New Computer - LOW 3DMark score

Hardware and technical stuff
1

Vista Home Premium
Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00GHz
nForce 650i Ultra
2GB DDR2 Corsair 1066MHz
750GB WD 7200 RPM
8800GT 512MB

Built by Digital Storm

Just got everything hooked up, ran 3DMark06 and got 1143. Documentation that came with the system said it tested at 11620. Reinstalled 3DMark and got the same score. Double-checked the nVidia control panel and set everything to “performance” and still got the same score.

I don’t use benchmarks much but I do run them for new systems or if I update drivers just to make sure nothing is screwed up. Looks like something is screwed up. Any ideas?

  • hido

ps Please keep the “shoulda built your own computer, wussy” comments to a minimum, please. I know.

2

I have no idea but good luck. I bought a system from AVA Direct about 5 months ago and I’ve had nothing but trouble with it. If you get a lemon PC it’s a really shitty feeling. I hope you just have some kind of configuration problem with 3dmark.

3

That is terribly low. What are the individual scores for the SM2, SM3 and CPU tests?

4

3DMark Score 1140 3DMarks
SM2.0 Score 396
HDR/SM3.0 Score 400
CPU Score 2620

Now 3DMark is shutting down the box when I run it.

5

Just upgraded my systems in the last week and had a similar problem with PCMark05. My system is much less capable than yours, but the CPU score you posted seems fine – the other 3 scores are very low.

Simple suggestions, but I’d try:

  1. Uninstalling current NVIDIA drivers using Add/Remove Programs (assuming they have this in Vista) & installing most current drivers from their website.

  2. If you got a motherboard drivers/utilities disk, re-install any chipset drivers from this disk. For some reason, my PCMark score was appreciably lower when I used the most current chipset drivers from my mboard manufacturer’s website. Going back to the earlier drivers on the disk boosted the score. Don’t know if it would work with 3DMark.

6

Best guess, install the latest NVidia driver, you don’t have it. Sounds like you’re running on Vista stock graphics driver.

7

Oh wait, almost forgot, there are two Microsoft articles on patches for GPU’s above 512 Mb memory. If I can find the numbers for them I’ll post, those should be applied as well.

8

thanks!

9

Yes, do uninstall the drivers you have an install the latest ones from the Nvidia web site.

Also, install the most current chipset drivers for the motherboard.

Here is info on the two Vista hotfixes you want.

10

Doe’s Vista’s benchmark supply reasonable results? It should be around 5.9 or more in all departments with such hardware.

11

I think a stock E6850 CPU only garners a 5.7.

12

Not really relevant here, though. Hido’s getting a relatively correct CPU score in 3dmark06. It’s the graphics that are FUBAR.

13

Driver uninstall/reinstall seems to have fixed it! 11664 score. Would you also recommend doing the hotfixes?

Thanks for your help, guys.

14

At least one of the hotfixes (the virtual memory one) will have a positive impact on real game performance.

15

Don’t bother with hotfixes-- install Vista Service Pack 1 which contains all the hotfixes (well, as of now, anyway)

16

Is SP1 back on Windows Update again? I got it off MSDN and it worked the first try, but I wasn’t sure if it was available on Windows Update since they pulled it a while ago.