Sluggish Games...

Everything was running fine, then I updated Rift. After the client update everything from Rift, WoW, Skyrim have been choppy and sluggish! Not sure if I need to reinstall windows or what. I restarted windows and updated drivers and all!

 

It is more likely that it was caused by a computer virus.
What anti-virus system do you use? If none - that is your problem.

It also could be cause by overheating, in case if cooling system went down.

 

Or, it could be caused by using the Power saver profile... or trying to run the game on battery. There are a lot of things that might be causing it, but it's probably something very simple that only needs to be reset.

If it is only being sluggish in 3D mode, I would not suspect a virus is causing it. You could determine that by using Task Manager to see if one or two processes are consuming inordinate system resources.

Did this start immediately upon updating Rift, or shortly thereafter? A clean Windows install is seldom bad for performance, but don't take such drastic measures until you have exhausted all the other options.

Have you tried uninstalling Rift?

 

Well I had activated the integrated graphics and had restarted then later on that evening I deactivated it and restarted. I did this hours after the rift update. Today I logged in and everything was fine so i'm not sure what the problem was.

Edit: tonight I decided to play a little Tera. Everything was running perfectly and then after about an hour or so frame rate drastically fell. Tried other games and same poor frame rate. Temps are at 58C. And anti-virus (norton) came back negative. Any ideas?

Edit x2: after disabling SLI seems like everything now runs. I assume now it's either an SLI driver issue, bad connection since I had SLI cable issues a few days back, or bad second card.

 

Just started Rift a few minutes ago using only a single GPU and I'm maxing out at a whopping 6fps....I'm at a loss guys.

 

Have you tried to run RIFT recovery program ? Perhaps an HDD problem ?

 

Have not yet tried, however it's not just Rift that has the frame rate drop. It's Skyrim WoW and many others. I played WoW earlier today for about an hour with no problems.

 

Perhaps a fan failure ?

 

Well the fans come on and the temp do not get higher then 65 and at idle temps are between 37-45C.

 

Performance issue that starts after some time (1 hour or so, in your case) imho has to do with something that varies over time. That is, temperature, memory or hdd i/os.
Temperature is normal. So, we still have memory or hdd. It should be easy to check (except for the gpu memory ?). Can you please try some diagnostics on memory and hdd ?

 

I'll have to do those and let you know the results later. I know according to resource monitor my memory usage while in game is about 3GB out of 8. I'll run some tests and let you know the results. And good programs to use for this?

 

You can use the standard windows 7 diags :
For memory : click the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type Memory, and then click Diagnose your computer's memory problems.
For disk: Right click on the disk in explorer, choose properties then Tools and choose Verify (or something similar)

 

Ok thanks will do! Will update shortly! Is there any tools out there that allow me to determine if the graphics cards are having issues?

 

Everything comes back good. Ran GPU-Z while playing Rift which ran perfectly on one card at 50fps. Temps got to 72 but stayed steady at around 66-70. Is this safe?

 

Even tho it looks like GPU-Z doesn't or hasn't shown much of an increase in temps during gaming. I just ran Tera for literally 5 min and machine locked up. Checked the log file and it showed temps got to 89C!

 

According to Nvidia forums, your temps are high but acceptable. 89C is near the top of the "allowed" area for the card... I guess you have already tried cleaning fans and so on...

You know, the more I think of it, the more I suspect that the fact that your problems started with a Rift patch install was purely a coincidence. If your machine locked up, there's definitely something wrong with the gpu's temperature control : fans or thermal paste. I can't think of something else, sorry.

 

I have taken the back lid off and applied compressed air but that is all. Is it difficult to clean more indepth?

 

I know this was asked earlier by Mr Fox, but have you tried uninstalling Rift ?

 

Yes I have still no luck. Right now I'm on a fresh install idle temps are mid to high 50s and sometimes 60s. I'm trying to find a way to clean the insides more in depth than just removing the cover. I feel like its possible I have dust built up further inside. Maybe even try to attempt a repaste just in case. I'll be running some tests in game tonight to see how everything holds up!

 

You can carefully remove the fans to get better access to the heat sink radiators and you can use a vacuum cleaner to suck out the dust and lint. Be careful with the wire connections, as they are somewhat fragile. You don't need to unplug the fans, just remove the screws and lay the fans to the side if you wish.