Motherboards Can a motherboard bottleneck a system?

I posted a while ago about a friend who was having some issues with a system that I built him. Since no solution could be found I just told him to have a look himself and see what could be causing it. What happens is that his games appear choppy when used with an Xbox 360 wired controller. For example Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas but only when in the third person view. So he made an account on the tomshardware forums and asked there and one user suggested a motherboard bottleneck as the problem. I know cheap motherboards have certain restrictions but I never knew it could bottleneck.

These are his specs;

1TB Seagate ST31000524AS Barracuda
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 PRO Extreme
21.5" Acer G226HQLBbd
550W XFX Pro Series Core Edition P1
2GB XFX Radeon HD 7870 Core Edition
Intel Core i3 3220, S 1155, Ivy Bridge
Asus P8B75-M LE B75
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance

I've never heard of this sort of bottleneck before, does it even exist?

 

Has he got the Graphic card in the Blue slot or the black slot?

 

Honestly can't remember, I'll have him send a picture.

 

The black slot is a PCIe x16 slot, but runs at x4 in PCIe 2.0 speeds.

The blue slot is a full fat PCIe x16 at x16 Slot in PCIe 3.0 speeds. So the card should be installed in the top Blue slot.

 

Shouldn't be any issues with that rig at standard HD resolutions.

Drivers up to date?

 

Yep. All drivers, BIOS and anything else that can be updated. Really confusing me...

 

Likely slow downs are CPU related in skyrim at least if he has it modded. Similar story can be said for fallout. ( skyrim with mods needs a quad core or it struggles)

Ask him if he using mods in either game both are likely the cause.

Motherboards can not cause slowdown unless things are in the wrong slot.

 

If the card is in the top blue slot, then this is what I would do. Before RMAing it. (I take it hes using a 64bit OS?)

Uninstall drivers. Restart PC. Run Driver Sweeper. Restart PC. Make sure to restart each time, otherwise files will be left over!

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C

Delete AMD folder,

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C/Program Files

Delete ATI and ATI Technologies folders,

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C/Program Files/Common Files

Delete ATI Technology folder,

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C/Program Files (x86)

Delete any ATI/AMD folder in there,

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C/Program Files (x86)/Common Files

Again, delete any ATI/AMD folder in their,

Now go Start/Control Panel/Folder options (Click on Tab "View") Now click on "Show Hidden Files, Folders, or drives. Click on OK and exit.

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C/ProgramData

Delete any ATI/AMD folder in there

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C/Users/"Your name"/AppData/Local

Delete any ATI/AMD folder in there

Now go Start/My Computer/Local disk C/Users/"Your name"/AppData/Roaming

Delete any ATI/AMD folder in there.

Now run CCleaner and run both Cleaner and Registry Cleaner. (You may need to run Registry cleaner a few times to clear all old registry entries.)

Now restart your PC, download the latest AMD drivers 13.1 and follow the install process.

I always do this process when installing new drivers, so I never get drivers conflicting, and I always get a smooth gaming experience.

 

So, if they use keyboard and mouse it plays fine? Only problem with the xbox controller... maybe the controller is bad and causing the problem. I have no idea why they would want to use controller in rpg in the first place but... I would test with another controller before going into the deep end.

 

He has two controllers and both of them do the same. Not sure if the problem persists with a mouse/keyboard as he never uses them in games, mostly because they're generic crap from his old PC.

 

I don't think the XBOX 360 drivers will be causing him the problem. Some games do take a performance hit when running in third person mode.

 

I would say its the controller. When I used one in crysis 2 and bf3 round my mates it would stutter like hell. Used a mouse and keyboard and it went away.

 

The user must be defective for using a xbox pad for playing PC games.

 

Even though the i3 has Hyper-Threading?

 

It is in the top slot, I've sent him the instructions and am waiting for a reply.

I agree.

Thats what I'm thinking too. But if two controllers are both buggering it up, then something else must be happening unless he has two busted controllers.

 

OK, tell him to try this with the controller.

Unplug the controller.

Start/devices and printers/Right click on the XBOX360 controller(s)/Properties/Hardware Tab/Properties/Driver Tab/Uninstall

Uninstall drivers, and restart. Plug your 360 controller back in and let the auto updates install the drivers for you.

 

I don't mean there defective. How do I put it? They are not as fluid as a mouse.

 

I understood what you meant, but I haven't experienced that issue before. Games like Splinter Cell and Hitman I use a 360 controller.

I will have a go on Skyrim with the controller in third person mode and report back.

 

Hyper threading is not extra CPU power and skyrim does not support it anyway.

If you heavily mod fallout or skyrim expect to need a decent quad core to get it working both games are heavily CPU bound in most test scenarios.

 

Skyrim is running fine in either third or first person view without any real drop in FPS using the 360 pad...