[Irnbruster]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone has any insight into my problem, bear with me because Im not sure what info is going to be relevant so this may be a lil longwinded.

I revently moved from the US to the UK and brought my PC with me. Well, did you know UK electricity is different than US electricity? Me neither! So I plugged my PC in...oops.

So, after replacing the power supply and buying a new power cord I got up and running. Well I play MMO's and I could always only play on very low settings (terrible, old Gateway PC with terrible cheap PCI card) but I noticed a slight stuttering, both in my game and my wifes offline game. I never had this stuttering in the US but it was only slight and I thought it was my nasty graphics card so when the wife went back to the US for a visit I decided to upgrade.

Bought the new card (nVidia 8400GS) installed and logged into my game. I let the game detect optimal settings and it came back Very High. Sweet.

This is where the problems really start.

I couldn't move. Very, very choppy. Very stuttery. I thought ok well, maybe v.high settings is just not for me. So put them to v.low. But the choppy stayed. I zoned into an instance and it went away 99%. I put the graphics back to very high and there is almost zero stuttering. The moment Im in an area where I can see the landscape, where it's 'open air' I stutter terribly. So this sounds like graphics issue I thought, but then why even with the most intense battles/fights going on will there be zero stuttering inside an instance on very high?

Another thing that makes me think its not graphics is this. If I'm watching a video on Youtube and mouse over links, just glide over them with the cursor, the video will stutter. The same with flash commercials on Yahoo! page, mouse over links and they stutter. And why do offline games 'lag'?

I've tried shutting down all unnecessary processess, I've made sure all drivers are up to date, I know there is a proble with ATI cards and sound hardware, doesnt help. Ive tried limiting the FPS in my game, doesnt help.

So hopefully you followed that and you can go 'aha! I know what his problem is!'
Get a new computer, I know, I know...Asus Revolution, I7-975 with 24gig ram and two GTX 295's are on the wishlist, so if you could just help me out until then it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance,

Bruster.

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No, you are still dealing with power. You have a lack of power. The stuttering represents the inability for the devices or programs to proceed smoothly because they are not getting enough "juice". You can easily get the very same thing anywhere in the world, North America included, if you are asking too much of any system.

So that suggests your new power supply is inadequate or else one of your connections is still not right. There is also the possibility that something was fried a little when you connected your system to 220. That could damage anything, I'm afraid.

220 is actually the preferred system. We are very used to our 110 in North America, but we are the ones with the not-so-good system. I really hope your motherboard is okay, because, seeing as youv already have replaced your PSU, your mobo would be pretty much the next component in line to have taken a hit. Sorry about that.

[Grongle]

No, you are still dealing with power. You have a lack of power. The stuttering represents the inability for the devices or programs to proceed smoothly because they are not getting enough "juice". You can easily get the very same thing anywhere in the world, North America included, if you are asking too much of any system.

So that suggests your new power supply is inadequate or else one of your connections is still not right. There is also the possibility that something was fried a little when you connected your system to 220. That could damage anything, I'm afraid.

220 is actually the preferred system. We are very used to our 110 in North America, but we are the ones with the not-so-good system. I really hope your motherboard is okay, because, seeing as youv already have replaced your PSU, your mobo would be pretty much the next component in line to have taken a hit. Sorry about that.

[Irnbruster]

I think you might be right.

A PSU I could handle, I'm going to need something better than what I have anyways.

But of course it'll be my mobo that's been fried.

Actually, a power supply would make sense.

I come to the UK, fry my old PSU, buy a cheap one, start stuttering. Then, when I put a new, more powerful video card in there I stutter worse than the old, less powerful one...because the new card needs more power and the PSU, although rated higher than the card calls for, cant handle it.

New PSU it is!

I'll come back and let ya know if thats what it was...and if it is I shall hug ya and kiss ya and hug ya summore.

[Grongle]

But I was just thinking after I wrote that—and sorry for the delay; I left home for an hour—you should FIRST check and see what the electrical requirements for ALL your components are.

Because there are a great many pieces of electrical equipment which are rated specifically for ONLY 110 or 120. Here is something I found with somebody in Germany having problems similar to yours: Computer Voltages

[edge2022]

Try playing the MMO you mentioned at low quality and see how it plays.
The 8400GS is not a good card at all for gaming, but I understand that it is one of the only upgrades you can make if you only have a PCI port instead of a PCI-E.

Most PSUs support switching from 110V to 220V via a little red tab in the back of the unit which you have to set. Corsair PSUs and some others do this automatically.
Let us know your components and the PSU you are planning to buy before you spend your cash.

[Irnbruster]

Ok a little update.

You said to try playing on low settings, but that doesn't help. At least it doesn't help in an 'open air' area. As soon as I'm inside an instance I can go to very high settings with very little stuttering.

But I think gaming isnt the problem. I think thats throwing me off what the real problem is.

I got a new power supply today. Corsair 650w PSU. I'm going to need a better PSU for the future so spending the money on that is no big deal, I'll switch it over when I build another PC.

I've discovered some other quite strange behavior.

I believe its called screen redraw, and its slow. Scrolling up and down a webpage isn't really slow, it's not really stuttering, its jsut not smooth. But when testing this I noticed my CPU usage would go up to 100% when scrolling.

So I looked around and came across this; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885355
Now, here's the really weird thing. On that webpage my mouse cursor will lag out, stutter real bad and my CPU usage will go up to 100% just spinning my cursor. This webpage is fine, but that one in the link slows everything down bad.

I dunno what this is...Im thinking processor was damaged in the zap, but that wouldn't really explain why everything is fine in an instance with high intensity graphics..

This is really getting to me now *sigh*

[Irnbruster]

So it seems if something is moving/changing on my screen, be it my lil guy in the game I play or my mouse cursor or links changing color when I mouse over them or the image of a scrolling webpage that something cant handle that. I mean just moving my mouse cursor on this webpage is causing my CPU usage to go very high.

Any suggestions why that would be?

Edited by Irnbruster, 14 October 2009 - 08:14 PM.

[edge2022]

I have no idea on that, try running in Safe Mode and see if the problem can be replicated.
Corsair 650TX is a great PSU and will easily be able to support future upgrades.