Couple Seconds of Framerate Drops

chicken32

Hey, i just built a new computer, and when i play games Counter Strike 1.6, Unreal Tournament 3 demo, and Lost Planet demo to name a few, every now and then EVEN when theres no action happening on screen, even main menu, and all low settings and low resolution, the frame rate drops to like 2-5 fps, really bad framerate, it happens at random times and for 2-10 seconds everytime

My Specs:

Asus M2N-VM DVI
AMD 6000+ X2
BFG Geforce 8600 OC 256 GDDR3
Seagate 8mb cache 250GB
OCZ2VU8002GK OCZ 2gb dual channel RAM

I have some theories to what the problem is, but im not 100% sure:

RAM is 2.1 volts, and Motherboard only gives up to 2.0 volts
Hard drive is only 8mb cache and is too slow
Power supply is only 400W

note: Windows and everything else runs perfectly, no problems, Except when playing games.

procupine14

you know I think I've seen this problem before but in an older computer a socket 939 system that a friend had did this and I honestly couldn't figure it out.....try running some tests like MemTest and maybe some type of stress test to see if anything hardware wise has its short comings......and you may be having problems with that small of a PSU. nothing to do with the HDD.....my two HDDs are similar to yours and they run fine with only the 8mb cache.....however....is that HDD a 3.0 gb/s HDD?

chicken32

Yeah the Hard Drive is 3Gb/s SATA. But are you sure it woulnd't be the Ram volatge coming short? As my motherboard puts out 2.o Volts MAX and my RAM needs 2.1 volts

procupine14

well.....theres no way for you to increase the voltage?

ChaosMinionX

Chances are framerate drops are not from the RAM and something else, most RAM at stock can do less volts than companies warranty them for. They do a medium that all the BINs of RAM fall under so they can say warrantied and not have individual settings for them 2.0v is probably fine, run Memtest 86+ v1.7 (still current I believe)

chicken32

How about the Power Supply, At 400W, do you guys think its enough for a geforce 8600 OC, one dvd burner, one hard drive, AMD 6000+ and 2 Gb of OCZ ram?

ChaosMinionX

Yes, those arent drawing that much power at all.

chicken32

All right, tomorrow im going to try to exchange the case and motherboard, kill two birds with one stone, getting a new case with a wattage more than 400 and a motherboard that supports 2.1Volts ram

OldBuzzard

Just a WAG, but is it possibly a swap/paging file issue? You might try increasing it's size and/or putting it on a seperate HDD if you have one installed.

procupine14

yeah that may very well be the case

chicken32

K i just exchange for a mother board that outputs 2.1V on the RAM DIMMS, and IT WORKS!
I'd liek to thank you all for your suggestions!

procupine14

no problem any time