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Harddrive stuttering?

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Ekwa

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Jun 6, 2010
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Hello,

I've posted this in another thread some time ago,but didn't get any solution after i posted a wall of my system's specs so i'll try to make the problem more clear.
I am experiencing stuttering in a game i play (World of warcraft) and lower fps then i've ever had since i've opened the computer casing and took the vacuum cleaner to get the dust out (also removed the heatsink and removed the thermal paste and forgot to put new one (so gamed for about a week without thermal paste) but put new one after that week). After having removed the thermal paste the FPS was serious low and at that point i didn't know yet that it was the lack of thermal paste causing the low fps so i formatted the complete pc and did a fresh vista install/flashed BIOS and now i'm still experiencing the stuttering and weird FPS drops (i can literally stand somewhere in an empty region and have FPS hit 230 one second and 40 the other).

Now, i found a video on youtube of a guy that has the same stuttering as me, but to a more severe degree though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUQHSp3CZvA

So, from what i can tell i have harddrive lag and that's causing the stuttering and fps drops. Now, i didn't do anything to my harddrive, nor is it broken so this puzzles me.

Any ideas would more be more than welcome
 
Install CrystalDiskInfo and post a screen shot here, it would be very helpful. It is pretty much one of the best free programs to tell if your hard drive has any issues.

Another thing it could be is a bad install of Vista, or corrupt video drivers. Also, have drivers for say your on board graphics and your graphics card installed at the same time can cause that issue.
 
would you mind awfully filling in your system specs :):toast:
 
just a bizaare thought (although i'm not sure if it would or could happen) is you might have damaged a part of your processor by part of it overheating not sure, but they are complex things that can still run albeit in a slightly worse state
 
This probably isn't an answer to your problem, but it's a question related to it. Doesn't a vacuum cleaner produce static electricity? That is obviously harmful for components.
I've always known that you shouldn't use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of the dust in your case.

Sorry if this isn't helping you. I'm just pointing it out.
 
Spamhawk said:
This probably isn't an answer to your problem, but it's a question related to it. Doesn't a vacuum cleaner produce static electricity? That is obviously harmful for components.
I've always known that you shouldn't use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of the dust in your case.

Sorry if this isn't helping you. I'm just pointing it out.
Click to expand...

I always use a vacuum cleaner. However I always remove all the components out from the case first. The vacuum cleaner is a very small hand held 9volts model, so the power isn't that great. But just to make sure that nothing bad happens to the system - always remove hardware from it.
 
Alright,
1) so here's the CrystalDiskInfo screenshot + a ss of cpu-temp and realtemp(mind though at the realmtemp that i was running wow and it's really hot atm). there are 3 yellow dots on the CrystalDisk info panel, i'm not sure what this means exactly though.
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5051/ss1r.jpg

2) I doubt it has to do with a bad vista install,since i re-formatted and re-i,stalled vista 3 times and on every fresh install the game had the same behaviour (whether it's on lowest quality or highest quality in-game and the same fps drops happen)

3) I'm not sure if i both installed the board graphics drivers and the gfx drivers together. Is there any way to check this?
 
Your hard drive is dying.

Also, for the graphics open GPU-Z, and it'll have a drop down section at the bottom of the window, if it has more listed than just our graphics card, then you've installed drivers for your onboard as well.
 
Those readouts that are yellow should be blue. The program is even telling you that the hard drive is on it's way out.

It should look like this... (This is just an example, not the same HDD as yours.)

24fd3792.jpg
 
Ok, but how exactly does an in-not-so-healthy-state HDD affect FPS or stutters while gaming?
 
If the hard drive is trying to read or write to a bad sector, as you benching the drive has shown you have, the drive is the weak point as it searches for a valid place to set the files/ or reads the next file for the game.
 
Alright,that makes sense, thanks. And from what you can see fromthe program, it's definately a hardware problem and not for example a bad instllation or a bad registery that's causing this?
 
I would run a few more apps to be sure. HDTune or HDtach has a health test as well, just cant remember which.
 
I would run a few more apps to be sure. HDTune or HDtach has a health test as well, just cant remember which.
Click to expand...

I think it's HDTune. HDTach only does performance testing.

I agree that the cause of your problems is probably the drive going bad. I would check into getting it replaced under warranty or buy a new one. Make sure your important data is backed up!
 
HDtune says the same: "the drive has damaged sectors - current: 100 - worst: 100". I assume we found the problem then (as far as i got it on here this can definately be the cause of me experiencing serious FPS drops, low FPS and in-game stuttering)?
 
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