Q6600 to 2500K for BF3?

[omek]

I went from a 955 @ 3.7 (2400 NB) to a 2500K.

With the 955 I was getting drops into the low 40's in certain area's on 64 player maps. GPU (GTX 470 825/1650/1900) 60% usage or below at those times.
The 2500K, even at stock, pegs the the 470 at 99% usage 90% of the time. At 4.3GHz, 99% usage almost solidly. The 40FPS dips turned into 55FPS, GPU bottlenecking 99% of the time.

If I had been able to take the 955 to 4.2GHz, I'm sure the 40FPS could have been turned into 45FPS but I'd never be able to go SLi/XF and see any benefit or fully utilize my current GPU.
LSS, I'm glad I purchased the 2500K. Such a good little power house of a CPU.

On the flip side, I think my 470 has become exhausted with the new CPU and might be dying... lol.

Enjoy the Sandy Bridge!

 

[suklee]

I'm getting occasional hard locks in BF3. The game freezes completely (come to think of it, usually in the killcam) without dropping out to Windows and I can't alt+tab, ctrl alt del etc. I'll downclock the graphics card to make sure that's not the culprit. I also downclocked the 2500k to 4.0GHz and have already experienced a freeze... so I'll try playing at stock 3.3GHz to see if that helps.

Any of you seen/heard of/experienced anything similar in BF3? You guys reckon it's a CPU overclock problem, power supply issue or something else? I've passed multiple times of Prime 95 and IBT with no issues...

 

[Smartazz]

Have you tried playing other games? It could also be a recent patch of Battlefield 3 or something.

 

[suklee]

I don't have any other games installed. I have TF2 and Portal 2 that I can reinstall from Steam but not sure if those are taxing enough. What are some CPU and graphically demanding games out today?

 

[Smartazz]

You can always download the Crysis demo. Certainly graphically taxing.

 

[chadashcroft22]

Have you tried memory testing every stick of ram? Seems like there is something else throwing your system off. I have a GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 did a 4.0 overclock but let it do auto so it will downclock the cpu when not in use.

I had 2 bads sticks of ram 1 was totally shot and 1 that worked but did some crazy weird stuff to programs running and windows but only found it by running memtest on each of my sticks 1 by 1.

Only other thing I would check see if there are any system error reports and find out what the bsod is by not having your system restart automatically.

Good luck but seriously test that ram.

 

[skipsneeky2]

You can always download the Crysis demo. Certainly graphically taxing.

Crysis i don't think really taxs a processor i know my i3 2100 running the hd2000 graphics plays the game without any stutter at 800x600 low with very playable frames.

I would think BF3 is the better game for testing i have tried 800x600 low and it simply is nothing short of a slide show as where in Crysis its actually a playable game:biggrin:

 

[suklee]

I haven't tested the RAM but I can try that. I'm not even sure it's a BSOD as much as it is a complete hard lock... (I'll wait a minute the next time it happens to see if a BSOD pops up)

I found another forum thread that mentioned background programs like cpu-z and afterburner can cause problems. Not sure how much truth there is to that?

 

[Mars999]

Are you running Intel's RST drivers? I would uninstall them, I did this and I have no more BSOD anymore....

 

[suklee]

Are you running Intel's RST drivers? I would uninstall them, I did this and I have no more BSOD anymore....

I am in fact running those. The quick searching I did a few weeks ago told me there would be a small hd performance increase with RST, but I'd much rather have no BSODs of course. Thanks for the tip, will give this a try!

edit - didn't work, froze within 5 minutes this time with RST uninstalled. and it's not a BSOD, just a straight up freeze with the game graphics stuck on the screen. Had to hit the reset button. Dialing it back to 3.7GHz to see what happens, also make sure I'm not running Afterburner or Core Temp in the background

 

[Makaveli]

Are you running Intel's RST drivers? I would uninstall them, I did this and I have no more BSOD anymore....

lol what?

I have these installed and no freezing.

 

[suklee]

I tested my memory for 7 hours overnight using Memtest86+ v4.20 and it found 5 errors. They were all during Test 8, pass 2 and 4. Does that mean my RAM is bad? Are there any BIOS settings that may help?

I have 8GB of these: http://www.corsair.com/vengeance-8gb-dual-channel-ddr3-memory-kit-cmz8gx3m2a1600c9.html

 

[skipsneeky2]

Shocked to see this thread still kicking i would think the Op already got his goodies and built this pc up

Perhaps since the thread involves one of the most popular bang for processors of the last 6 years which including myself i bought?

Hell i am already thinking of replacing my i3 2100 with a 2500k.

 

[McLovin]

I tested my memory for 7 hours overnight using Memtest86+ v4.20 and it found 5 errors. They were all during Test 8, pass 2 and 4. Does that mean my RAM is bad? Are there any BIOS settings that may help?

I have 8GB of these: http://www.corsair.com/vengeance-8gb-dual-channel-ddr3-memory-kit-cmz8gx3m2a1600c9.html

Even 1 error no matter what test, indicates failure. If you have it OC'd drop the OC and try again. If no OC, then it sounds like it's time to contact the memory company for an rma!

 

[suklee]

For the test, CPU was overclocked to 4.5GHz and RAM was set at its rated speed of 1600MHz. I'll drop the CPU to stock speed and try again. Would the CPU oc have effect on RAM?

What if I try 4.5GHz but lower the RAM to 1333MHz speed, would that make any difference in memtest stability?

Shocked to see this thread still kicking i would think the Op already got his goodies and built this pc up

Perhaps since the thread involves one of the most popular bang for processors of the last 6 years which including myself i bought?

Hell i am already thinking of replacing my i3 2100 with a 2500k.

The OP (i.e. me ) did get all the goodies and built up the PC. Heck, I'm even thinking of getting a 7970 for kicks

Just trying to work out some kinks in the system... what is it about BF3 that brings my machine down, but IBT/P95 doesn't?

 

[Smartazz]

For the test, CPU was overclocked to 4.5GHz and RAM was set at its rated speed of 1600MHz. I'll drop the CPU to stock speed and try again. Would the CPU oc have effect on RAM?

What if I try 4.5GHz but lower the RAM to 1333MHz speed, would that make any difference in memtest stability?



The OP (i.e. me ) did get all the goodies and built up the PC. Heck, I'm even thinking of getting a 7970 for kicks

Just trying to work out some kinks in the system... what is it about BF3 that brings my machine down, but IBT/P95 doesn't?

You're not using any power saving features or an offset voltage right?

 

[suklee]

I am still using a slight offset voltage.

By power saving features do you mean C1E, C3/C6? I have these set to auto. Should I turn these off and try. What about Thermal Monitor, EIST Function, Bi-Directional PROCHOT?

 

[skipsneeky2]

For the test, CPU was overclocked to 4.5GHz and RAM was set at its rated speed of 1600MHz. I'll drop the CPU to stock speed and try again. Would the CPU oc have effect on RAM?

What if I try 4.5GHz but lower the RAM to 1333MHz speed, would that make any difference in memtest stability?



The OP (i.e. me ) did get all the goodies and built up the PC. Heck, I'm even thinking of getting a 7970 for kicks

Just trying to work out some kinks in the system... what is it about BF3 that brings my machine down, but IBT/P95 doesn't?

Wanted a 7970 myself heck i even returned a gtx570 in anticipation but then i got to thinking how bad off the i3 2100 would be with such a monstor card then i would want a new 2500k then i would need to replace my h67 motherboard to open it up and with the few games i play i don't think i wanna go that overboard i do wish i was that hardcore:biggrin:

Same amount i would spend on a 7970 i could get a 2500k and perhaps stick with a gtx570 or grab a 6970 then later on replace my motherboard with a z68

 

[suklee]

Got through a couple passes of Memtest without errors when overclocked to 4GHz. I think it may have to do with one particular BIOS setting in the Memory page. "Performance Enhance" - I changed to Standard rather than Turbo. Hopefully no more freezing in BF3 because of this.

 

[Smartazz]

Got through a couple passes of Memtest without errors when overclocked to 4GHz. I think it may have to do with one particular BIOS setting in the Memory page. "Performance Enhance" - I changed to Standard rather than Turbo. Hopefully no more freezing in BF3 because of this.

That is a good place to start. Speaking of BF3, I think I'm going to play. What's your username?

 

[suklee]

Doh, still got a hardlock earlier. I then closed Core Temp and Afterburner so that they weren't running in the background and had a problem-free game for about an hour. I'll do a longer gaming session to test for stability. Hard to believe those programs could have anything to do with BF3 freezing though.

Smartazz - YGPM.

EDIT Hard Crashed again... could it be a power supply problem??

 

[suklee]

An update, I hope I don't jinx it but my hard lock may be solved by a combination of rolling back to the WHQL 285.62 drivers (was using 290 betas) and flashing my problematic Gigabyte 560Ti OC's BIOS which supposedly increases its voltage.

Bring on the 7970

 

[Smartazz]

A friend of mine had a similar problem with a GTX 480 and an i7 950. Very unstable, could barely play games without crashing, then he rolled back the graphics drivers and it fixed it. Not too sure if I'd upgrade to a 7970 from an overclocked 560ti, but that's just me. A single 6870 runs BF3 really well, so I'd imagine your 560ti is great for it.

 

[Rvenger]

Suklee - A friend of mine was having the same issue you described but with a 560ti. He uninstalled and redownloaded battlefield 3 and it solved the issue. He believed it to be a corrupt file.

 

[Makaveli]

So from the last few post is this pointing to a problem with the NV drivers and the 560ti combination or just a driver issue regardless of card?