I need help from my computer savy friends! (Details below)

He has installed a lot of programs. Even though you aren’t running them, the extra programs change the init and config files, and add a lot of drivers and such to the computer, making it slower to load, and slower running.

Would Gamebooster have any effect?

How long has he had it? some performance loss is normal, specially if you spend a few weeks playing high spek games all day or rendering 3D or something.

Has he tried to pimp it? adding strange things.

….

Gamebooster, I have never heard of it, but gut reaction tells me he has overclocked the thing and burnt the CPU. Let me check…

“First off, the app works. It improve your games’ performance by turning off other software and services that would otherwise run in the background the whole time. This helps free up the system resources, making them available for the game you are about to play.”

At first glance I say gamebooster is ok.

Also, check the CPU is getting enough air. Has it got hotter lately? the weather in general I mean. If the CPU is overheating, most new computers will limit the CPU to prevent a burnout.

@poisonedantidote well, his computer is kept clean as a whistle. He has air conditioning. So heat can’t be an issue.

and he hasn’t “pimped it” lol

Check the power supply and the cooling setup. This means taking the cover off and poking about inside. After a year it’s entirely possible that the interior of the case is choked with dust (just as the OS is probably choked with cruft) and the dust is inhibiting air flow through the case, causing overheating. Temperature monitors are good, but not necessarily trustworthy- long periods at temperatures a monitor won’t alarm on can still be harmful.
Many consumer PC’s ship with inadequate power supplies as well, which isn’t such a terrible thng until the user starts using the full power of the machine or adding components. For those specs he should have at least a 600W power supply.
If those fail, he can always try a non-destructive reinstall – or, if he’s a non-gamer, switch to Linux.

Don’t assume because he has air conditioning the CPU is cool enough. There might not be enough of that thermal transfer goop between it and the heat sink. In which case he’s lucky something might be slowing it up to save it’s life.

@poisonedantidote “some performance loss is normal” I dunno, really? Why would that be?
Unless maybe you’re referring to overclocking and a decrease in the system’s tolerance for top speed?
Seems like once you have your kit installed it should behave in a deterministic manner, i.e. not slow down.

Defragging only goes so far; a Registry full of crap can do almost as much damage as some malware, so something like CCleaner is another part of good housekeeping. Uninstall the extraneous stuff like Gamebooster (I did a little research; it doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t help either.), then clean out your Registry.

I concur that thermal issues may also play a role. I had an old Northwood P4 that I kept clean but that would overheat if there was anything within 18 inches of either side or a foot of the rear of the case. Without knowing where you have your PC, it’s hard to say if you really are letting it get enough air, but just having air conditioning in the room that the PC is in is only slightly more relevant than your shoe size. You could have the thing in a walk-in freezer, but lack of airflow/circulation could still make it overheat.

And while I doubt that your slowdown is caused by a faulty PSU, I am not entirely sure that Dell gave you one that can actually support a high-end CPU and graphics card reliably for long, so I would expect that it will become an issue at some point.

More importantly, I am fairly certain that they didn’t provide an adequate cooling system. I have less powerful components and a case with plenty of ventilation.(far more than a stock Dell XPS) that still gets warm enough under gaming conditions to cause slight issues. In fact, to replicate your setup, I would require 40 square inches of duct tape to block the case vents and removal of a case fan.

Trust me, heat CAN be an issue. To think otherwise is foolish.

@Koanhead Please read the question before answering…. He keeps the computer EMACULATE and he has everything in there that came with the pc. Power Supplies must be made to handle all of the system componants I would presume. I have a dell optiplex GX620, Pentium 4 HT. I have 4 gigs of ram, Nvidia 9400GT, it came with windows xp 64 bit, now has windows 7 64 bit. I have no problems with speed. His computer would eat mine and crap out baby foxes…

@Dabbler He just put Arctic Silver on his heat sync. Might I imply you guys he builds computers for a living. Yes soldering componants onto the motherboard.

@Mr_Grimm I read the question. The word EMACULATE does not appear in the question, nor anywhere else in the English language. There is no reference in the question to the cleanliness of the computer, and I would have disregarded it if there were because I’m not going to take your word for it. I’ve worked in IT long enough to know that everyone lies, whether they mean to or not.
Also, do not presume that Dell makes their own power supplies nor bothers to provision them appropriately for consumer equipment. If you were buying a rack unit from Dell you might reasonably expect that (because commercial customers will RMA anything that stops working) but not for a home computer.

@koanhead my apologies my good sir! Dell does make its own powersupplies. I know this because a guy I know put $3,000 dollars into a nice custom pc. All he needed was the powersupply. He had a dell powersupply. It had the power he needed. He put it in, and it fried the whole motherboard. Dell does make its own powersupplies.

”-Windows 7 64 bit”

Well, I think we have identified the problem!

Load a Linux distro (Ubuntu is free and very usable). You really have nothing to loose. Even if you don’t like it you don’t loose the ability to boot Windoze if you want.

“He just put Arctic Silver on his heat sync”

That is where I place my money. Arctic Silver is good but if you put too much on it will destroy the thermal transfer.

“Power Supplies must be made to handle all of the system componants I would presume.”

You would presume incorrectly. I have melted a few in my day

”. Might I imply you guys he builds computers for a living. Yes soldering componants onto the motherboard.”

People make mistakes sometimes. I also happen to have a lot of skills including building computers and soldering printed circuit boards, but that doesn’t keep me from making the occasional goof and misconfiguring something or putting a hot gun through the board.

Now, the reason I mention this is that @johnpowell raises a good point. When it comes to thermal paste, a little dab will do you while a big glob will screw you. Also, a slight misalignment or a loose clip will hinder proper heat transfer.

What is the CPU temp anyways? Since you seem to think that heat is not a possibility, I am curious if the core temps and case temp back up your assertion.

BTW, I’ve had a few systems go into overdrive after ditching Widows for Linux. Set WINE up right and you won’t lose Windows compatibility!

If he builds computers for a living he’ll know that Dell and prebuilts in general have a tendency to put severely underpowered PSUs into their builds and use shoddy cooling techniques. It’s likely as @johnpowell and @jerv have said that they either used way too much thermal paste or way too little, and then stuck the stock intel heatsink (which is awful) back onto the CPU, perhaps not fastening it down all the way.

The i7 is a power hog and does tend to run pretty hot so I’d put my money on improper cooling as well.

I’ll have to ask him what his cpu temp is! =D

@dabbler I just find once you have had a computer a couple of weeks it loses speed, a few things in the hard drive, a couple extras running, some useage, and it loses a bit.

I would not like to try to quantify how much you can lose, but a bit is normaly.

True, a computer is at it’s fastest with a fresh install and a drive uncorrupted by other stuff like applications.