I have this bad problem with my computer. I was in a 16 lap race yesterday, going really well in 4th place out of about 16 cars, then all of a sudden, my computer slowed right down as if it was loading something and i was stuttery really bad and was impossible to drive. The computer has recently been renewed (software) with Windows Home edition, before I had professional but it has never done this. Not only does it do it on lfs but also on my other games. Can someone give me some advice?

Specs:

510mb ram
128mb gfx card (Nvidia GeForce 6200)
1.4ghz processor - should be 1.7ghz (AMD Athlon 1700 - BIOS shows it as AMD Duron 1500+)

My mum is strapped for cash (mostly for saving up for a car) so I can't buy any more stuff at this time...

Apart from the above, it might be an obvious suggestion, but check for spyware/malware (spybot seems pretty decent for that). As an addendum to the above post, some antivirus progs like to schedule their own updates, etc and don't use task scheduler - might want to check that out.

Have you noticed such hiccups when not playing LFS? Monitor the task manager (or even better, get Process Explorer from sysinternals.com) and see if there is excessive activity by any specific process during a period of time. If you notice a hiccup press CTRL-SHIFT-ESC to bring up the task manager and see which process has most CPU usage.

If there is no hard disk activity when the hiccup occurs then the only other thing I can think of is that you've overclocked the VGA and it's overheating.

well I usually have nothing running except LFS.. Nortons is usually disabled. I noticed when playing BF however, when it does this, the screen flickers black as if an application has popped up, I got to check and nothing is there. I just cant understand my problem, before my computer had the old windows in it never did this. Now that i have the new windows this computer is as crappy as hell..makes playing games near impossible...

I know this might sound silly, I had the same problem, it was doing my head in, after about 15-20 minutes of play the same thing was happening, it was going in and out of full screen back to my desktop and later realised that it was my screenie kicking in because for some reason it didn't look at usb controllers as input.:doh:

no it doesnt go back to desktop, i havent got any gaming controllers... the screen just flickers black for at least a hundredth of a second... then is ok after that (thats on battlefield)...

have you tried CLOSING norton completely?

no but tbh i dont think its that, i think its the fact bios is kinda ****ed up

then flash the bios?
and if u have a 1.7 ghz cpu, u might have set the wrong clock speed in bios.
and btw, that number doesnt have to be the speed anyways got a amd athlon xp 2600+ but it runs at 1,92 ghz (with the correct clock speed)

Well for some reason the computer doesnt like to be running the clock at 166mhz which is its normal speed, it runs at 133mhz and whenever my friend tries to change it, it either reverts back to its previous settings or it wont even boot up.. bit pissed off as it cant run to its "full potential".

as i said, flash the bios.
if u dont know how to do so, ask a friend im sure u have one who has some knowledge in that area

1st: your pc is pretty fast to play lfs.

check your 6200 from overheating, especialy if it is a 6200 without a fan on its heatsink. You said this happened after a long session.

flashing your bios is one way to fix stuff that i would not take without first checking other ways.

check to see if there are jumpers on your motherboard to set multipliers and/or voltage for your athlon.

most AMDs can operate at boiling temps... (literaly boiling. mine can WORK at 110C) which means that if stuff overheats, it is the rest of the computer that will have issues with temp.

I lapped my 6800 and created my own lead-based heatconducting paste... i have it overclocked at about +30% and not a peep after a day's stress test.


check your gfx card if it has a fan. if yes, check that it works properly. check the heatsink. you want it HOT (you want the *heatsink* hot, because then it means that the heat is indeed transfered from gfx cpu (aka gpu) to the enviroment... the heatsink is supposed to transfer heat from the gfx processor to the enviroment.)

leave your computer playing lfs, with AI and see if it does it again.

other than that, latest stable drivers, programs that run, defragmenting programs, virus checkers etc.

Quote from Xaid0n :

Well for some reason the computer doesnt like to be running the clock at 166mhz which is its normal speed, it runs at 133mhz and whenever my friend tries to change it, it either reverts back to its previous settings or it wont even boot up.. bit pissed off as it cant run to its "full potential".

AMD 1700+ Should be running on 133x11, not 166.
You could clear your cmos and reconfigure it, unless your motherboard detects what cpu you have automatically.

Other than that, install the newest drivers for your hardware.

yea, when i think back, after changing my cpu i had to change the clock speed to 166 mhz for my athlon xp 2600 + so 166 for a 1700 doesnt sound quite right

I will add something to what [RCG]Boosted was getting at.

If your BIOS identifies your CPU as Duron 1500+, it might be just a bad detection, but more likely there is something set bad in your BIOS. BIOS update worth a try, but before doing that, try to determine you real CPU clock(for ex. by CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php). It should be something close to 1463MHz.