[SOLVED] Repeated 15 Second Freezes in Online and Offline Games

[Fechin]

I really don't have any idea why this started or how it came to be, but now whenever I try to play a game (CS:S, Ragnarok, and UT2004 for example), I will get 10-15 second periods where the game freezes and then unfreezes. In CS:S the game will freeze and then unfreeze for about 5 seconds before doing it again. UT2004 doesn't even give me the 5 second period, same with Ragnarok. This occurs in both online and offline play.

When I run the games in windowed mode and check my CPU usage in the task manager, it says my usage is at 100%! That's physically impossible for these games! My computer is far too advanced for any of these games to be causing that to happen. My specs are here on my XFire account. Just scroll to the bottom to get all the info.

All of my drivers are up to date and my RAM usage is only at about 50% for CS:S (because I told it to allocate that much), 25% for UT2004, and about 8% for Ragnarok (not a memory intensive game). When these errors first started occurring, I uninstalled and reinstalled the games about 4 times before deciding to just completely reformat my system. Even after the system wipe and re-update, the problem is still occurring. I contacted Steam support about CS:S to see if they could help, but they are all a bunch of idiots who think I'm experiencing a lag issue (another impossibility. 6Mb/s Down, 500Kb/s Up). I've run a memory test to see if one of my RAM sticks was going bad, and everything came back clean. I don't know what else to do. My mobo is updated with the latest BIOs upgrade. If anyone could please give me any bit of advice that would help I would be forever indebted to you. At this point I'm begging for something to work. I love all these games and don't want to give them up because of some stupid malfunction.

Thanks in advance,
-Fechin

[koala]

Please post your full system specs and driver details so we don't have to log into XFire.

[funkmunky]

That link will just take people who are logged on to xfire to their own profile. It's cookie based. Why don't you copy and paste your system specs from there?

[Fechin]

XD Oops. Wasn't even thinking when I posted the link. I was too pissed at my system to think straight. Anyway. Here's the system specs.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1014MB RAM
Hard Drive: 3 x 160 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp.080413-2111)
Motherboard: Intel DG965 WH

Any other info you need, just ask.

*Edit* All drivers are the latest for the hardware and are from the manufacturer's website. No custom drivers used. *Edit*

[koala]

How much free hard drive is left, and have you defragged recently?

What are your swap file settings?

What's your peak RAM usage during gameplay? See 'Commit Charge' in the Task Manager status bar.

Do you have any other programs running in the background while you're gaming?

Check in Control Panel > Admin Tools > Event Viewer to see if there are any entries at the times when you have these freezes.

[Fechin]

I have about 100 Gigs left on 1 hard drive, 90 Gigs left on my main drive, and my third drive is completely empty. And yes, every time this has occurred, the first thing I did was check file fragmentation. My drive is at about 0.5 % file fragmentation right now.

The peak RAM usage is about half of my total RAM even during the freezes (for CS:S, it doesn't get anywhere near that for the other two).

My pagefiles are set to about 1.5 - 2 Gbs apiece. So a total of about 4.5 - 6 Gbs of Page file space.

I've run the games with all my programs running and with none. That was the first thing I checked besides my Vid card drivers. If my programs are running, all I have is my bluetooth device and the nvidia control panel. Even with all other programs shut down, it still does it.

And the only entries I found in the event viewer were application hangs for GlovePIE whenever I was trying to get my wiimotes working on the computer (fixed that error already). That was at a different time than the other hangs. I just logged on to Ragnarok to see if anything would pop up in the event viewer and I got about 3 freezes in game, but nothing got reported to the event logs.

[funkmunky]

Might have solved your problem:

Your pagefile is set too high. At max you want your pagefile to be around double that of your installed RAM, so you want a total of about 2gb PF space, NOT 6gb

Post back, let us know if that helped...

[Fechin]

Couple of corrections on my part.

1. My page file was actually only set to 1.5 - 3 gbs instead of 3 - 6 gbs. I went ahead and just clicked the system maintained size radio button anyway.

2. CS:S only causes the CPU usage to be at about 90% if I have the game up. If I minimize and check the task manager the usage drops. Ragnarok keeps the CPU usage up even if I minimize it.

But no, it didn't help D:Thank you for all of your help so far though. I'm just glad you guys are responding. Steam still hasn't done anything about my problem besides trying to tell me it's a lag issue. I officially hate the steam corporation now >_>

[Fechin]

I'm bumping this as no one has responded in about 9 days. I'm thinking it may have gotten too far back in the posts. Someone please read and help if possible.

Also, I checked to see if it might be an overheating problem as my CPU temp has been quite high recently. I scraped off the old thermal paste for my heatsink and reapplied a new paste with a higher aluminum content and added another case fan so that I now have 2 in and 1 out (not including the suction created by the heatsink fan). It reduced my temps by about 10 degrees Celsius but it still didn't help my problem.

[Aus_Karlos]

Are you using the latest drivers from Nvidia.
Also try to see if un-installing Service pack 3 helps. I found that i myself lost about 25% in performance on one of my other machines when i upgraded to SP3.
(You dont have to un-install SP3 as it does add new security features but i found that on my system it added more bugs than it fixed)

Also sometimes having multiple pagefiles located on separate physical drives can cause some slight problems.

[Fechin]

Yes I have the latest drivers and no, there are not multiple page files. I only have the one page file set up currently. I'll try uninstalling SP3 and see what happens. So help me god if that solves my problem I'm taking out the head of microsoft personally.. XD

[Fechin]

I uninstalled SP3, restarted my system and tried running CS:S but it still lags. Thanks for the idea though. My dad actually had a similar problem back when SP1 first came out and when he installed it, it locked his system from doing anything at all. I hadn't even thought about that yet. But once again, thanks for the idea. Next? XD

[Aus_Karlos]

Is your HDD activity very high when playing CS:S. After the level has loaded your HDD shouldn't be doing much as most of CS:S is in the RAM (Apart from Decals, Sprays, weapons ect.)
If your HDD is doing alot of work this could indicate a fragmented HDD, Corrupt HDD or a damaged HDD.
Run the Appropriate tools like Defrag and chkdsk. You can also backup Steam an your games (Via Steam) and move the contents to a different HDD

If its not your HDD then it could also be your RAM. I suggest you take a look at memtest86 from my sig. Download the free CD version, burn to a Boot CD and run it out of XP. You must test 1 RAM stick at a time if you have multiple sticks as it will give false errors.

If its till not that we will move onto your PSU but that will wait until you complete the above.

[Fechin]

No, hard drive usage is minimal. It's all CPU usage. I know it's not the memory because I tested it already using the memory test that microsoft provides in their knowledge base. The test ran through 8 times (I fell asleep during the last few parts the first time through) with no errors. What would you say about the CPU? It has been running hot, so I'm thinking it might be failing. If there's any kind of test I could run, that would be great. It still runs fine for things like Media editing and CD burning (I still burn a DVD in like 10 minutes), but when it comes to games, it won't let me do anything at all.

[Aus_Karlos]

This is a program called Prime95 its mainly used for overclockers to test their CPU and RAM for any instability. But if your CPU is faulty when you run the "Torture Test" Prime95 will report errors in a matter of minutes.

[Fechin]

Thanks a lot man. Due to some things I discovered last night, I'm actually beginning to think that my video card is overheating. See, my dad had purchased a GeForce 8800GT from BFGTech a while ago and it had been giving him a lot of problems (drivers wouldn't load and he'd have to uninstall and reinstall the card almost every time he booted up). Well, he purchased Assassin's Creed (Thank you god!) and went to play it and was getting the same problems as me so I decided (after about 6 hours of trying to get his card to work) that his card had a factory defect and that I would put my card in his system and see what happened. My card worked fine and I could play Assassin's Creed with minimal freezing (about every 30 minutes or so it would freeze for 10 seconds but that was it. I can live with that for that amazing game). But this morning when I went to play it, I got to the main menu and it started doing the same thing it did for games on my system except that it just discolored the main screen and caused a little bit of artifacting. So now I'm believing my card is just overheating because his system has much better cooling than mine and the vid card worked fine for games. So I'll run the CPU test, but after that I need to see if there is any program that will let me check my Video Card temperature. Thanks again for the help man.

[Fechin]

AHAHAHAHA! It WAS the video card! Alright, problem solved. thanks a lot for the help you did provide, guys. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, decided to stick his video card in my system and see if it would hold the drivers on mine and it does! So he's now got my 7600 GT and I have his 8800GT! XD Nice trade in my opinion. So if an admin could mark this as solved, that would be great. Once again, thank you guys.

[funkmunky]

You lucky booger