9800 Pro and Aquamark 3 (huge performance hit)
 

I benchmarked my system using Aquamark 3, and found that performance had
degraded over 50% from when I originally built the system. Original score of
44000+ was down to 21000, same configuration. I installed the newest Omega
ATI drivers, and improved to 32000. The CPU score is down from 9900+ to
just over 4000.

Changes since first benchmark:
Installed DirectX 9c, Installed SP2, Upgraded to Norton AV 2005 from 2003.

System:
Gigabyte K8NNXP w/AMD64 3200+
1 GB Mushkin Level 1 PC3500
2X36GB SATA Raptor (RAID 0) and 1 IBM Deskstar ATA HD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
Plextor 708A CD/DVD RW
Crystal Fontz 634 LCD
7-in-1 card Reader

WinXP w/SP2

Any idea what may be causing the problem, or what to try to resolve it?

Thanks,
Fitz

I just scored a 48,620 with a 9800Pro, P4 at 3.3GHz, 512MB at 200Mhz cl2,
WinXP, DX 9c, Cat 4.9 drivers. So I would imagine something is eating up
performance. Something running in the background - spyware or a utility of
some type?


"Fitz" wrote in message
...
I benchmarked my system using Aquamark 3, and found that performance had
degraded over 50% from when I originally built the system. Original score
of 44000+ was down to 21000, same configuration. I installed the newest
Omega ATI drivers, and improved to 32000. The CPU score is down from 9900+
to just over 4000.

Changes since first benchmark:
Installed DirectX 9c, Installed SP2, Upgraded to Norton AV 2005 from 2003.

System:
Gigabyte K8NNXP w/AMD64 3200+
1 GB Mushkin Level 1 PC3500
2X36GB SATA Raptor (RAID 0) and 1 IBM Deskstar ATA HD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
Plextor 708A CD/DVD RW
Crystal Fontz 634 LCD
7-in-1 card Reader

WinXP w/SP2

Any idea what may be causing the problem, or what to try to resolve it?

Thanks,
Fitz

That was my initial thought. I've run a virus scan, AdAware SE, Window
Washers, and Diskeeper. Are you running SP2?

Fitz

"Fitz" wrote in message
...
That was my initial thought. I've run a virus scan, AdAware SE, Window
Washers, and Diskeeper. Are you running SP2?

Fitz

I know its a stupid question, but have you checked your bios settings
rececntly. The other day I thought my PC seemed a bit sluggish and for some
reason I decided to check things with cpu-z. To my amazement, it was
running 1100MHz (11x100) instead of the normal 11x218 settings I have for
day to day use.

I went into the bios and sure enough it was set to 11x100. How and why this
got changed, I have no idea ???!?!?!

Just a thought

Chip

Yes, SP2.

Are you sure, AA or AF arn't on. Or howabout v-Sync
"Fitz" wrote in message
...
That was my initial thought. I've run a virus scan, AdAware SE, Window
Washers, and Diskeeper. Are you running SP2?

Fitz

You did completely disable the virus scanner (including any and all
background file I/O scanners), right? Norton AV is notorious for gobbling up
resources.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Fitz" wrote in message
...
I benchmarked my system using Aquamark 3, and found that performance had
degraded over 50% from when I originally built the system. Original score
of
44000+ was down to 21000, same configuration. I installed the newest Omega
ATI drivers, and improved to 32000. The CPU score is down from 9900+ to
just over 4000.

Changes since first benchmark:
Installed DirectX 9c, Installed SP2, Upgraded to Norton AV 2005 from 2003.

System:
Gigabyte K8NNXP w/AMD64 3200+
1 GB Mushkin Level 1 PC3500
2X36GB SATA Raptor (RAID 0) and 1 IBM Deskstar ATA HD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
Plextor 708A CD/DVD RW
Crystal Fontz 634 LCD
7-in-1 card Reader

WinXP w/SP2

Any idea what may be causing the problem, or what to try to resolve it?

Thanks,
Fitz

fish wrote:

Yes, SP2.




No ... I am betting Norton try disabling it and run the tests again.

regards

@ndrew

First of One wrote:

You did completely disable the virus scanner (including any and all
background file I/O scanners), right? Norton AV is notorious for
gobbling up resources.


Agree entirely they should be horsewhipped for the way their programs
work. The only decent program of Norton's that I will use is Ghost.

regards

@ndrew

I have been using Symantec's AV Corp edition for a few years.
I have run bench testes from Sandra for memory and CPU, 3D Marks with and
without it and there is never any differences in performance, ever. I don't
think that Symantec's AV is the culprit. I would agree that Norton System
works and all the other useless utilities could be.


"@ndrew" andrewratinternodedotondotnet wrote in message
...
First of One wrote:

You did completely disable the virus scanner (including any and all
background file I/O scanners), right? Norton AV is notorious for
gobbling up resources.


Agree entirely they should be horsewhipped for the way their programs
work. The only decent program of Norton's that I will use is Ghost.

regards

@ndrew

After much discussion about which program(s) could be using up resources,
and the possibility of a virus/worm, I decided to eliminate those potential
problems. I did the following:

Flashed BIOS
Deleted RAID array and reformatted both SATA HD and one ATA HD (low-level
format using BIOS utility on SATA drives)
Re-created RAID array
Clean install of Windows XP (slipstreamed with XP2)
Installed chipset drivers
Installed ATI Omega drivers
Installed Aquamark 3
Ran benchmark- SAME RESULT. Absoluely no difference at all.

Are we down to hardware?

Fitz