then that? I'd reccomend 'ye old fashioned complete restoration of the computer back to "new". It almost always does the trick, but if you take this route remember to backup all your important files, INCLUDING your WoW patches! Those are far too large to download again if you don't have too.
Best of luck!
Oh, and definately check out the nvidia website for a video card driver update! You'd be surprised how much this matters- a lot.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
Hey Larisa,
*hugs* hope you feel better :)
Chronic computer problems suck. I certainly can sympathize, as I play on a TI-83+ graphing calculator--er, a Dell Inspiron 6400 that was pretty lousy when I bought it 3 years ago.
I can tell you right now though that it must be some kind of technical problem, as I run my settings at about 40% of max and I don't have near the stats that you do (128 MB video card, lol).
I'm not a computer whiz, but I did have similar problems with my cooling system awhile back. Mine never shut off all the way, just cut most of the power to the processor, reducing my fps to fph. (Though I can see that happening with a 94 degree reading /boggle)
My problem was the sensor--fans wouldn't turn on at all. I fixed it with a control program that over-rides the bios.
Other than that I would take Grimmtooth's suggestion about the thermal paste--or if that makes you nervous leave it with the pros, who can usually handle problems like that ok.
Hope it all turns out ok!
Computer problems, little else can get me so bloody nervous. Yes, why can't they just work? And I'm not bad at fixing computers.
It does sound like a heating problem. I had a two or three video cards blow up because their fan stopped working. Check if it still runs. And of course, check the temperature. If all fails, bring it to a PC repair guy and be without PC for a few days.
I see there have been quite a few replies to help you, glad to see that. I have a similar configuration at home (E8400, Geforce 8800 GT and 550 watt PSU). I can run some temperature checks to see what I get but that 90 looks excessive and close to blow up your CPU.
I have to add that buying a new PC does not have to be very expensive. Especially if it's just for playing WoW and none of the newest 3D games. For €700 you should have a pc that can easily handle WoW plus all new games. It's not cheap but if you can keep it for three years, that's 230 euros a year.
But I see an E8400 which is only 18 months old and you mention that you bought a new motherobard, cpu & ram. You already have a new PC. Tss, complaining about your "three year old pc", it's practically top of the line ;) Just have to get if fixed. I wish you good luck with that!
@Everyone: I've turned over the computer now to some professionals - together with printouts from the programs I've run, following your suggestions, and the ideas about the cause and the possible solutions that you've given me.
They couldn't tell for how long they'll keep the machine - it seemed as if it could be anything from a day to a week.
So now I'll just have to cope with the loss of the game for a little while. Deep inside I know that it probably just makes me good to spend a little more time in the fresh air or reading a good book instead of focusing on a screen for hours.
Can't help hoping that they'll not only be able to fix the heat thing, but maybe also improve my fps a little bit. Imagining my first raid after getting back the pc, seeing the fights in a more fluid manner... Oh you can always dream, can't you?
Thanks once again for your support and the effort you've put into trying to help me solve this!
> "They couldn't tell for how long they'll keep the machine - it seemed as if it could be anything from a day to a week... Imagining my first raid after getting back the pc, seeing the fights in a more fluid manner..."
If the improvement is very large it might even be worth the wait :)
Good luck and I hope you enjoy your forced vacation from a computer screen. At least most places are now enjoying sunny weather :)
I understand your frustration about FPS - my FPS have just gone down the drain the last month and I'm hurting pretty badly - not just in Dalaran! That's to be expected - out in low level areas where there is NO ONE! I'm worried that my computer is just going to up and die and I'll be left with nothing :(
No one can be 100% positive 100% of the time! Even when you are angrily ranting you still have a positive outlook on life. The best part is you always try to give people the benefit of the doubt and try to see things from their perspective, which inspires me to temper my reflexive fury a bit more. :) It takes something really unfair and annoying like your computer to even get you mad, and then when you are mad you are nice about it. :)
Best of luck with your computer problems. From my perspective, I justify my computer upgrades because WoW and other PC gaming is one of my primary hobbies/recreational activities, but I can't pretend to know your circumstances or what your family's needs are.
It sounds like you've already gotten a ton of good suggestions from people who know much more about computers than me. Hope they help!
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