I think given the great knowledge base here on Hardware, Empiresmod Forums should start a Hardware Forum. Brag and educate subsections might be cool. My ongoing upgrade. I am converting my Entertainment system into a mid level gaving system, 1080p max. I am running a Dual Core AMD A6-5400K Processor with a single 8 GB memory stick and recently upgraded the built in APU (Video processor) to a Gigabyte Radeon R9 380 G1 Haming GPU. Everything works well within the 430 Watt PSU. I tested on Empires - works great, and Grand Theft Auto - also works great. The reason for this thread is that I am having lock ups which I won't blame on the game. If I could CTRL ALT DEL and kill the game, I would blame the game, but this lockup requires a reboot. This sucks since this tends to happen when I COM, and has cost us at least one match recently. I'll be avoiding the COM vehicle until I resolve this. Plans which I hope you'll comment on: I was thinking of upgrading from Dual Core A6-5400K 65 Watt CPU to a AMD A10-5800K Trinity Quad-Core 3.8 GHz Socket FM2 100W. Also adding a second 8 GB stick may improve memory performance as well as increase memory to 16GB. I got to believe the lock ups are heat related. On my old quad core/hyperthreaded laptop I took everything apart, cleaned everything re-applied thermal paste, and I went from 15 FPS to 35 FPS after an hour of playing. In one situation where I neglected to plug in the CPU fan, I went down to about 1 FPS within 10 minutes. For completeness: The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-FA2A88XM-D3H which is a FM2+ Socket. Ideas?
I seriously think your cpu is overheating, I remember from your other thread you said it didn't have a fan. Unless you got excellent case ventilation and a massive heat sink there's no way you can cool that processor passively under load. Would be nice to see a picture of the inside of the computer case. After all it isn't just your cpu heating things up in there, you got a gpu which consumes like 3 times as much power is suddenly adding in a lot more heat. You can use something like msi afterburner to see temps and cpu/gpu usage in game. It's take a minute to get it to do what you want, but it's pretty customizable. Or some other hardware monitoring system like http://openhardwaremonitor.org/ to see temps on your desktop without having to boot to bios. There might be a problem with something not getting enough power from your power supply causing the lockup, but considering what else you have in there and the specs you said before I don't think that's the problem. About upgrades, you can add another stick of ram if you want, it's cheap enough, but for most things I wouldn't expect to much of a boost in performance. You would certainly get a performance boost in games like gta5 and other things that aren't empires with that quad core, but let me quote myself from your other thread when it comes to cpu upgrades. A slight bonus is that with the money saved by getting a cpu without a integrated gpu you can get an aftermarket cooler, which will not only help it run better but much quieter then the stock one it comes with. Also be sure to use https://pcpartpicker.com/ to get best prices.
This would be my first guess, the 380 takes quite some power under full load. Heat, maybe, but usually there would be throtteling and not a complete lock-up if that would be the problem. Also check if everything is really in place/in slot correctly.
Turns out I do have a fan on the heat sink. It's a 1A02M5M00 Fan/Heatsink. But maybe I need to make sure that it was installed using Thermal Paste ? Also wondering if I upgrade to a Athlon X4 860K CPU - could I use the same fan? I'm such a hardware nub. Even though the gaming experience is certainly better with the new GPU, the system responsiveness is not as good as the laptop Quad core - with hyperthreading. This is also why I'm thinking of going quad core. I tend to run lots of apps - but not while gaming. Thanks for Open Hardware Monitor advice, I'm running it now. Oddly my CPU load is hovering around 50% on both cores while just running a browser. <edit> I've been monitoring cpu and it's about 35% while in empires.
On my old ass computer from like 2005 it used to lock up sometimes due to heat, it was mostly the gpu though. Unclogged the heat sink and dusted everything it was good to go. Though now that I think about it it might have simply crashed the game and not locked up the computer, it's been too long. His power supply gives PSU: 32 A/12V = 384W, 0.8a/ -12v, 3A/5v=15W, which is enough for a 380. Of course, if the power supply came with the case the quality might be bad so it can't actually supply that kind of power. OH, another thing is maybe the powersupply itself is overheating? I've had that problem too, and it's not a good one at all. Check it out jgf, if it's clogged with dust or it's intake is inside the case that could be a real problem too. About fans and things, that looks like a stock cooler which aren't terribly good. The 860k is suppose to come with one and it might be better than that tiny thing, I would assume amd would supply a bigger heatsink to dissipate the extra heat, but honestly I would suggest some cheap after market cooler. Cooler master makes good ones, it's like 20$. I think you said your case wasn't a tiny one, so you should be able to fit basically any cooler in there. Not that you have to, but stock might either start throttling itself down over extended play or it might just be kinda noisy because the fan has to run 100% all the time. Not like you can't do it later either, but I know I don't like doing things twice if I don't have to.
you need to buy an aftermarket cpu heres a start: http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master...&qid=1463858957&sr=1-1&keywords=cooler+master second, your video card has issues with gta https://community.amd.com/thread/191747 https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/3ym7i5/address_the_r9_285r9_380_crashing_problem_plz/ this is why i suggested two 750ti's
He's crashing in empires, not gta though. Maybe it's both, but still it's not a gta only thing so there is a hard ware issue not entirely related to this specific version of gpu.
Not a GTA auto thing - but I didn't play it much since I need a cable for my steering wheel. So I played a couple days for quite a while yesterday without incident. The only thing that has changed is I closed up the case and stood the case up. The case has very good ventilation, and open top. The GPU fan blows DOWN onto the huge head synch, and the CPU fan now blows across. The GPU has a dual fan which doesn't even run while in Empires, so doubtful the issue is the GPU. So I think I'll follow some sound advice and clean the CPU fan, reattach with fresh thermal paste. The upgrade then just becomes an improvement in performance of the CPU, but if the issue really is the PSU, then going from 65 watts to 100 watts on the CPU upgrade will not be a good thing. I'll run it as is for now and see how things turn out. I'll check out the CPU fan - and keep monitoring for heat issues. Thanks
