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ASUS A8V Deluxe with Win7 x86 - Odd Performance Issues

Hello all,

Looking for some advice on some performance issues I am running into on one of my PCs. First off, here is quick overview of the system specs:

-OS: Win 7 Professional x86
-CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Code Name: Winchester) - Chipset: VIA K8T800 Pro - most recent drivers installed
-MOBO: ASUS A8V Deluxe w/ latest BIOS installed 1018.002
-RAM: 3GB Total (2x 1GB Corsair PC3200 running in Dual Channel and 2x 512MB Corsair PC3200 extra ram I had lying around)
-GFX: NVIDIA GeForce 7800GS AGP - latest drivers installed
-HDD: 1x160GB IDE Western Digital WD1600JB - will be adding more later for storage
-DVDR: Optiarc DVDRW

Background/Issue:
This was my main PC for quite a few years until I recently upgraded to a new rig. It ran pretty decent with WinXP and I wasn't really expecting much out of this PC now that I've installed Win7 x86 on it but I was expecting it to at least be able to browse the web, run some basic apps (Office, FTP server, etc.) and play online poker with.

However after install Win7 x86 the system is extremely slower. In particular, it takes several; minutes to boot up. The biggest issue is that it lags badly when playing a simple online poker app. When using this app, the animation of the poker cards being dealt or the animation of the online slot games oddly makes the graphics extremely laggy. I'm not trying to play any new FPS games or anything like that on this PC but I would think that a small poker app would perform fine.

All drivers are updated to the latest versions. The Mobo and GFX card are quite old obviously, so there's been no new BIOS update for the Mobo in years. And the IDE HDD probably is to blame for some of the lack of performance.

This CPU/Mobo wasn't designed for Win7 but there seems to be plenty of folks who've installed it w/o any issue. My questions for you all is...Is there anything BIOS or settings wise I am missing here or something else I overlooked? This issue with the lagging of the animation in the online poker application issue is really what bothers me the most.

If there's nothing that can fix it then I may just revert back to XP unfortunately.

If you want to know anymore system details please let me know and I would be glad to post it for your analysis.

Any advise is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, it should definitely run better than that for a fresh install. I've done Win7 installs on an Athlon 64 3700+ and an overclocked Athlon XP 2500+, both ran it pretty well.

When you say you're using a poker app, it's a completely standalone program and not run through your browser?

Probably the easiest thing to check for first would be what speed the CPU is running at when playing the poker game, as well as the temperatures. Download CPU-Z and HWMonitor. Keep an eye on CPU-Z when both idle and playing the game, make note of any fluctuations in speed and what it tops out at (to make sure it's actually hitting 2.2 GHz). Run HWMonitor for a bit in the background and upload a screenshot of it afterwards.
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KI6RIT

Yes its a standalone app. Its the Bovada poker client if anyone is familiar...

Watching the CPU% when its running, its definitely fluctuating a lot from, all the way up to 85% which doesn't sound normal.

I don't think reinstalling it is going the fix it but I will definitely try that just to rule it out. Any ideas what the heck would normally be causing an app to do that?

Just FYI.. Tried searching google for anyone else experiencing high CPU usage with Bovada's software and there was really nothing of substance.

I am thinking this an OS issue of some sort but I dunno what...

Did you update the directx package when you installed this O/S?
Have you changed the AGP aperture to maximum in bios?

Yes I have directx 11 installed and in the BIOS the gfx apeature is set to the max 8x for this card.

Is there anything relative to memory size for AGP in the bios?
8x is the slot/channel speed, not the memory size that allocates part of the hardware ram to the gpu functions.

Also, is this driver installed:
»www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvi···ver.html

I wouldn't think that card would use directx 11, it's age would suggest directx 9c, even though that is for XP, and directx10 is for Vista.

Did you use this link to update directx?
»www.microsoft.com/en-au/download···px?id=35

Have you tried disabling cool n quiet in your bios?

While I hate mismatched RAM and would love to tell you to change that, as long as Windows is recognizing it and you're not having a problem with it, that shouldn't be your issue.

I had almost this exact same machine before I upgraded a couple years ago and I agree it shouldn't be as bad as you're saying it is.

If no hardware has changed, and it was fine until you installed Win7, I can't help but wonder if you haven't missed a driver somewhere. A system driver like reinstalling your chipset driver, USB driver, or something like that.

Did you manually install all of the motherboard/system drivers or did you rely on Windows? Windows can often install a workable driver, but it's often not the best.
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Google is your Friend

UPDATE:
Thanks for all the advice.

Checked BIOS settings. Made sure AGP aperture was set to max and quiet n cool was disabled.
I installed the directx posted above and also did a clean install of the NVidia drivers. However the issue still remains. I even watched some football highlight vids from espn's site and they seemed to run fine. Its just something weird going on with the specific casino software I guess.

The last thing to check is to double check the chipset, usb, etc. drivers are correctly installed but im pretty sure I installed all those manually myself and not the auto windows versions. If that doesnt work then I might just revert back to XP.

The app you refer to:

If it is installed, on the shortcut, right click the icon, select properties, select the Compatibility tab, and then check the box "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select Windows XP (Service Pack 3)
Or try Service Pack 2.

Does that change the graphics behavior?

If this doesn't work, you also have an option for Xp mode in Win 7 Pro:
»windows.microsoft.com/en-au/wind···indows-7
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke

Tried the compatibility mode to XP, no luck. The shortcut was actually already set to run in XP SP3 compatibility mode. Must be done during the software install.

I wasn't aware of the XP mode option. So I started to go down that path but then realized by CPU doesn't support Hardware-assisted virtualization which is required to run the XP mode in Win 7.

Thanks for all the tips guys.