Please help... Unsolvable slow-mo issue with HL2

[agent_8]

My system refuses to run battlefield 2 and halflife 2. I could run them both weeks ago at full settings with out the slightest problem.
Both of them start up in SLOW mo. The sound is at normal speed but skips. the video is about 2 fps if that. I can move gordon to look around at full speed but moving, jumping and everything else is slow mo. The options on the title sreen fade in/out slow as well as the tower in the background is slow. I'll tell you what I've tried so no one will waste thier time.
Before when this happened, I'd defrag and it would be fine. My latest attempt I restored my c drive to factory settings and only installed halflife 2 ep 1 and it still lags.
The drivers for the video card are up to date. Windows is up on the auto updates. My system recognizes the ram. I have checked and rechecked for spywear/ viruses. Before the c drive restore, I uninstalled and reinstalled making sure that the registry for the games were deleted each time too. The temp for the video card is well below being hot. I have turned off all the features and or turned them to lowest settings on the video card and HL2 itself (antialiasing and stuff is off). There is literally no other programs installed on my system besides explorer, media player, avg, video card drivers and the game itself. Ran dxdiag and all is good. I have shut down almost everything in the background that wasn't crucial. I have physically cleaned and reinserted ram and video cards. I have cleared cache for the game to reset stuff and have sent in NUMBEROUS trouble tickets to EA for BF2 with no luck. The only thing I didn't try that they suggested was to do a trace program on my dsl. I don't think that the games even open any ports up on the title screen and thats where the problems start...as soon as the ap starts from windows.
If the system never ran the games before, then I could live with them being "incompatable" but nothing has changed since it has laged out. Especially since the system should be techniclly brand new since I did the factory restore, there shouldn't be any registry conflicts or anything keeping the games from running.
I think the only thing wrong with the system is that the power supply is only 305 watts and the video card fits a tad snug between the other cards (nothing is touching and the vc fan seems free). As you can see from my specs, this system should run anything I throw at it....

P4 hyperthreaded 3.2 , 1.5 ram (1 gig is Kingston hyper X)
aopen 7800gt 256 mb video card. case with plenty of cooling.

If anyone has an Idea (not like buy a new system) I will make your wildest dreams come true. I am seriously out of ideas

 

[Frraksurred]

It sounds as though you've tried most everything.

My first thoughts were driver conflicts. When you installed new drivers, did you unistall the old ones and run Driver Cleaner before installing the new ones? I never install drivers anymore without going through this process.

Regardless, I would say that something has become corrupted in your file system. Potentially even mobo drivers within the BIOS. With all that you've tried the only thing left to do is reformat and start fresh. I've recently had to do this to all my computers and was amazed at how slow they had gradually gotten without me even noticing. Realistically, tracking down the corruption would probably take longer, and be less effective, then backing up your important files and reformatting... and it will fix numerous other little problems in the process.

Wish I had a more painless suggestion for you. Best of luck.

 

[agent_8]

For whatever reason, I tried the last resort that I forgot about and took out the system battery for about 15 min ( i guess that clears Bios and stuff) Then I took out the empty cage thingy in front of the front fan and some wires, moved some cards around that were sandwiching the vc, and now the system runs about 5 degrees cooler and plays HL2. I don't know what those things would really do but it works for now...I guess my system is picky with the temps... The vc now runs at 55 degrees with a heavy load and the slowdown threshold is at 115.... Thanks anyway, well see what happens.....

 

[agent_8]

nevermind.... lag again. I give up

 

[bbson john]

Maybe the weather is too hot.

 

[Drackard]

How does that make sense ... because then surely the majority of peoples computers would be completly f*cked.

 

[bbson john]

How does that make sense ... because then surely the majority of peoples computers would be completly f*cked.

I have experienced it before.

 

[Termite]

Try running a virus check. Have you played these games before on your system?

 

[agent_8]

Yes, the games have played at full settings befroe for hours and there can't be any viruses since I restored c drive to factory new....

 

[agent_8]

I can pull the battery from the motherboard, put it back in, restart with nothing else changed and I can play at full settings just fine till I restart again.... Then It goes back to lag. Why is that????

 

[Beerdude26]

Sounds like overheating. Have you tried putting an external fan next to your computer? Just open the case from the side (don't forget the screws ) and aim the fan inside.

 

[agent_8]

Naw, it's not overheating. Something is changing cmos/bios settings when I reboot.... I can't really get into bios cause its a sony viao, just basic settings. I am afraid to "flash" bios and don't even know really what that is so I will live with pulling the battery every time I do a restart...unless that can hurt something...

 

[kacation_man]

How does that make sense ... because then surely the majority of peoples computers would be completly f*cked.

I line in AZ and during the summer my PC runs 10 degrees hotter then in the winter... or whatever other season

 

[Drackard]

Aye i know, its understandable that computers tend to get a tad hotter during the summer, but if it was that then surely a lot of people would be getting problems with over-heating.