Instability in games what to do??

[AmdFly]

Hey all says the new face!

Systems specs

Athlon AMD XP 2500
KT600-A K7FSB 400 ECS
1x512mb Infineon
1x256mb Kingmax(both DDR400 PC3200)
Audigy 2
Gigabyte x800pro
40gig 7200 Sata
ATX-320W/P4 PSU

My problem started when i started upgrading my comp(which ive had now for about 2years). The board, 40 gig Harddrive and 1x256 kingmax mem is the only thing left from my orignal comp, and the rest upgraded from

CPU: 1800 to as above
Memory: 2x256 King DDR400 pc3200 to as above
Graphics: ATI 9200 128mb - fx5700 256mb - as above(big diff)
Sound: Ac97 codec to as above(big dif) :mrgreen:

Now to my problem is game feeling i get from the machine :(
Well basicly it sux!! esp when a game has just started up...
I play mostly online with a asdl 512/128 conneciton and know what lag is!
But what happens most the time is that when playing it feeling as thought someone is squeezing and even squezzed the piping somewhere and jerks all over the place(get short burst of game frezzing). I use a lagometer in some games which give a better indication its not a simple thing to fix with drivers as it has become worse as ive upgraded my G-Cards

I look down especially when my game has loaded and find the hard drive is still very buzy(normal). But it shouldn't effect my gaming performance should it!
I look into task manger and have find when i had my 512mb, virtual would kick in and would have 600 total memory used...Put 768 in and virtual kicks in again running @ 800-900 total usage :mad: Using the same game(Call of duty) diff cards(512 to 768 with fx5700 then 768 to x800pro)
Virtual memory with the fx5700 used about 780 virtual and the x800pro 800-900mb

My machine runs stock clocked not hot and still rocks apart form this small problem

What things can i check to make sure something isn't broken or mismatched(i've check individual memory.. all good)

PS only really got into behind the scenes stuff and have a have a good knowleadge on speed matching and BIOS config... but feel im missing something please help??

[Thong_Ispector]

Did you do a clean install of XP or did you patch it up..?

[Catweazle]

The only hardware issue I can see there is the mix 'n' match RAM. Try removing the 256Mb module and just using the 512Mb on, in case there's a conflict there.

[AmdFly]

Did you do a clean install of XP or did you patch it up..?

Ive done a clean XP install when i first installed my fx700 but not recently when i brought my x800pro

All up ive done 5 rebuilds in the past 5 months to clean things up

PS i think even after uninstalling my nvidia drivers some files might be interfering maybe?

[AmdFly]

Have you guys played doom3 with 512mb ram... or far cry would it make a diff

Im upgrading soon and was hoping to ask about my problems first, then do a full rebuild and and memory match

IM hopefully gona build from these specs
Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939 nForce3 Ultra

is this card good

Thx for ya help

[Catweazle]

Any game running stable with 512Mb is better than the game running unstable with 768Mb of mis-matched RAM. Freezes and lockups give you the shits! Reducing graphics detail is hella better!

[AmdFly]

Any game running stable with 512Mb is better than the game running unstable with 768Mb of mis-matched RAM. Freezes and lockups give you the shits! Reducing graphics detail is hella better!

Even if both memory modules are running @ the same speeds can it still make a slight noticable difference?
DDR400 PC3200

Ive heard GEIL is ok brand without odds against spending money
But is infineon popular in the states ( I live in NZ).

ps i will try and run with just 512(I had run both stick sperate) and see what happens with this new card.

[Catweazle]

The problem is not the speeds, as both are PC3200. It's simply that somtimes we can get problems with two modules of different brands. Each will work fine in the motherboard on their own, but put them together and they chuck a fit! You need to test and be sure that's not happening to you.

[AmdFly]

Turns out i had spyware
Spybot 1.3 didn't detect all known files, so i upgraded to Sunbelt Counterspy 1.0 software run and cleaned, and as good as new no problems

Memory tested fine

Thanks for ya help