I love dell... not really

[nloc_kathulu]

OK guys, i need some help figuring this issue out.. So i got a dell vostro 1000 with amd dual core at 2mhz, 2 gig ram, and ati radeon 1150 video with 700 meg of "virtual" memory. my issue is, for some odd reason, when i play cs my fps will drop from 50 frames to 9.. and stays there for a number of rounds.. prolly about 30 - 40 miutes. though the 50 fps will run off starting the game for about 45 minutes till it "mysteriously" dropps to the 9fps. now, i have looked into every aspect i can think of, from installing ati drivers, to the ati recomended dell drivers, ran every scan for virus, adware, spyware, malware, to actually monitoring system usage through task manager before, during, and after the issue. but nothing.. all the way around nothing comes up, nothing changes, mem usage stays normal, cpu usage also normal, no overheating, no issue at all that i can come across.. so please, send me some kind of assistance, ideas, theories, anything that might help. i am seriously thinking it is a dell setup to get dumb people to upgrade or replace every two and a half years because there is nothing out of the "ordinary" going on aside of the performance drop and nothing detectable to explain this odd drop. my dell support did expire not but two months ago and all of a sudden this happens.. EVERY TIME i try to play some cs. so please any input that might get me in a different direction with finding the issue would be GREATLY appreciated.
-kat

[OldandSlow]

Yo Kat!

(sorry for the late reply)
I assume that you are using Win XP. I also assumed that you checked for any driver updates on the Dell site - you might make sure that they don't have a BIOS update along with the other drivers.

I have had issues with ATI drivers on certain machines, including Dell laptops at work. We actually had to back off one or two versions of video drivers to get one that worked consistently with the hardare setup. I built a new computer a few months ago - my old one had an ATI card and I had crashing and "odd effects" happen when I changed to new drivers. I ended up using older ones. Once I had to go back 2 versions to get a driver that would pass the Direct X diagnostic!

But this problem sounds like something else - either something else is running while you are playing or there is some kind of garbage collection going on. I would shut down everything else, especially any MS Office apps like Outlook and Word. Double check that you don't have anything scheduked to run during your playing times. The best way to clear stuff out is to reboot. 2 gig of memory can get pretty fragmented at times.

Finally, if you want to spend some $$$ - get some more memory - the Winders OS is a memory hog - I would go up to 4 gig - the most XP can handle unless you are running the 64 bit version (it has peoblems of its own).

And for more $$$, get a new Nvidia card. They are usually less problematic than ATI. You can find a decent one (not the screamers) for under $200, usually $130-150.

Good luck & keep us posted on ehat you do...

[Stewie Griffin]

The problem is not his computer or ATI drivers. The problem is his video card. He is running a shared memory graphics card with up to 320MB of shared memory. Most of us have graphics card with at least 512MB of dedicated memory. And since he has a laptop, it will not be easy to upgrade the video card. Sorry Kath :-(.

[OldandSlow]

OK, I thought it was a desktop. Too few options using a laptop as a gaming machine...

[nloc_kathulu]

very belated response, but actually my video runs off 768MB of shared video. The issue has still yet to be resolved, there are no other programs running aside of cs:s and windows is not atempting anything in the backround. In fact task manager reflects no "out of the ordinary" processes running either. I have ran msconfig a number of times removing start-ups and services, and even running with basic defaults or even bare mins the problem still occurs. Windows Live One Care, Avast, smitfraudfix, and a number of online tools have not found any viruses, mal-wares, or problems with anything.

now, this problem didn't start untill about a month or so after my dell 2 year warrenty ran out, so i think it might be related to that, as far as drivers, everything is up to date, in fact i got a whole folder filled with driver downloads for all of the hardware and softwares relating, and multiple releases dating back to the purcase of the system. aside of the video performance drop from about 70 fps to a steady 9 fps, my usb is dropping and reconnecting randomly.. so windows makes that sound that indicates te dropped connection <same sound it makes when you plug in or unplug a usb connector>. I have tried everything i can tink of, including expanding the pagefile limit from everything between default and 4GB. now, i had noticed a few times that when the extra memory was given something hogged up all te extra memory, thus reflected in the performance tab in task manager. Never figured out wat took the memory up, or where or wen it runs, but noting i have tried can find it, or stop it.

if you figure this out, i would love to own up when i play again..<wink> you can usually tell by my score what rounds i have good performance and wat ones i don't.

[pissesinthewind]

Sounds like you got something squirreling away your memory, especially if you see whopping mem usage while you aren't playing CS.

Do you notice one of your svchost processes mem spike? If so, then probably some malware is calling it to launch a malicious DLL (and because Microsoft is LAME it's hard to tell any of the svchost instances apart).

My standard gamut of tools include running Ad-aware and Search & Destroy first. Then I'll go with HijackThis and StartupList to see what hooks are still in my system. HijackThis will try to remove bad things, but StartupList is sort of 'read only'. To take action, you'll probably have to muck with your registry or use Pocket KillBox to remove stubborn files. If after all that you still think there is something dirty on your system, there are more specialized tools out there to remedy the real nasties.

I mentioned how MS doesn't provide detailed info about its own svchost executables in task manager, however MS actually has a tool called Process Explorer that can show you detailed process/threading info. In this case, it'll show you which svchost instances loaded which DLLs.

All the software I mentioned is easily google'able. Let me know if you can't find a particular tool or need help running it.

Cheers.

[Trigger]

Sounds like you got something squirreling away your memory, especially if you see whopping mem usage while you aren't playing CS.

Do you notice one of your svchost processes mem spike? If so, then probably some malware is calling it to launch a malicious DLL (and because Microsoft is LAME it's hard to tell any of the svchost instances apart).

My standard gamut of tools include running Ad-aware and Search & Destroy first. Then I'll go with HijackThis and StartupList to see what hooks are still in my system. HijackThis will try to remove bad things, but StartupList is sort of 'read only'. To take action, you'll probably have to muck with your registry or use Pocket KillBox to remove stubborn files. If after all that you still think there is something dirty on your system, there are more specialized tools out there to remedy the real nasties.

I mentioned how MS doesn't provide detailed info about its own svchost executables in task manager, however MS actually has a tool called Process Explorer that can show you detailed process/threading info. In this case, it'll show you which svchost instances loaded which DLLs.

All the software I mentioned is easily google'able. Let me know if you can't find a particular tool or need help running it.

Cheers.

Pisses is da man!!!! :p

[nloc_kathulu]

so, i went ahead and used a number of malware, spyware, adware, and virus programs to ty to find a problem <pretty much every freeware version of every program available> and i have tried every version of every relevant driver for this computer, dell, ati, and no name <about 200 different drivers> and nothing as made a difference, so i decided to opt for some "professional" help. after taking this pos laptop to a nubmer of friends, professors, and finally breaking down and brining it to some local pc pro's, still no one anywhere can find or replicate the issue. which means to me that it truely is a dell installed factory malware designed to only occur after your dell service tag expires with out a renewal. i am really begining to think this issue is a reflection of a hidden program in either the ram, or in the bios itself.. but not too much to my surprise i have run into a number of friends and others that have had simular circumstances arrise from their dells. needless to say, i will never buy another dell... really the only reason i got this one was for school, and it still suits those needs ok.. so i will have to build me another gaming platform from "almost" scratch... ty for you assistance vet! 3 steps closer to a framerate above 70 fps.. <wink>

[moron]

Late reply,
Since you took it to some pro computer store, I'm sure they did most of what everyone here has mentioned. It sounds like that you are convinced that Dell is conspiring against people that have bought their product. To time a "forced" driver error is realistic but still, to me, really unlikely. Maybe try reinstalling CSS, a pain in the ass but simple.
Personally I would reinstall Windows. It eliminates the Dell sabotage theory. I don't know if you have access to a tower but I would remove the hard drive and killdisk it (assuming its sata). Reinstall XP and the needed drivers, if the problem persists then you can pretty much for sure say it's a hardware issue. If something like Hijackthis or Malwarebytes doesn't find anything then there's not much more you can try outside of a format. Think you said you run Avira and that is a super sensitive antivirus program (a lot of false positives), not always accurate but still one of the best free virus programs out there.
If you don't have an XP disc google 'how to torrent' and go from there. I think wikihow will pop up first.
Cheers