0

When gaming I get a ton of lag even though a very small portion of my resources gets utilized. I've narrowed it down to my CPU not behaving as it should. It gets extremely hot (80+ degrees). It's not a cooler issue, I have a well proven CPU fan that does the job (I mean, it gets super hot and blows air plenty). I think it's something else.

See the below picture. Bus speed: 133,6 MHz per core, isn't that pretty low? Is the rated bus speed (2405,2 MHz) how it should perform?

Can my CPU be... broken?

enter image description here

Edit: Also, it's not a graphics card issue. I have a 770 GTX and latest drivers.

Improve this question
4
  • 1
    If your CPU is overheating the it's a cooling issue....your CPU is being throttled
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 21:37
  • Been troubleshooting this to much, overthinking it :P Yes it probobly is a cooling issue hmm... Will look into buying a new fan then. The clamps on my current one looks a bit "Springy", which is not nice. Might have worn down over time. Thanks for all the input and setting my brain straight.
    – Jack Pettersson
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 21:46
  • 1
    1) There's no such thing as speed "per core". That makes no sense. If two cars are going 50 miles per hour, is that 50 miles per hour "per car"? 2) Bus speed depends on load. If you're looking at the CPU when it's not under load, it will be running at a low speed because it has no work to do.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 22:14
  • Maybe your CPU had a faulty IHS (the metal covering the top of your CPU that acts as the bridge between the face of the CPU and the thermal paste you will use between the IHS and your heatsink. You can't really do anything about this except RMA unless your IHS isn't soldered and you actually want to attempt removing it.. dangerous.
    – CausingUnderflowsEverywhere
    Commented Jul 16, 2016 at 17:27

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

Your CPU is likely throttling due to excess heat buildup.

Even if you have a proper cooling solution, it could be improperly mounted or the connection might have loosened over time. So the first step in trying to fix this is removing the heatsink assembly and removing all thermal paste remains from both CPU and cooler (carefully, of course). After that, apply new thermal paste (this is absolutely imperative1) and mount the heatsink assembly again. Check that all pushpins or whatever is used to hold it in place are properly fastened/snapped.

The so-called “rated speed” describes the effective bandwidth. It’s all that counts. As such, this is not the problem.

1 If you don’t replace aged thermal paste, you’ll seriously degrade the cooling system’s effectiveness. It’s not that bad while the solution remains mounted, but after removing it, paste replacement is a must. Of course, replacing it every few years would be best.

Improve this answer
1
  • I replace heatsink compound and clean it out every 6-9 months although it may not be needed to do this regularly in that time frame
    – Cord Parker
    Commented Aug 17, 2015 at 3:43
3

There is nothing wrong with that bus speed when looking at the multiplyer - 133.6 x 23 = ~3.06Ghz which is the rating of the i7 950.

Without know what graphics card you have, or what game you are playing and seeing the requirements of it, it is too hard to help you.

The average Thermal rating for that CPU is 67.9c, so, if you are reading a temperature of 80+ degrees, I would say you may have to replace the heatsink/fan - I know what you said, but, I would think this is more likely than the cpu failing. When some processors reach a high heat, they automatically underclock themselves in order to produce less heat.

Please note that also, that whilst the CPU may have been high end in it's time, it is coming up to being ~6 years old, so if this is a very modern game, this unfortunately may be the issue as well.

Improve this answer
2

I happen to have the same CPU as you and I recommend you to use some more monitoring software to detect top fan speed and see throttling. enter image description here

HWmonitor is great because it shows many things and also minimum and maximum value it measured.

To make a graph of your CPU frequency during a game or something just use that great windows tool called perfmon ;) Press win+r and type perfmon (or maybe perfmon.msc). Then click + choose ProcessorPerformance / All instances, Click add and then just let it make a graph. You may delete the other unnecessary monitored values except frequency using the red x button. You will also probably want to slow it down, so use the properties button on top and change it in General / sample every x seconds. You can also make it record this to a file by right clicking left on Performance monitor and choosing new collector set, but you can google more about it if you wish that... enter image description here

The last thing for you to try is to disable Intel speedstep (C1E and EIST options in BIOS) to force it to run on full frequency and see if the games run better. There is a bit of a risk of heat damage, but honestly I don't really remember this ever happening from what I have read:) I also unintentionaly tested my previous Intel CPU Core2Quad Kentsfield and found out it can survive temperatures off the scale of the monitoring SW (probably over 100°C) when the water cooling pump failed during benchmark ;D

80°C is a bit too much though. But does it have this temp under high load or when idle in Windows?

Improve this answer
1
  • I didn't know about getting windows to record monitoring information about the CPU, thanks as this may help when playing assassins creed (i)
    – Cord Parker
    Commented Apr 21, 2015 at 15:36

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .