[Slormer]

Ok, I'm playing Counter Strike: Source in windowed mode, and for the first while it is perfect, running at around 80-100 FPS. After playing for a while, my monitor will flicker once (seems like a refresh or something) and my framerate is immediately cut to about half of what it was running at before (in this case, 90 frames, flick, down to 40-50). If I continue playing, it will eventually do the same thing again, cutting me in half AGAIN, which then causes the game to run at around 15-30 which is virtually unplayable. I am running a dual monitor setup, one 16:10 and one 4:3. I'm only mentioning that because it seems like fairly pertinent information seeing as the framerate drop comes directly after a flicker.

At first, I figured this was a throttling problem, but I'm running CPU-Z and not seeing a decrease in clock speed when the problem happens.

Thanks in advance, looking forward to getting this worked out. I can provide any info you require, just ask.

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try running it in full screen mode and see what happens.

[starjax]

try running it in full screen mode and see what happens.

[Slormer]

Forgot about that, same thing happens in fullscreen mode.
EDIT: New, CPU-Z is now showing a throttle, my clock speed went from about 2.0GHz per core (intel duo core) down to 1595.55GHz after a bit of playing, I think this may be due to it hitting a certain temp and then it is throttled down to avoid overheating or something. I want to turn this off, but in my bios I cannot change the min and max clock speeds, they say 'None of these settings can be changed' (Dell A14 BIOS). Any ideas or programs to stop this throttling and run at full CPU the whole time?

Edited by Slormer, 22 January 2009 - 07:59 PM.

[starjax]

Lets start with the basics.
1) check all physical connections.
-monitor to pc
-power to the graphics card
-card is seated securely in the slot

does it do it on both monitors or just the monitor in question?

keep in mind that a flickering monitor is related to a physical connection, cable quality/health of said connection, hw issue with monitor, hw issue with video card. I've even seen insufficient power cause this.

what make and model dell?

[Slormer]

It's a Dell Latitude D830. I'm actually pretty confident its not a physical problem, and the flicker happens because of the voltage change to the CPU (makes sense?). In the bios I can see the settings for Minimum and Maximum clock speed, but they are locked, if I could up the minimum, my problem will be gone, but I cannot change the values for these settings on the A14 BIOS. Happens on both monitors.

[Holkeye]

Hmm, this is a little off topic, but you've got me wanting to see what your setup looks like. A 4:3 monitor and a 16:9 monitor? That's interesting.

[Slormer]

Hmm, this is a little off topic, but you've got me wanting to see what your setup looks like. A 4:3 monitor and a 16:9 monitor? That's interesting.

Looks basically like the setup on the right in: http://www.direction...6/09_06/end.jpg

OK. After further playing/troubleshooting I've come to the conclusion that thermal throttling is happening, but that it ISN'T my problem. What's causing the problem is the monitor flicker, which I have no clue how to reproduce it, or what it actually does after the flicker to cause the drop in frames. IMMEDIATELY after the monitors flicker, my framerate is cut by around 50%, which can happen over and over until unplayable speeds. My clock speed remains topped off at the maximum on both cores which means the throttling I was noticing was not what was effecting performance, as I still get the framerate issues after the flicker with the same clock speeds on both cores before and after the flicker.

I've searched around and couldn't seem to find anyone with the flicker and then framerate drop issue anywhere, my only idea is something about having all the different resolutions and resolution types used at once. I've had monitor problems before with my setup, but the newest video drivers fixed that. (Cursors not being updated how they should on 4:3 monitor). The 4:3 is running at 1024x768, the 16:10 is at 1280x800, and the windowed 16:9 Counter-Strike: Source is running at 1280x768. Could the two monitors being in completely different resolutions cause this? The CS resolution seems like it wouldn't make a difference at all, but I tossed it in there anyway.

Edited by Slormer, 26 January 2009 - 06:35 PM.