Something wrong with my cpu?

[overlords]

Hey guys. Need a bit of help here. Recently I tried getting oblivion to run on my PC, and I figure i should have no problem. Had some major FPS problems but I heard that it might be because of how badly optimized the game is. Regardless, i tried some different things (no AA, no HDR, no Bloom, VERY low reso) and nothing helped. I finally got fed up and started suspecting my cpu of bottlenecking my graphics card.

Long story short, i finally ended up running prime 95 (keep in mind, everything I have is stock, not oc'd yet) and the CPU reached 90 degrees within 2 minutes. At that point I worried and pulled the plug on prime 95.

To be completely truthful, i've never used prime 95 before. I know it's used to test stable OC's but i figure if my stock q9450 can't handle it for 2 minutes, there has to be something wrong, right?

any help is appreciated.

[David]

What cooling are you using?

[overlords]

Originally Posted by David

What cooling are you using?

still stock intel HS. (i've got a post in the cooling forum for suggestions on a new one)

[gingerbee]

well if it's stock and full of dust or it's real warm in your house it could be right and 90c is way to high for my liking. take the case side off and see what up if the fan spins up or not,or too see if it's real dusty

[overlords]

Originally Posted by gingerbee

well if it's stock and full of dust or it's real warm in your house it could be right and 90c is way to high for my liking. take the case side off and see what up if the fan spins up or not,or too see if it's real dusty

It's dusty, i can tell from here. I'll take the side off the case tomorrow and try to get the dust out. Still not sure it justifies 90 degrees after 2 minutes of prime95. And my house is not warm at all, in fact i don't even have heating on in my room and I'm in montreal, so not the warmest of places.

The fan is spinning though, i can confirm that much.

[gingerbee]

maybe it's just a bad mount and needs to be redone.

[_dangtx_]

a 23$ cooler master 212+ will address the problem nicely, should keep it oc'ed around 60-65, depending on room temps and fan/speeds.

what you need to do right now is take out the dust not only from the cpu hs, but from around mobo components as well. look in your psu from the fan grill side...lots of dust bunnies in there too? not good :)

[overlords]

Originally Posted by _dangtx_

a 23$ cooler master 212+ will address the problem nicely, should keep it oc'ed around 60-65, depending on room temps and fan/speeds.

what you need to do right now is take out the dust not only from the cpu hs, but from around mobo components as well. look in your psu from the fan grill side...lots of dust bunnies in there too? not good :)

I'll post again early tomorrow (can't bang around now with everyone asleep) after i've blown out all the air from the inside of the case and all the components.

Just to be sure about my original hypothesis though, could the dust buildup cause FPS issues in games I SHOULD be running at max settings?

[gingerbee]

no but if your cpu is thermal throttling then yes that could cause the issue's your talking about. depends on game and settings and the real big question is what res you play at. i am running a xeon 3440 ( even at stock speed )with a 5770 right know and play almost any game i want at 1920 x 1200 no problem what so every. ( besides bfbc+crysis lol )

[overlords]

Originally Posted by gingerbee

no but if your cpu is thermal throttling then yes that could cause the issue's your talking about. depends on game and settings and the real big question is what res you play at. i am running a xeon 3440 ( even at stock speed )with a 5770 right know and play almost any game i want at 1920 x 1200 no problem what so every. ( besides bfbc+crysis lol )

Well like i said, i've tried with everything super low, even res. I had it at the lowest res so prob something like 800x600 and i was still getting low fps. from 25-60. The higher range being when i'd stare at a wall or something. Lower range being when NPC's come into view, not some frenetic action sequence.