Vista - 6800GT/Vista64/6gb RAM issue

Hello to the vista forums. First I must thank you all, because I've used your help in the past.

As far as my post, I'm trying to be slightly humorous in it, not snarky. If it comes off that way, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to give you something other than: "OMG my <insert game> dusn't work an i reely wanna play it pleez help pleez!!!! thnks!" which I'm sure must get very very tiresome.


Anyway, on to the OMG help pleez!

(tl;dr version: my computer runs very slow in 64-bit vista because it's able to address my full 6gb of memory. In 32-bit it runs great, and when I limit my memory to 3gb in 64-bit via msconfig it runs great. I'm not a complete noob, not the first rig I've built, and I think I've covered most of the basic troubleshoots. Any ideas?)


The System
i7 920 processor
x58 "Blood Rage" motherboard
DDR3 6gb 1600 Corsair "Dominator" RAM (3x2gb)
MSI 6800GT graphics card (Working on upgrading, but not anytime too soon...)
Thermaltake 850w "BlackWidow" power supply
LG Blu-Ray DVD/CD+RW/LOL/OMG
320GB sata seagate HDD
Vista "Ultimate" edition
All wrapped up in Coolermaster HAF case; water cooled northbridge and CPU

The Problem


I recently built up the awesome-sauce computer listed above. Due to, uh, a lack of foresight and funds I came up a little short on being able to purchase a GTX-285. I have the old 6800GT laying around, it was a good card and hits the minimum specs on a lot of the games I play, not to mention Vista 64.

New install, clean, fire up and... damn this is slow. I mean, really slow. Funny thing is Vista is giving me a 5.0 in my Windows Experience Index (WEI). When left on "Let my computer decide..." it runs full Aero, all effects, etc.

But damn, it's slow.

Ok, that's fine, I've heard that Vista can be slower than XP. Let's play a game anyways!

Eve-online (classic graphics) - 4 FPS
Fallout 3 (All Low settings, everything off) - 4 FPS (even at the menu)
Crysis: Warhead - Won't even start, DX10 or DX9 versions
Assassin's Creed - Can't get past menu before it locks up; also getting very very low FPS during the loading screen

The strange thing is it jumps. The frame rates go like this: "Normal for 1 second * pause for 2 seconds * normal for 1 second * pause" and etc.
For those of you wondering about the validity of the FPS, they have been confirmed in FRAPS.

Other than games, the desktop itself seems fine, although MUCH more sluggish than my dual-core XP and much slower than I would expect from mostly bleeding edge tech. I work with this a few days, then decide I'm going to try the 32-bit version of Vista, and see if it speeds things up a little.

It worked. It ran like a dream! Fast, responsive, excellent frame rates (considering the video card), even with the Aero and 3d flip. Even with the Dreamscene background running it was still faster than the bare bones Vista 64.

Huh.

Wondering if I did something wrong the first time around, and wanting the other 50% of my DDR3 ram that I paid for, I reformat my HDD yet again, install vista 64 and..... crap.
Same as before.

Like a driven beast I google and search and lurk and, uh, some other internet word meaning look really hard.
I've:
reflashed my bios with the most recent version. Talked to tech support, found out recent version isn't quite that stable, flashed to manufacturer recommended version.

checked drivers, gone to sites, installed the most recent versions. Double checked this. Triple checked this.

rolled back drivers on my video card (seemed some people were having trouble with the new drivers)

Checked temperatures; looked at charts and graphs to make sure there's no correlation between a high-heat load and low fps (there's not; GPU runs around 53C, haven't seen the CPU get over 45C and even that was during a Prime95 stress test)

Nothing. So I ask myself, what was the biggest change between 64 and 32 bit versions? Certainly drivers, but I think I've addressed that. Wait! I'm using all of my memory now, because I'm in 64 bit.

First I verified that my mem is running the correct timing. It was actually a little looser, which as far as I understand should help not hurt, but I fixed it regardless. Doesn't help.

Ran literally days of memtest on each and every stick, in each and every slot. Tried it with two sticks in. Tried with all three sticks. All passed with flying colors.

went into msconfig and limited myself to 3072mb of memory

AND IT WORKED.

It's still a little more sluggish than I was experiencing with the 32 bit version, but I'm back to over 200fps in eve-online, ~30 in fallout 3, etc.


So my question to you, almighty vista 64 forums, is why? Why does lowering my memory available speed up my computer? Shouldn't it be the opposite?

I would like to reiterate that:
I've double checked my bios settings. There are no overclocks, underclocks, alarmclocks or anything of that sort. Everything is either on auto or manually set to what it should be.

"Sounds like a memory problem!" Yeah, not really. I've checked the memory pretty extensively using two different diagnostic tools. Also, no BSOD's. I could be wrong though.

"That's an old video card. You can't expect to get high FPS!" Yup. I know that. I still think that 4fps is a little extreme. And don't forget it can be addressed by lowering the amount of memory vista uses. I do agree that it could a conflict of some sort with the video card, though.

All my drivers are up to date. Every single driver has been double checked. Including the x58 chipset, newest graphics drivers, all windows updates, etc.

Everything is hooked up right; everything has adequate power. The PSU should be good, I've ran it in a SLI rig and it powered everything fine.

I've read the manual. Twice.

I have not confused the "maximum memory" check block and been in 6gb when I've been in 3gb and vice versa. Give me a little credit. Oh and while we're on the topic the system recognizes all 6gb in every screen, cpu-z, OCCT, etc.

I've also found a couple instances where people are running very similar rigs (x58,i7 920 w/ 6800Gt) and they seem to be doing fine.

That being said, I'm sure this is something probably VERY noobish and that one of you might forumers will be able to direct to the solution with a link and a scoff. I've tried my best to fix it on my own, but to no avail..

Well, that's about it. If I left any crucial hardware out it, let me know. If you want pictures or screen shots, I'm happy to oblige. If this was tl;dr, sorry. I gotta go now, got girlfriend aggro.

Josh

Just for anyone else who may be encountering this problem, it's definitely a problem with the video card. Putting a GTX-285 in place of the older 6800GT allowed me to use all my RAM without the sluggishness. I'm still not sure exactly where the problem is, though; my guess it's either the BIOS, which is still a little premature on the Bloodrage, or a very rare vista bug with the MSI 6800GT. Either way, fixed, sort of.

it sounds quite similar to memory limiting, have a look here DDR RAM Explained
or specifically my advice to someone regarding tighter timings slowing the RAM down DDR RAM Explained

I can confirm the same behavior and fix for my system.
I started with a 6800 GT paired with:
2x2GB G.SKill DDR2-800
EP45-UD3R
Core2Quad Q6600
Vista 64

I was getting poor performance in iTunes (cover art view), Sims 2 game crashed at startup, and Left4Dead and Half Life 2 had poor fps to the point it was unplayable. I observed that taking 1 of my sticks of RAM out and my system performed well--all my games played well, iTunes had no trouble displaying cover art, and overall my system wasn't sluggish.

I rma'd my board at first, only to get it back saying nothing was wrong with it. I tried different RAM and even a different motherboard to no avail. Finally, I saw this thread and tried my friend's 9800 GT and the crashes went away. I just purchased a Radeon HD 4850 and all is running well.

I'm very curious to know is going here. A simple, "that card is too old answer" may be true, but it's not a real explanation of what is happening. I'm curious to know WHY this is happening. But at the min, I wanted to say I was having the same problem and a new card also worked for me. Thanks for your original post--it helped me fix my problem too.

Crankerchick - Glad my fumblings could help. I definitely agree that the card being too old is just a pseudo explanation. As it's the only thing (other than Vista64) that we have in common, I'm even more convinced that it's something to do with the way Vista addresses the memory, which happens to conflict with the way that Vista addresses the 6800GT, or some variation thereof. In any case, it's a conflict. Maybe a more technical forumer can give a better explanation, since it's obviously not an isolated event.

MrNeeds - Thanks for the links. I definitely agree memory should be one of the first things you troubleshoot, but at least in my case I'm positive my timings were correct and there was no CPU<->Memory bottleneck. Thanks again, though; any help is appreciated!

the 6800gt is not compatable with 64 bit systems

unless of course the nvidia site on specs is wrong or out of date

could you provide the link to the nvidia specs please? when I searched before deciding not to upgrade my card when rebuilding my system, I saw the 6800 was fine for Vista Home Premium, but notably, it doesn't say 32-bit versus 64-bit. I was only able to find information on the main product page, so I'm curious as to where else vista compatibility is listed. Thanks.

Poor Video Performance with Vista x64 & 6800GT - NVIDIA Forums

6800GT on Vista x64 - NVIDIA Forums

Based on those I would have to say that the card is not compatible with Vistax64, might be drivers or something else.

Time to start saving for the GTX285.

Sorry but I beg to differ.

Unless you care to explain why Nvidia offers a 64-bit driver which explicitly supports the 6800GT?

I mean, I agree that there is some conflict with the 64-bit system and the 6800GT, but summarily dismissing it by saying it's incompatible is not correct.

It also completely ignores the fact that both crankerchick and I have been able to run Vista 64 perfectly fine with reduced amounts of memory.

So, incompatible? Nope.

Windows Compatibility just means that it boots and has drivers available.

The 6800 series has a 256-bit memory interface meaning that it will really max out at 1GB. If Windows is allocating, say, 2GB of system RAM as video memory then it may cause problems.

With a 32-bit OS or restricting the RAM to 3GB will just reduce the amount of RAM the OS can allocate to the GPU.

This is just a theory.

EDIT: WOW. The initial rendition of this post made me sound like a complete graphics card newbie. I was really tired when I wrote it so I used the wrong terms and such. Should be fixed (Kind of nulls a portion of the next post)