Random "Slow-motion"

Blackbird SR-71C

Hey y'all!

Basically: Everything running on my PC will go and stay in slow-motion mode at random intervals. I have no idea what causes it - I've checked numerous times what programs were running at the time it happened and tested each of them but without luck. CPU usage seems normal at around 0-5% when I'm only using Firefox. Memory usage is at 1.35GB - the same as it is when everything's running normal.

What really drives me nuts is that when I run games when it's like this, they don't lag - they run at 60 FPS but in slow motion. The same goes for opening/closing windows on the desktop and everything else.

I reinstalled my PC a few weeks ago because of this but to no effect. I also tried using SpyBot and AVG antivir but it didn't help.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems?

Big Classy

Does sound continue as normal?

Blackbird SR-71C

Big Isy wrote: »

Does sound continue as normal?

I usually just restart which fixes it immideatly so I'm not sure, but I'd say yes.

Big Classy

I'm not very tech minded but it could be either the monitor or processor. Sounds more like a monitor problem so I'd try a different one,if you have one to hand.

Smasher

What are your computer's specs?

A few possible culprits:

ATI graphics card drivers
Faulty PSU or laptop battery
Your motherboard's battery may be dying

Synthesis

Laptops used to do this in games when the CPU was being downclocked due to overheating. Dell Inspiron 5150s, which had insane heating issues, would do it in such a matter that felt remarkably like slow motion in games, and then return to normal when temperatures declined.

Is there anything that would cause your CPU to downclock? That's rather rare in desktops.

Blackbird SR-71C

Smasher wrote: »

What are your computer's specs?

A few possible culprits:

ATI graphics card drivers
Faulty PSU or laptop battery
Your motherboard's battery may be dying

Specs:

Core i5 2500k
Nvidia GeForce GTX 570
8 GB RAM
Motherboard: Asus Z68 Pro3
450W Power Supply
500GB Hard Drive

The only components that are older than about a year are the power supply and the hard drive.

Synthesis wrote: »

Laptops used to do this in games when the CPU was being downclocked due to overheating. Dell Inspiron 5150s, which had insane heating issues, would do it in such a matter that felt remarkably like slow motion in games, and then return to normal when temperatures declined.

Is there anything that would cause your CPU to downclock? That's rather rare in desktops.

I don't think it's overheating due to being completely random. Sometimes it's there after I start the PC up despite not having used it in a long time, other times it doesn't happen even though I'm playing resource intensive games like Crysis 2 for longer times.

Also, restarting it always fixes it, and it takes me less than a minute to completely restart.

ghost_master2000

If you are running windows 7 use the resource monitor application to see if there are any spikes in cpu, disk, or memory usage during the lag.

Blackbird SR-71C

Sorry, I wasn't able to get any new data lately as the problem only occured today again. Here's some screens from the Win7 resource monitor:

CPU:



RAM:



Hard Drive:





The only program I used beforehand was Mozilla Firefox, and I closed it before taking the screens.

The slowdown was present from the moment I logged on.

Smasher

Next time it happens watch your computer's clock and see what's happening there. Most programs use the system clock to determine when it's time for them to draw the next frame or whatever, and if the clock is running slow that could cause everything that depends on it to also run slowly. If that's the case you'll probably want to replace your CMOS battery.

If that doesn't work or seem to be the problem, even though you don't have an ATI try rolling back your graphics driver anyway.

When did this problem originally start occurring? I don't suppose you remember making any changes to your computer shortly before then?

Blackbird SR-71C

Smasher wrote: »

Smasher wrote: »

Next time it happens watch your computer's clock and see what's happening there. Most programs use the system clock to determine when it's time for them to draw the next frame or whatever, and if the clock is running slow that could cause everything that depends on it to also run slowly. If that's the case you'll probably want to replace your CMOS battery.

If that doesn't work or seem to be the problem, even though you don't have an ATI try rolling back your graphics driver anyway.

When did this problem originally start occurring? I don't suppose you remember making any changes to your computer shortly before then?

Sadly I don't recall if I did anything back when the problem started. What I can say for sure is that I didn't do anything to the hardware - it's the same as when I built the PC last christmas.

Also, where do I check the system clock?

Smasher

Just watch the clock on your desktop when it runs slow and see if it keeps real time or if it's falling behind. If it's fallen behind the real time significantly (even when it's running normally) that's likely the problem.

Blackbird SR-71C

Smasher wrote: »

Smasher wrote: »

Just watch the clock on your desktop when it runs slow and see if it keeps real time or if it's falling behind. If it's fallen behind the real time significantly (even when it's running normally) that's likely the problem.

Gotcha!

Now, the waiting game begins again...

Dratatoo

I had a friend who had similar problems, except his newly build PC always ran slowmo - the same way you descriped - after booting Windows. No mucking around with drivers, BIOS setting or swapping GPU and RAM could solve it. He fixed it by disassembling and reassembling the PC.