Damn it, but computers have become really complicated

[JonCole]

Dumb obvious suggestions - virus scan, malware scan, driver update, run some benchmarks that test each component to see if maybe they're underperforming due to mechanical issues, etc. 

[Twig]

First three are already done, but I don't really know how to go about benchmarking things. Never done it before.

[Dewar]

First three are already done, but I don't really know how to go about benchmarking things. Never done it before.

 

In my experience, widly varying performance often has to do with overheating. Any useful information in the NVidia control panel? Are you using the special Nvidia fixes that were posted by the DSFix guy, because some of those are pretty intensive. Also, a big thing that I noticed on my last machine as textures are getting bigger and bigger these days is hard drive performance, though I would expect that to actually lock up the game briefly rather than mess with your FPS.

[Dewar]

I've become a little worried lately that someone may be using our wireless network.

 

Now our routers about 5-6 years old d-link which i've setup as WPA2, with 19 character password to log into the router itself, so I should feel secure to a extent, but some of its behaviour recently has seemed damn strange to say the least in particular im concerned by sudden slow downs that only affect the wireless devices on the network.

 

I've done a little digging into it and it seems most people say the best way to tell is to check connected devices when a problem occurs and to run a log if a router enables it, but i was wondering if anyone else had any tips i could try to check whether this is someone mooching, or if perhaps there's a prob with the ageing router itself

 

Check your wireless devices to make sure there's no spyware running there. Think about possible interference, is there a specific time or event going on that's causing you problems? Maybe a microwave, tv, etc near the router? Someone in your household using Netflix over wireless? If you unplug the router while you're having problems, do the problems come back after a few minutes, or are they gone for a while? If they don't immediately come back, this could be a sign of some problems with the router itself rather than connected devices, as devices would generally reconnect and resume their previous activity within a minute or two.

 

Finally, yes checking the connected devices list on the router is a good start. If you're really worried about security, you might filter by MAC address so only things you specifically want to connect can. It makes it a pain when guests come over, but it might help you narrow things down.

[Twig]

In my experience, widly varying performance often has to do with overheating. Any useful information in the NVidia control panel? Are you using the special Nvidia fixes that were posted by the DSFix guy, because some of those are pretty intensive. Also, a big thing that I noticed on my last machine as textures are getting bigger and bigger these days is hard drive performance, though I would expect that to actually lock up the game briefly rather than mess with your FPS.

I don't think the problem is exclusive to Dark Souls 2. I suspect I've been having the problem for a while, but attributed it to various issues with the games, rather than my hardware. Obviously DS1 has a ton of issues, but I think it still should've run better on average than it did. AC3 has port-optimization issues, but I think it still should've run better than it did. Most importantly, maybe, is that I've been having an abundance of framerate issues with Dota 2. At first, I just figured it was a byproduct of Valve constantly updating the game - a similar thing happened to Team Fortress 2 from time to time, before eventually being fixed and then broken again and then fixed again, just because it was updated so frequently. And now DS2. But... at some point I figure it can't just be the games. If I'm ALWAYS having trouble, then something's wrong. And lowering graphics settings doesn't usually help all that much (though it does help some, of course).

 

I'll make sure to keep watch over the temperature next time I play it (not sure when that'll be though! I was super stoked to finally buy it, but now that I have it I'm kind of hesitant to jump into another 40 hour game, hah).

 

I'm interested in the benchmarking thing, though. It might be good to actually diagnose the problem directly, instead of testing it with random games. I just don't know where to start. I know Futuremark makes benchmarking software and it's even on Steam - 3DMark, it's called - but it costs money! Is there a free alternative?

[JonCole]

I think there's a free, "Basic" version of 3DMark. You might have to get it from their website. Might also want to browse some forums like Tom's Hardware if you want more info on that kind of thing.

[Dewar]

3DMark has a free basic version I believe.

[Twig]

Okay I didn't know there was a free version. I will try it out and report back. Thanks!

[Codicier]

Check your wireless devices to make sure there's no spyware running there. Think about possible interference, is there a specific time or event going on that's causing you problems? Maybe a microwave, tv, etc near the router? Someone in your household using Netflix over wireless? If you unplug the router while you're having problems, do the problems come back after a few minutes, or are they gone for a while? If they don't immediately come back, this could be a sign of some problems with the router itself rather than connected devices, as devices would generally reconnect and resume their previous activity within a minute or two.

 

Finally, yes checking the connected devices list on the router is a good start. If you're really worried about security, you might filter by MAC address so only things you specifically want to connect can. It makes it a pain when guests come over, but it might help you narrow things down.

Thanks for the info.

In terms of connected devices we have a printer 2iOS devices and a Kindle, I've already got everyone to do a sweep of their PC's using anti virus and anti malware stuff (though all pc's are cable connected)and that's come up clean but, I'm not sure where to start in terms of iOS or Kindle security.

[Twig]

I ran the gamut of 3DMark benchmarks and I guess everything's as it should be? http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/3440356 I'm not really sure how to parse this information. It all says "Valid Results", so I can only assume there's nothing wrong, according to 3DMark, anyway.

 

The graphics performance tests ran okay for the most part, except for a few issues during really intense scenes, which is expected since that's the point of benchmarking is to push it to the limit.

 

But during every single physics performance test, my FPS tanked. All of them were sub-30, one of them averaged at sub-10. Which suggests that the CPU is the problem. Which, sure, I already knew that was going to be my bottleneck eventually, but it shouldn't be a huge problem with Dark Souls 2! Or Dota 2! This is distressing. Do I really need to accept that my computer is just not good enough? ): O woe is me.

 

I'm going to run CPU-Z and play a bit of DS2 right now to see if its the CPU ever drops below what it should for some reason. Hopefully that'll tell me something.

[JonCole]

Your CPU should not be outdated.

[Twig]

I actually am not currently on my desktop because I cleaned out my fan and reapplied the thermal paste. Turns out my CPU was running at 100 degrees Celsius IDLE. I'd forgotten all about checking the temperature until right after I made my last post. When I did I was fucking baffled. Fan had some dust but I think the real problem is SOMEHOW I DON'T KNOW WHO DID IT WHAT IDIOT DID THIS but SOMEHOW the fan was not actually seated properly and the heat sink was not touching the CPU. Yes. Yes that happened.

 

I don't know how my CPU isn't dead. It's been a long time since I last dug around in my computer.

 

Anyway, then I fucked up my BIOS without actually thinking about what I was doing so now I'm researching how to reset it because I have no display. I was trying to change my default display monitor and... set it to something that just doesn't display anything. X:

 

I know I can either remove the battery or plug in the jumper to CLR_CMOS, but I want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong. I think I did it once before (and maybe even asked about it in this thread at the time), but I don't remember how, so, you know.

[Twig]

I reset my CMOS and now my CPU is running at 40 degrees Celsius idle and the 3DMark test results were SIGNIFICANTLY better and now I want to go back in time and smack myself on the head so that I can play the past few months of games with a CPU that's not slowly killing itself.

[Gormongous]

I reset my CMOS and now my CPU is running at 40 degrees Celsius idle and the 3DMark test results were SIGNIFICANTLY better and now I want to go back in time and smack myself on the head so that I can play the past few months of games with a CPU that's not slowly killing itself.

 

My first two months I ran my computer at the redline almost all the time and didn't even realize it. You get acclimated to a malfunctioning or underperforming computer way too fast, in my opinion.

[Twig]

Haha yeah. In my head it was just "well I guess that's how it's gotta be for now". Worst.

[osmosisch]

Wow, glad to hear you got it in time Twig.

I'd still recommend framelocking DS2 for what it's worth, halberds and the like are not much fun to use otherwise. I also found it helped a bit with the feel of dodging just being able to rely on a fixed framerate, but that could be placebo effect.

[Twig]

I'll keep that in mind, thanks!

[Codicier]

I actually am not currently on my desktop because I cleaned out my fan and reapplied the thermal paste. Turns out my CPU was running at 100 degrees Celsius IDLE. I'd forgotten all about checking the temperature until right after I made my last post. When I did I was fucking baffled. Fan had some dust but I think the real problem is SOMEHOW I DON'T KNOW WHO DID IT WHAT IDIOT DID THIS but SOMEHOW the fan was not actually seated properly and the heat sink was not touching the CPU. Yes. Yes that happened.

 

I don't know how my CPU isn't dead. It's been a long time since I last dug around in my computer.

 

Damn twig, how you don't have a smouldering crater where once you PC stood idk....

[Twig]

Haha I know it's incredible! I'm pretty fucking thankful to the computer gods right now. And Dota 2 runs smooth as butter now. I'm so happy.

[undermind9]

i had a similar issue a few months ago, sorry just now got to reading your post problems

 

i ended up putting a floor fan in front of it with the side off (to finish the night of dota =D ) but one of the posts on the fan mount had snapped in transit and un-seeded the heatsink, using some not-standard screws i was able to temporarily get it to stick till newegg delivered

 

 

Glad its all fixed, could have been a bigger problem

[Codicier]

Have decided regardless of whether or not someone is messing around with it a refresh of our router to something a bit better is perhaps overdue.

 

so I'm  currently looking at this D-Link Wireless AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit Cloud Router & was wondering if anyone has any experience with either that particular model or just D-links current line?

[JonCole]

I've read that D-Link's recent AC line tends not to actually have very good AC performance, though solid N performance. You'd have to pony up a little bit more, but Netgear's R6250/R6300 (the latter is just a mid-cycle model refresh) is supposed to have pretty much best in AC1750 class for both N and AC performance and range. Most AC1900 routers are not really worth it, also.

[Bjorn]

I think I'm having some router issues.  Off and on for awhile, I've just intermittently not been able to get some pages to load for brief periods of time (like a particular page won't load at all for 10 minutes, then everything will work).  I haven't been able to see a rhyme or reason for why.  It's not related to being a secure connection, as it happens on both secure and unsecure pages.  It's not the site, because I can usually go over to my phone internet and connect fine.  Sometimes the page will load in one browser, but not another.

 

I just got around to plugging my internet directly into my main PC and bypassing the router after having the worst episode of this all morning.  And the Internet is running flawlessly, haven't had a single issue since I did that.  I'm terrible at networking stuff.  Is there a setting in the router that needs adjusted?  Or is this just a case of a piece of hardware failing? 

 

It's like the router is failing to resolve the address of the site, and then decides the site doesn't exist at all. 

[Professor Video Games]

Can you do some sort of software reset on it? Maybe some table or somesuch in there has gotten corrupted.

[Ben X]

Grrr, I'm having more issues with file types and Lightworks. It doesn't like certain .avi codecs. But apparently this is common to a lot of high-end editing software suites, which I find weird. If VLC Player can handle it, surely expensive bits of kit like this should be able to?