Hello everyone. I'm new here. Maybe you can help. Right after Christmas I bought a new video card(Chaintech nVidia 6600) so I could get some decent CS:S goin. It installed fine, and after some CS:S tweaking, I got a nice, smooth 60fps w/ it(I'm easily pleased). A few months later, I was playing and heard a kind of a thud or bang, like something fell. It could've just been a coincedence, but I thought I heard it coming from my PC case. Immediately after hearing the thud, my fps dropped to about 15-20. I didn't think twice and restarted CS. It was still very low. I checked all of my config settings, and nothing had changed. I dismissed it as a problem with the game because nothing actually crashed or ran slowly other than source. Just to be safe, I checked to make sure nothing crazy happened, like the fan falling off of my GPU or anything. All of the fans were spinning right as rain. The problem has been bugging me lately, so I fired up 1.6. I've gotten 60fps on 1.6 for as long as I can remember(I have it locked to my monitor's refresh). After my "incident," 1.6 dropped too, down to about 30-40 fps. Now I knew something was wrong. I then played Jedi Outcast, a game that gave me 80fps flawlessly. It now gave me 40-50 if I was lucky. I did all of the obvious stuff. I checked for programs running in the background, viruses, spyware, etc. I installed new drivers, rolled back drivers, and then I even switched out the video card with my old 5200. Now, it never ran source well, but it gave me 60 with 1.6 and 80 w/ Jedi Outcast. It's doing the same exact thing. I'm fairly knowledgeable when it comes to computer hardware. I work as a PC/POS tech and have my A+, but I'm stumped. The only suggestion I've gotten so far is that my PSU could be going, but I haven't checked the voltages yet. I'm running the following: Soyo Dragon Plus 865 chipset 2.4ghz P4 w H/T 1gb of Corsair PC3200 RAM 40gb WD IDE 120gb WD SATA 400watt psu. Thanks a bunch! Hopefully you guys can help!
Are you sure that the power connector to the card is securely in place? If it's been knocked out it won't work to its potential. If its in properly, what model is your PSU?
Thanks for the prompt reply. It's not the psu connector. It was secure, that was the second thing I checked after the fans. Plus, my 5200 does not have a psu connector, so that wouldn't explain why both cards act exactly the same. I can't remember the model of the psu. I can't find the box, but it's definately generic. It's not an Antec or anything. I think it was like 40 bucks with a 20 dollar rebate at the Tiger store by my house.
