Vista - Frame rate keeps dropping

Hi, Since i formated and reinstalled Vista Home Primium 32 for the first
time with this pc im getting very low frame rates on most games. They
are fine for about 5mins and then the frame rate drops to 5-20 fps for a
short time, afterwards its fine for 10secs only to drop again. Ive
noticed it on some streaming videos too but not in youtube.
Ive tried...reinstalling, installing xp, using older drivers, using new
ones, checked the fan are working, downloaded system monitors, took a
stick of ram out, swapped all the RAMround,tried playing with no sound,
messed around with the DNA settings, turned graphics down and a few
other things thats not coming to mind.
Thats about the limit of my knowledge. From what ive read on forums im
starting to think my quad core and/or RAM arnt set up properly but i
really dont have any idea.
The computer was fine before i formatted it, i didnt play around with
any of the hardware, the only thing ive done was put an extra gig of RAM
there a year ago.
Any help or ideas would be hugely appreciated.

Board: MSI MS-7350 1.0
Bus Clock: 267 megahertz
2.40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache
2048 Megabytes Installed Memory (still got to put the 3rd gig back
in)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS x2


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byates <byates.3pg0bd@xxxxxx> wrote in
news:byates.3pg0bd@xxxxxx:
(snip)Run some diagnostic apps for your RAM/CPU/Vid. Something like PC-Check
(EuroSoft), or MemTest86, or DFT (hard drive test)

Assuming none of your hardware is failing, run your BIOS setup, set
everything to default (should be an option to reset all your settings),
boot into windows.

I assume your ram is in pairs for dual channel mode?

Check MSI, see if there are BIOS updates for your motherboard and apply
them (carefully).

Don't know what else. SLI setups I have never had much luck with, try
pulling out one card and see if the games run better on a single card.

The disadvantage to using multiple anything (RAID0, SLI, etc.) is your
hardware is twice as likely to fail. Not to mention SLI is sometimes
just buggy. Start pulling stuff til the problem goes away.

Good luck, use ESD straps.

--
Joe

OK thanks for your relpy. I'll try them over the next few days and
report back. Thanks again.


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I've tried using one stick of RAM and used each one on its own with no
luck. Ive also tried taking one graphics card out but that didnt work.
Do you know of any free diagnostic programs? Will resetting my BIOS
settings be safe? Also, how do i find out about dual channelling? They
are all the same type and speed, how do i find out if they are dual
channelled?


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byates <byates.3prqja@xxxxxx> wrote in
news:byates.3prqja@xxxxxx:
The RAM itself isn't dual channelling, well sort of, Dual Channel Mode
means the motherboard can access 2 identical dimms at the same time if
they are kept in pairs. Usually your motherboard has colored DIMM/RAM
slots. As long as each color has a matching pair of DIMMS your system
will run in dual channel mode.

a lot of BIOS screens will tell you if you're running in dual channel
mode or not. You can also run MemTest+ or MemTest86 (Google em), they are
free RAM test apps, when they are running they display stats about your
ram and if you're in dual or single channel mode.

Resetting your BIOS to default shouldn't hurt anything, but if you've
never played around in your BIOS it won't matter.

MemTest+ or MemTest86 are free.
WinQA is a free hardware test application, it's OK, tests all hardware
from Windows.

Use google, look for hardware diagnostic applications.

Do not go to places like "testmyhardware [splot] com" that advertise 100%
free hardware diagnostics, they are scams and are not free.

I'd recommend http://www.eurosoft-uk.com/, their PC-Check and QA+Win32
are good hardware checks, but probably not free. Maybe they have trial
versions?

--
Joe