Really slow performance with my M17x

Visited this site for at least a month, and thought I'd register since it looks like you guys know what your talking about.

I've been having some terrible performance with World of Warcraft lately. Usually, whenever I run the "High Performance" setting, the game clocks out at 60-70 FPS Per Second, but for the past week, it's been crap. I'm getting 20-40(Barely) FPS at most cases, usually it struggles between 25-35 FPS per second, though.

I have the game running on High-Ultra settings, and it always ran smoothly, but it's running like crap lately. Barely playable to an extent. I visited some other threads on this site with answers to people who also had slow crawls, but haven't found the answer for me. So, help?

My Specs are:

M17x R2
Intel Core i7 820QM at 1.73 Ghz
ATI CrossfireX 1GB Dual 5870
500GB 7200 RPM HDD

Also, I noticed that my fans don't seem to get loud when playing games lately. Usually, when I'm playing games on high settings, the fans will get loud, but the game will run like magic, lately, nothing though. Sorry for wall-o-text >_<

 

Check the following:

1: Have you turned off powerplay? If so, turn it on.
2: Is stealth mode on? Sounds like it. Hit the stealth mode button and see what happens.
3: What antivirus/other background software are you running?

-Ash

 

1: Where would that be found?
2: No, it isn't.
3. McAfee, iTunes

 

PowerPlay is in the CCC. Right click on your desktop, hit the Catalyst icon. Once you're in there, hit the 'GRAPHICS' drop-down and select PowerPlay. You want to make sure that it runs on high performance when you're plugged in. You might also want to make sure that Crossfire is enabled, although I don't even know if WoW supports it. A program called GPU-z will tell you that, or just use CCC. Same dropdown as PowerPlay, just select CrossfireX instead. Also check that your Windows power plan is set to 'High Performance'. If your fans aren't kicking in as hard, your cards probably aren't running 3D clocks.

 

Alright, thanks a lot man.

Just turned on Power Play. Apparently, Catalyst had both settings to maximize battery life instead of performance. I'll play some games, and reply back to see if the problem persists.

 

Just played some WoW, and had even worse performance. 19 FPS!!

W.T.F

Any other suggestions?

 

Also, replace mcafee asap.

Uninstall it and get windows security essentials or panda cloud antivirus, both free, both faster, both detect more than mcafee.

-Ash

 

PowerPlay needs to show max performance when plugged in.
Ensure Stealth mode is NOT active.
Ensure you're using the 'High Performance' power profile in Windows.
Ensure that you are indeed plugged into the wall.
Ensure that Crossfire is enabled.

Are you running a ton of background programs?

 

Alright.

Anything else? I don't understand why it was running completely fine last week, and now it's running like crap.

 

Running all of those. Stealth is turned off.

And no, I close all my programs when I play games. Do I need to download new drivers or something?

 

If it IS the antivirus thats the problem (maybe, maybe not, but mcafee is almost as bad as norton anyway), a virus may have attacked your PC and mcafee had no detection routines for it.

The virus would have then silently newtered mcafee and went on its merry way.

Happens all the time with off the shelf antivirus software.

Major antivirus companys pay PC manufacturers lots of cash to 'bundle' their antivirus software with the machines.

When the first 'free month' is up, the antivirus bombards the user with "WARNING YOUR ANTIVIRUS WILL STOP WORKING" which scares the user into buying the usually sub standard product.

-Ash

 

I'm installing Microsoft Security Essentials now, I'll run a scan and see whats up.

 

just scanned, and my computer is clean.

ugh...

 

Ok, stealth mode can be tricky. Are you SURE it is off?

Get this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/463382-stealth-mode-indicator.html

Make absolute sure it is off. Then, go in and check and uncheck crossfire.

REBOOT. Complete shutdown and reboot.

Go into all your power settings in control panel and make sure they are high performance when plugged in.

REBOOT. Complete shutdown and reboot.

If that doesn't fix it, I would clean off the video drivers with driver sweeper and reinstall them.

Hope that helps.

 

Were you possibly playing with Shadows turned to one notch below max before, and now have that up all the way? Max shadows is notoriously bad on framerates in WoW, and the visual difference between max and then next setting down is minimal.

Max shadows is heavily CPU dependent, and not really coupled to GPU performance (like other WoW settings, but especially with shadow settings).

Another thought... had you previously tweaked your processor affinity mask in the config. file? Sometimes when a patch gets downloaded, WoW will erase those settings from the config file. With your 820QM cpu (same one I have), the affinity mask could make a lot of difference for CPU-bound processing.

 

Holy crap, that worked. It was STILL ON even though I supposedly turned it off. Thanks a lot man.

Somebody rep this guy, lol.

 

Edit: Just rep'd you! Thanks a ton.

 

Thought so. Stealth mode is a major PITA.

-Ash