Other My first build - have a couple networking and performance issues

Greetings everyone!

I am a longtime Mac user and an experienced programmer, but this is my first experience building a custom windows box.

Intel Core i7-930 CPU
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R ATX Mobo
GIGABYTE GV-R585OC-1GD Radeon HD 5850 GPU
CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50 Cooler
Mushkin Redline 6GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Memory
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W Power Supply
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM HD
Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SATA III SSD
COOLER MASTER HAF X
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

After a couple days of violent nausea due to the way Microsoft does everything, I am now pretty happy with my setup. There are a couple issues which are really bugging me though, and I would greatly appreciate it if anyone has suggestions to offer:

1) Networking.
The MacBook Pro this computer replaced could download gigs of files without breaking a sweat.
With the same ethernet cable plugged into my new system, downloads are extremely unreliable! Files often register as fully downloaded even though they are only partially downloaded, necessitating redownloading the file all over again in both Chrome and IE. Even iTunes has already experienced download errors in the two days I have had it set up... I now have to download everything through Free Download manager, and even it chokes every once in a while. While files are downloading web browsing is pathetic - I often have to refresh pages multiple times to get them to fully load.

2) Quiet Audio.
Prior to overclocking (?), my system's audio output was surprisingly quiet. The same set of speakers that produced lots of noise plugged into my 21" iMac could hardly be heard when plugged into my new system. The problem seems to have partially resolved itself after a couple days of use (no idea why...), and I can now at least hear audio over the speakers. I have all volume sliders in the RealTek audio manager set to full, and have tried plugging the speakers into my case headset port and the audio out channel on the mobo.

3) Lacklustre gaming performance.
This system can run a 3D game that I wrote (marsxplr.com) nicely at 80fps with all settings maxed, but even though the reported fps is high on some other games I have tested they still "feel" very choppy. I would love to test against some kind of standardized gaming benchmark to make sure my system is running at it's full potential.

As far as I know, I have all drivers installed correctly. The system is currently OCd to 3.8 ghz, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in respect to the above issues.

I have just over a week left on my NewEgg return policies in case I need to replace any components...


Thanks for your suggestions,

-Aubrey

 

Scratch the audio issue. After messing around with the Realtek audio manager for quiet a while today (even though all the settings have now been returned to their default state) and playing music at full volume for 8 or so hours continuously, the audio output now seems to be fine. No idea if the board had to burn in or what

 

For both the remaining issues, my first thoughts are drivers. windows 7 is pretty good with automatically getting the right drivers, and keeping them up to date, although i dont like to rely on it (probably more out of habit than having an actual reason).

Just to make sure (if you havent already) download the latest drivers for the NIC here. I'm not sure which rev your motherboard is, but as its new, i'd assume the latest.

For graphics, the latest are here

I dont know if they'll help, but they're definitely the first things to try.

With the networking, Its not a common windows thing, incase you were wondering. Granted, windows doesn't have as good network management as unix based systems, but its not noticeably bad.

I've had similar problems on games before, and it turned out to be because i had an IDE hard drive plugged in... it was on an older p55 motherboard, and the southbridge couldn;t handle it very well. If you have any legacy hardware plugged in, try unplugging it.

Another thing to try is make sure windows is fully updated.

If anything else comes to mind, i'll give you a shout... (well. maybe another post )


Oh - Also make sure you have the latest BIOS loaded - thats could be th root of the problems.

 

also enable vsync (should be in the control panel for your graphics card or in game options).. that's why the games feel choppy- the card is spitting out more frames than the monitor is displaying

 

Sorry for my delayed response! I really appreciate all your suggestions, just have too many other things going on.

All my drivers seem to have been in good order - a clean Windows reinstall and manual driver updates didn't help with anything.

Humorously enough, what seems to have made the difference was installing an air conditioner in my workspace. My computer now idles around 45c - 50c, and peaks out at 70c or so instead of the 83c +- it was wont to hit before.

Performance is noticeably better, with the HL2 lost coast stress test averaging 250 fps with 2x aa, trilinear filtering, 1920x 1080, and all other settings maxed.

Interesting note on the IDE drive, there's so many things to know

Though I still occasionally run into partial downloads, the frequency of their occurrence has decreased.

Overall, I guess this thread could be closed. Thanks all!