PSU and degraded performance

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h0ll0w

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I have never been one to spend obscene amounts on a power supply, I'm actually the opposite. I'd probably stick with a PSU until one day my computer doesn't boot or I get error messages saying power supply is insufficient.

So now that I've started playing BF3 I got to thinking. Specs are core i5 750, 4GB ddr3, MSI P55 mobo (the cheapest of the lot), and recently bought a 6950 1GB. As far as I could determine my i5 750 should not be a bottleneck when playing BF3 on high - ultra ?

Anyway, my main question is can a PSU that does not supply enough power to the system cause performance degradation, without any warning messages from whatever source telling me there isn't enough power to go around ? I have some generic 500W with a coolermaster sticker on it, I suspect it is not a properly CM manufactured one ?

In BF3 my friend with a GTX460, AMD T1055 something hexacore, and 4GB DDR3, can put graphics on ultra and it runs much smoother on his computer. On my computer I get heavy stuttering when outside, and when it happens I can see my hdd LED is burning solid.

Any input is appreciated
 
Unlikely. Not enough PSU oomph normally means no booting/POST or restarts/BSoDs.

Unlikely mobo as well.

When last did you reinstall OS? Have you tried different drivers? Do you get good performance in other games? What temperatures is your PC running at?

Easiest test would be to put your card in his system or his in yours. Your CPU is plenty (I play on a 3 year old Q9550 @ 3.6GHz).
 
If the hdd light is permanently on, it is most likely swapping - you have a memory issue. Either find out what is gobbling up your memory, or install more.

You will never ever see an error message telling you that your PSU is insufficient, things will just stop working, or worse case, the PSU will let go, possibly taking everything connected to it along with it. For that reason alone, it is worth spending some money on a proper PSU.
 
Try going into msconfig and disabling anything you don't need. reboot and check again.

More ram may be good though.
 
I used to have a cheap PSU as well.
My PC booted fine, but ran particularly slow when it came to HDD read/write speeds. (this after installing a second HDD).

I installed a new Corsair PSU, and bam my problems were gone.
PostmanPot is mostly correct - but I have to say ive heard of exceptions where a PC will boot but components will suffer through a lack of power.
 
I doubt the psu is the cause of this problem. It might be that one of your drives is too slow... your CPU will actually bottleneck unless you give it a little extra juice as well. But it never hurts to invest in a decent PSU for the protection of your components.
 
Do you have Windows 7 64-bit or 32-bit?
You can press the Windows key + Pause/Break to see how much RAM is installed (and usable) in Win7.

I would also suggest that you run a few monitoring utilities to check for temperatures, GPU & CPU usage.
For GPU usage and temperature, use MSI Afterburner
For CPU & HDD usage, use Process Explorer, and for all temperatures, use HWMonitor.

If it comes out that your CPU is the bottleneck, then you might want to invest in a new PSU and an aftermarket CPU cooler so that you can overclock your CPU.
 
h0ll0w said:
I have never been one to spend obscene amounts on a power supply, I'm actually the opposite. I'd probably stick with a PSU until one day my computer doesn't boot or I get error messages saying power supply is insufficient.

So now that I've started playing BF3 I got to thinking. Specs are core i5 750, 4GB ddr3, MSI P55 mobo (the cheapest of the lot), and recently bought a 6950 1GB. As far as I could determine my i5 750 should not be a bottleneck when playing BF3 on high - ultra ?

Anyway, my main question is can a PSU that does not supply enough power to the system cause performance degradation, without any warning messages from whatever source telling me there isn't enough power to go around ? I have some generic 500W with a coolermaster sticker on it, I suspect it is not a properly CM manufactured one ?

In BF3 my friend with a GTX460, AMD T1055 something hexacore, and 4GB DDR3, can put graphics on ultra and it runs much smoother on his computer. On my computer I get heavy stuttering when outside, and when it happens I can see my hdd LED is burning solid.

Any input is appreciated
Click to expand...

I've seen friends PCs 3d mark score change when unplugging case fans due to how crappy their Power Supply was.

Get a Cooler Master GX 550watt or a Corsair 550 or 650 watt.

Remember also that the older a power supply is the less power it supplies.
 
Ah thanks guys, I basically just needed someone to tell me between the lines that I am a cheapskate and I need to cough up for a proper PSU :p

I have 2 X seagate 500GB harddrives, and recently reinstalled win7 64 bit to break the RAID0 array (performance gain was marginal, I put that down to the mobo's onboard RAID controller).

Those harddrives won't move the stars, but can definitely hold their own, and are basically equal in performance to my friend's seagate 1TB.

As far as I can see nothing is really hogging my memory, except of course BF3, which btw is not shy by any means to plunder your available RAM.

At the end of the day I've seen a dodgy PSU cause very unusual problems, and I need to get a decent power supply.

Any recommendations ? I think I'd spend around R500 - R800, can't help it, I'm a cheapskate.
 
Corsair CX500

Antec HCG (High Current Gamer)

Corsair CX600

I would consider Cooler Master GX last, although the new revisions are better than the old (which failed ATX standard tests). I must say their 5 year warranty is appealing though.
 
Dude smooth differs from person to person, some can game on ultra with 50 FPS and be happy i hate it i want 80 FPS or it doesn't feel smooth.

Be careful with bf 3 there are other setting that can cripple a vga card like bsoa turn that to ssoa, turn off anti scopic, turn off AA. The difference is barely noticeable but the performance increase is good.

In game hold ctrl alt to see your FPS. Running ultra with anti A, antiscopic and bsao cannot be smooth in my opinion on a mid range card. I run a 6990 and with everything on the highest i get 47 FPS. Not to my liking so i drop the anti scopic down and anti A and i get 80-90 which is far better.

I would not suggest you go waste money if you do not need to, first confirm the psu is an issue which i highly doubt. If you are set on buying a new one then go for it but don't buy just because you think there may be an issue. There are numerous settings you can change in catalyst as well that affect performance, comparing nvidia and then ati is not a great idea as you have not fiddled to see what is hurting your performance.

What FPS do you get on ultra? You play online right because i have noticed it is easy to confuse server lag with GPU issues. Some days it runs smooth as butter other days it feels like you are running 10 FPS. So try different servers and check your ingame ping by using ctrl alt and s, hold them down. Some servers run like shyte yet other servers feel like you have most powerful graphics card ever :D. Then again if you are testing offline then check the setting in catalyst and make sure most are set to application and not override.
 
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killadoob said:
Dude smooth differs from person to person, some can game on ultra with 50 FPS and be happy i hate it i want 80 FPS or it doesn't feel smooth.
Click to expand...

I did not know you had a 100Hz LCD? Have you upgraded since we discussed this last month, or have you just forgotten...
 
PostmanPot said:
I did not know you had a 100Hz LCD? Have you upgraded since we discussed this last month, or have you just forgotten...
Click to expand...

What does that have to do with the game feeling slow if my settings are too high? If i run it really high the game has massive dips and i can feel the graphics struggling so i lower the settings, by doing that you then end up with a situation of 80-90 FPS but it can dip to 50 or 60 so in your opinion would it be better to run it high and keep it at or under 60 but dips to 25 or 30 FPS and then lags really badly or run high FPS in all situation? Vsync is screwed as well.

I am not entirely sure what your point is perhaps you can explain to me why i would want to game when it's struggling to get 30 FPS when there is smoke, nades, apc fire, tank shells, rockets on a 64 player server that is full.

So come on now dude tell me what i should do?

So it runs at 80-90 but when the shyte flies it feels smooth as butter compared to running at 60 and dipping really low but you have played bf 3 so you know what i mean with the massive drop off in FPS.What is your nick BTW?
 
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h0ll0w said:
Ah thanks guys, I basically just needed someone to tell me between the lines that I am a cheapskate and I need to cough up for a proper PSU :p

I have 2 X seagate 500GB harddrives, and recently reinstalled win7 64 bit to break the RAID0 array (performance gain was marginal, I put that down to the mobo's onboard RAID controller).

Those harddrives won't move the stars, but can definitely hold their own, and are basically equal in performance to my friend's seagate 1TB.

As far as I can see nothing is really hogging my memory, except of course BF3, which btw is not shy by any means to plunder your available RAM.

At the end of the day I've seen a dodgy PSU cause very unusual problems, and I need to get a decent power supply.

Any recommendations ? I think I'd spend around R500 - R800, can't help it, I'm a cheapskate.
Click to expand...

http://www.prophecy.co.za/silversto....html?osCsid=3c4babd2ad383cb23f0e48ad488af79e

http://www.prophecy.co.za/antec-520....html?osCsid=3c4babd2ad383cb23f0e48ad488af79e

http://www.prophecy.co.za/coolermas....html?osCsid=3c4babd2ad383cb23f0e48ad488af79e
 
killadoob said:
What does that have to do with the game feeling slow if my settings are too high? If i run it really high the game has massive dips and i can feel the graphics struggling so i lower the settings, by doing that you then end up with a situation of 80-90 FPS but it can dip to 50 or 60 so in your opinion would it be better to run it high and keep it at or under 60 but dips to 25 or 30 FPS and then lags really badly or run high FPS in all situation? Vsync is screwed as well.

I am not entirely sure what your point is perhaps you can explain to me why i would want to game when it's struggling to get 30 FPS when there is smoke, nades, apc fire, tank shells, rockets on a 64 player server that is full.

So come on now dude tell me what i should do?

So it runs at 80-90 but when the shyte flies it feels smooth as butter compared to running at 60 and dipping really low but you have played bf 3 so you know what i mean with the massive drop off in FPS.What is your nick BTW?
Click to expand...

A 50/60Hz display is limited to 50/60 FPS.
 
killadoob said:
Dude smooth differs from person to person, some can game on ultra with 50 FPS and be happy i hate it i want 80 FPS or it doesn't feel smooth.

Be careful with bf 3 there are other setting that can cripple a vga card like bsoa turn that to ssoa, turn off anti scopic, turn off AA. The difference is barely noticeable but the performance increase is good.

In game hold ctrl alt to see your FPS. Running ultra with anti A, antiscopic and bsao cannot be smooth in my opinion on a mid range card. I run a 6990 and with everything on the highest i get 47 FPS. Not to my liking so i drop the anti scopic down and anti A and i get 80-90 which is far better.

I would not suggest you go waste money if you do not need to, first confirm the psu is an issue which i highly doubt. If you are set on buying a new one then go for it but don't buy just because you think there may be an issue. There are numerous settings you can change in catalyst as well that affect performance, comparing nvidia and then ati is not a great idea as you have not fiddled to see what is hurting your performance.

What FPS do you get on ultra? You play online right because i have noticed it is easy to confuse server lag with GPU issues. Some days it runs smooth as butter other days it feels like you are running 10 FPS. So try different servers and check your ingame ping by using ctrl alt and s, hold them down. Some servers run like shyte yet other servers feel like you have most powerful graphics card ever :D. Then again if you are testing offline then check the setting in catalyst and make sure most are set to application and not override.
Click to expand...

The interpretation of the term smooth might differ from person to person, but 20 fps is 20 fps.

Of course I've checked my actual fps by holding Ctrl+Alt+S. I wouldn't just go buy **** because I have a hunch my FPS isn't what it should be.

I haven't touched the catalyst settings.

I have the latest catalyst version : 11.11

My friend has also not touched the settings on his GTX460 drivers.

I am very much able to tell the difference between server lag and FPS lag.

I know my system is not fit to run BF3 on ultra, but to see my hdd light burning solid while I am watching a powerpoint presentation of a reversing T-90 turning its turret in my direction, is simply not normal. I am also aware that it could be an issue with the game itself which might get patched.
 
I said this before - having a display telling you you have 30fps, means nothing. the argument over an LCD being limited to refresh rate is also nonsensical. Sure, it is technically correct, but the problem is that 30fps means that the average is 30fps. This means that in one second, one frame may have taken 0.5seconds to render, and the next 29 also 0.5seconds together (extreme example for illustration). In a situation like that the game would seem extremely laggy, even though it manages 30fps. That is exactly what happens in real gaming, some frames will take longer than 1/30th second to render, even if you have 60fps average in many cases. This is when it helps to have 80-90fps, to ensure(more like increase the odds remarkably) that no frame takes longer than 1/30th second to render. (if each frame takes less than 1/30th second to draw it will look smooth to almost everyone. some people might notice a difference if it is lower, but not really with modern LCDs (which are almost all SLOW), the difference between 1/24 and 1/30 is very noticeable, though)
 
like P924 says:

If your HDD light is permanently on then your PC is "thrashing".

This is due to either too little RAM or issues with your drive or swop file(s).
 
bubbatentoe said:
like P924 says:

If your HDD light is permanently on then your PC is "thrashing".

This is due to either too little RAM or issues with your drive or swop file(s).
Click to expand...

I thought 4GB RAM is enough ?

Fresh win7 64 bit install, highly unlikely that there is something wrong with the swop file.
 
11.11 is horrific dude, I went back to .10. Check your settings and fiddle, although you sound convinced about psu so go buy one and report back, worry about the settings if the new one doesn't help :p

Postman I know it can only do 60 but my vga is pushing out 80 or 90 meaning it won't dip to 30 so It should never go under 55 or 60 fps at any point regardless what is happening. I have no idea how to explain it you because you don't seem to understand what I am saying. My monitor may not be able to put out 90 fps but my card can which means it won't run low fps when things get rough. Anyways whatever you haven't played the game so you have no idea how it runs. Also I can feel the difference between 90 and 50 fps and I don't care what you say about my monitor the game is smoother and feels far better.


When my 9800gx2 seemed an issue I also bought new psu but it never helped that is why I say fiddle a little bit. Ati suck at releasing good drivers on time and .11 gives me worse performance. The beta drivers were better.
 
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