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Mysterious FSX/P3d Sluggish performance


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I have recently come to notice a baffling, intermittant condition in my PC. (components in signature)

I can boot into 7 or 10 via a hotswap bay. I normally live in Win 7.

 

The problem may occur on two consecutive startups of Win 7 or not for another 10+ days.

 

Now and then, without advance notice or warning, my desktop performance drops noticeably in gaming (FSX/P3d/Star Citizen). It's slower on 'normal' programs and web browsing also but it's just less noticeable.

 

Since I have the fps info in flightsim (upper left corner) I usually give that a quick startup to an Orbx NewZealand saved flight to check how the machine is performing before doing anything else. This saved flight normally idles at about 80 fps (unlimited) but when the issue manifests itself the fps counter indicates only 10 -20 fps; panning the view and aircraft control is sluggish.

 

Checking easily available resources at this time does not indicate any abnormal system activity: CPUZ shows 4.4G clock speed; Task Manager performance shows no unusual cpu usage or disk activity. I only have 55-ish processes and there don't seem to be any strange things afoot here either.

Virus scan (MS security essentials) comes up clean. My normal solution at this time is to just do a system reboot - warm boot seems to be adequate.

 

I rarely boot into Win 10 but I do have FSX-SE, P3d v3 and SC 3.0 installed there also. My feeble brain THINKS it has a memory of noticing the same situation there also (which suggests a hardware issue, doesn't it?) I will spend more time there occasionally to see...

 

I don't really expect a definitive answer at this point but I'd be interested in hearing what anyone thinks might reasonably be the cause and/or what I might test/check to see if I can isolate or avoid the issue. I CAN live with it but I'd prefer to find a solution.

 

Afterthought: I initially ran only 8Gb memory (2 sticks) and added (in 2017) the remaining 2 sticks from the matched set I originally bought. I don't recall noticing this issue before doubling the memory. Perhaps I'll drop back to just the 2 original sticks for a while to see if that makes a difference.

 

Thanks in advance for any time spent pondering this.

 

Loyd

Hooked since FS4... now flying:

self-built i7-4790 at 4 GHz; GA-Z97X mobo; GTX 970; 16GB gskill;

quiet, fast and cool running.

Win 7/64: 840 EVO OS; 840 EVO (500G) game drive;

Win10/64: 850 EVO (500G) for OS and games

A few Flightsim videos on YouTube at CanyonCorners

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I never thought of that in time when the issue occurred but I've noted the hdware monitor readings currently as a reference. The slowdown (when it occurs) is a session-long issue and not from any particular program being used; I'll be ready next time it happens.

 

L

Hooked since FS4... now flying:

self-built i7-4790 at 4 GHz; GA-Z97X mobo; GTX 970; 16GB gskill;

quiet, fast and cool running.

Win 7/64: 840 EVO OS; 840 EVO (500G) game drive;

Win10/64: 850 EVO (500G) for OS and games

A few Flightsim videos on YouTube at CanyonCorners

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Try core temp and GPU temp.

 

If you think it might be RAM, burn a copy of memtest 86+ to CD with IMGBurn portable and boot the CD like you would an OS to install and test the RAM. If problems are found then you will have to test one RAM stick at a time to deduce which stick or sticks it is.

 

How is this hotswap thing working? Is there like a HDD switch so when you want to run 10 you flip a switch and boot the computer?

 

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

 

http://www.gputemp.com/

 

http://www.memtest.org/

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/CD-DVD-Tools/Windows-Portable-Applications-Portable-ImgBurn.shtml

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You mention you've used MSE as a virus scanner. I wouldn't depend on that as it's just baseline. Use Herdprotect Portable or at least malwarebytes. You can also run Stream Armor and Free Fixer, but you have to be really careful at what you do with those and know what you are doing.

 

Herdprotect uses 63 anti-virus engines so it's like having Virus Total on your computer. Of course, the risk of false positives goes up, so use with caution and verify items before you delete them if anything does show up. I mention the portable version of Herdprotect because at this time their website is not distributing the scanner for some odd reason. But you can get it at Softpedia.

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/Antivirus---Antispyware/Portable-herdProtect.shtml

 

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/

 

http://www.freefixer.com/

 

http://securityxploded.com/streamarmor.php

 

Might want to check out Auto Runs and make sure you don't have crap starting that shouldn't. But be very careful you don't go deleting or disabling something you shouldn't. Autoruns is the perfered way of stopping a service or startup item instead of msconfig. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns

 

Another tool worthy of usage is Ring 3 API Hook Scanner. http://www.novirusthanks.org/products/ring3-api-hook-scanner/

 

I can name at least 30 more tools, but these will suffice. LOL

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  • 2 weeks later...

CRJ

 

No, no quick-swap switch - they're like little spring loaded card readers: Shut down; open door; swap out accessible ssd; replace with other ssd(s). Win10 is a single 500G all-purpose, stand-alone (OS and games) drive; Win 7 is a small OS drive that needs its own 500G games drive in the 2nd bay. Boot up and we're back in business.

 

I memtested all 4 memory cards before I ever began installing anything but it's still possible something has changed. I pulled memory chips 3 & 4 right after posting the original description on Jan 19; The problem has NOT reoccurred since then. Much as I want to swap out the current (original) set and try the others, I'm going to give it a full month or six weeks before trying the other pair.

 

thanks for the link to autoruns - I've used a number of utilities from the sysinternals guys and will add this to my 'toolkit' - guess I just never noticed it before...

 

Loyd

Hooked since FS4... now flying:

self-built i7-4790 at 4 GHz; GA-Z97X mobo; GTX 970; 16GB gskill;

quiet, fast and cool running.

Win 7/64: 840 EVO OS; 840 EVO (500G) game drive;

Win10/64: 850 EVO (500G) for OS and games

A few Flightsim videos on YouTube at CanyonCorners

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