Slowness issue, looks like CPU or motherboard problem but not sure

Mantel

I'm having an issue with my PC and I'd like to get another opinion on it, mainly as the issue seems to be with the motherboard or processor and I don't have the money to replace both right now, only one. It'll be at least a month, probably two, before I'll have the cash to replace the second part. It's mainly a gaming PC and the problem is, it can't play games too well, even when I'm using Reddit Enhancement Suite (has a nice feature where you can load all the images so you don't have to click on each one to view them) on some of the image heavy subreddits scrolling down the page stalls for a second before jumping down and stalling again, that's with only one tab in chrome and nothing else running. The AMD page is a nightmare when I was trying to find drivers, took ages to load, it took the drop down menu ages to respond (3 to 4 seconds for it to register input).

The main thing I'm asking is there anything I'm missing that might point to it being something other than the motherboard/CPU?

I've had the system running for about 4 or 5 months and no issues, it would play any game I threw at it on high detail with a few exceptions. Tf2 ran great with everything set to full but now it's turned in to a jerky, stuttery mess, turning down the graphic settings makes a difference but not much. Same thing with Battlefield 3, settings turned way down, it's just about playable.

This all seems to have started just after Rage, which also ran really well but I haven't tried it since. Windows installed an update one night when I was shutting down the PC so I left it to it, the next morning the PC was still on but unresponsive, black screen but fans still going. Okay, a bit strange but a powercycle should sort it out. The update didn't install properly so windows did a roll-back and attempted to install the update again later that night, the PC would turn off but the same thing would happen on start up, roll-back to a previous state, it was stuck in an install loop. I tried a few things to sort this out after a week of on/off attempts I managed to sort it out and was more or less back to normal. That's when I started noticing slowness in reddit and games. Due to work and other commitments I hadn't been getting much game time that month and hadn't even gone near TF2. A few more attempts to fix it (seemed like a graphic card driver issue) and I wasn't getting anywhere except a few blue screens. The only way out I had was a full reinstall, so I did that, on a spare hard drive I hadn't gotten around to using. The install went fine but the issue appeared again, same ones, slowness and jittering in games and RES. I tried different drivers from AMD, updating the BIOS and even another re-install but nothing helped. I'm left with a stable system but one that can't replicate what it once could do. I thought more RAM would help so I've gone from 4GB to 12GB and it's done feck all. Battlefield 3 runs but not when I try to use Vent at the same time, the game starts up and it's just a black screen and then it crashes.

I've tested both graphics cards on their own with no difference. I've swapped out the memory and no difference. Re-installation of windows twice and the problem is still there.

Right now I'm willing to buy one or the other, I'd like to replace the most likely part so I can get back to normal but I realise that it could be the wrong one or both could be defective. Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated along with any suggestions for narrowing down the issue.

System specs:
AMD Phenom II 945 (4 core, 3.01GHz)
12GB RAM ( 2 x 2GB + 2 x 4GB modules)
ATI HD5770 x 2 (tried in crossfire and non-crossfire, no difference)
Asus M4A79T deluxe motherboard
Antec BP550 Plus PSU
Windows 7 64-bit


Some benchmarks
[1] http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3770197
[2] http://3dmark.com/pcm7/236913
Pitiful scores when compared to other similar systems.
[3] http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/furmark_192_score.php?id=24792

Nothingbetter2d

what speed is your hard disk drive?

if its one of the eco drives they have a woefully slow read time and are totally not suited to be your primary drive.

your CPU/RAM/motherboard seems to be fairly new so i doubt its that.

if you wanna buy something to speed up the pc buy yourself a 128gb SSD hard drive and install windows on that.

also AMD quad cores have a crappy memory controller integrated into them. using 4 ram chips seems to be a struggle for them... upping the voltage to the ram very slightly, helps from what i read.

Mantel

It's a 7200rpm drive. I think it's a western digital drive, I can't remember now It's more or less the same model as my last hard drive and that worked for ages just before this problem cropped up on the system.

I got a small SSD not too long ago and will use the current one as media storage when I get around to reinstalling windows, I want to get this problem sorted before I do that in case I have to another re-installation of windows.

I'll look in to the voltage tweak tonight and give it a try, thanks!

Mantel

Nothingbetter2d, I think you've managed to help me find the real problem here. I thought it was the CPU but it looks like it's the motherboard and some crappy bios code. I went to change the memory voltage and then check with CPU-Z, that's when I noticed the multiplier was set at x4 and the voltage hadn't changed. I tried to change the multiplier in the bios.. same result, no change. An hour of Google and I find someone with a similar issue which seems to be a corrupt bios, or at least a partial corrupt one. A few others have had the same issue, my path to resolution is either flash the crap out of the bios and hope it wipes it properly or go through a lengthy RMA process

Think I'll order an MSI board in the morning.