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My PC dilemma… Help is required, urgently!
5Calling all techies/g33kies out there.. I have a problem for you to solve.. And, I really appreciate if any one of you could help me.. I’ve been trying to solve it for months and yet, I’m still not able to fix it..
What has happened?
About 3 months ago, it was quite late in the night. I was playing NFS:Hot Pursuits on my PC when suddenly I received a phone call, which somehow required me to go somewhere. Thinking that I would be returning back on the same night, I left the PC on PAUSE mode (pressed escape button which brought up the in-game menu). Unfortunately, there was an emergency and it has resulted in me returning home after about 2 days. When I reached home, I notice that the PC was still running. Unfortunately the monitor was out of display (completely dark with the LED power blinking) i.e. as if the cable was not connected to the VGA card. I was quite shocked and quickly give it a hard shutdown.
After leaving it for about 30 minutes, I turned back the PC on and guess what, the similar thing was still there i.e. the display went dark. Quickly, I shut it off and pulled out the BIOS battery to reset the CMOS. Fortunately, the PC went back to normal after the basic configuration at CMOS. I also managed to get back into Windows. Phew!
The next day, as usual as I was trying to get my NFS daily dose, I had a big surprise. The frame rates were not as smooth as before. Since NFS is a racing game where everything moves fast, these jerky gameplay was really an annoying thing to look at. I simply gave up and went straight to bed. The next day, I came back early from office with only one purpose, to troubleshoot the issue and fix it ASAP. Now, before I shared the things that I have done, let me share with you the basic info of my system.
CPU: Q6600 2.4Ghz running @ 3.4 GHz
Mobo: Asus P5K
RAM: 2 x 2GB Team Xtreem
Graphic card: Asus GeForce GTX 460 1GB TOP in PCIe 16X & Gigabit 8800GT 512 MB in PCIe 4X (both are running in nvidia multi-card setup, as shown below. The left is 8800GT and the right is 460GTX)
For your info, the multi-card setup allows you to dedicate one of the lower spec card to run as your Psyhx card. In my case, I used 8800GT as my Physx card to get better framerate in Mafia 2, and it really helped as advertised by nVidia. No complaint! Big thumbs up to Nvidia 
In addition to information above, please also take note that Im using original Windows 7 Home Premium, and the NFS:Hot Pursuit copy is legit. Therefore the problems here, were not originating from some pirated softwares/OS.
What I have done so far?
a. Reinstalled NFS:Hot Pursuit
Problem not solved, jerky gameplay was still there 
b. Redownloaded the nVidia driver, and re-installed.
Problem not solved, jerky gameplay was still there
c. Reset the BIOS and reboot
Problem not solved, jerky gameplay was still there
d. Reset the BIOS and take out 8800GT card, leaving only 460GTX as primary card (as shown below)
This one turned out to be a bit different from what I have experience at above. I can’t even load into my Win7. It simply stuck at the boot screen (shown below). Very annoying. I repeated step a and b (as above) without 8800GT and still, I didn’t manage to get into Win7. Tried also other boot options: Last Know Good Configuration and even the Safe Mode has also failed.
e. Reformat my Win7
I then decided for the extreme and ultimate solution (I thought lah..) by formatting my Win7 through clean install. And guess what, even with that my Win7 couldnt load. What I found funny and confusing was, right after I re-plugged in 8800GT next to 460GTX, the windows loaded properly like there was nothing wrong with the OS. I was so puzzled and confused. It seemed that 8800GT is required and a must to get the PC and Windows running.
f. Ran benchmark on 3DMark11
This completely puzzled me again. I found out that with SIMILAR setup, I was at the 2nd last group; the typical score was about 2700, but I’m getting around 2100 only. That’s quite a gap, considering SIMILAR setup.
Now what??
I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been trying to get it fixed but the same thing/result happened. I was quite frustated. Not only I didnt manage finish the game, I also couldn’t run other game properly. My Team Fortress 2 ran fine only for 15 minutes when suddenly Windows reported driver error. It is really frustrating, seriously. I can’t also offload my HD playback processing to my GPU, as it would report driver error after few minutes of playback.
What really puzzles me is why I couldn’t return back to original single card setup? If my 460GTX is problematic, there is no artifact found during gaming. Is my mobo already kaput? >.<
Thanks for dropping by and Im looking forward for some good advices. Thanks!
Update:
I just carried out benchmark test on my primary hard disk using Harddist Tune. Please find the results as follow:
7
Streamyx vs UNIFI
1011 months ago
Prior to UNIFI installation posted earlier, I collected some data to be used as benchmark agains UNIFI, which includes speedstest result, and also pingtest result.
Let’s start with TM speedtest website(http://speedtest.tm.net.my).
Speedtest Result (Speedtest hosted by TM)
Streamyx
Unifi
Previous account (streamyx) was capped at 1.5Mbps to counter the overhead loss. Such configuration enabled me get the subsribed access speed, as advertised. As for Unifi, TM didn’t expect much of signal loss since it’s now on fibre, hence the speed is capped as per advertised. I’ve no complaint on this, and happily accept it
This test is really important and should be done the moment they finished installing Unifi at your place. If you fail to secure good local access speed, one can start guessing what will be the international access speed would be. So always, do this as part of troubleshooting your internet problem. If you do not get the good speed, the start making some noise to TM.
Now, let’s check how Unifi performs outside Malaysia.. i mean, international traffic
We’ll start with our closest neighbour, Singapore.
Speedtest result to Singapore (Speedtest.net)
Streamyx
Unifi
It seems that Unifi still manage to maintain its access speed as per advertised to outside Malaysia; Singapore. Streamyx did some fair amount of job, considering it reached its possible maximum access speed. Now, let’s move a bit further to the east; Japan
Speedtest result to Japan (Speedtest.net)
Streamyx
Unifi
Suprisingly, Streamyx was still having a good connection to Japan, maxing out the access speed as advertised. As for Unifi, the download speed delivered as what promised by TM, however the upload speed seemed to suffer some minor setback. Let’s raise the challenge a bit by moving to the west; UK i.e. Manchester.
Speedtest result to UK (Speedtest.net)
Streamyx
Unifi
Speedtest to UK/US is really important as these are where most of the website contents are hosted. Having poor access speed to UK/US means that you are in deep trouble. Haha! Therefore, it is always good to know your potential limit/constraint so that you can carry out some optimization on your side to rebound and to get the maximum access speed during download
Based on the tests conducted above, Streamyx was looking quite good, however, Unifi did perform very well, attaining access speed close to advertised. Difference in access speed (1.18 Mbps vs 4.67 Mbps) is therefore the important decisive factor for Unifi to stand out in this test. Now, let’s move further west (US) before we can conclude the testing.
Speedtest result to US (Speedtest.net)
Streamyx
Unifi
Suprisingly, although the tested server was located about 8500 miles away, Unifi seemed to deliver consistent speed, as advertised. Such achievement must follow with great compliment. So double thumbs up to TM! Good job TM!
Fibre is the way forward for the digital communication
As additional analysis, I also did some Pingtest to local server, Singapore, US and also UK server. Typically, local connection to MY should be very LOW (less than 30), otherwise you will face connection drop issues and this is not good for gaming purposes. You may miss headshot dude!
Pingtest result (Pingtest.net)
EDITED: One final test, upload test! Just uploaded HD movie to Facebook. I was quite impressed with the speed. (417 KBps, or roughly about 4Mbps upload speed)
