Sombrero wrote on 2025-06-25, 06:16:

Hopefully they made the slim less annoying to open.

If anything, they made it even more annoying. 😁

I watched a few Xbox 360 S disassembly/cleaning videos on YouTube, and getting to those tabs can be tricky. And since plastic becomes brittle with age, I get the feeling that even a minor slip up would cause them to break.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-05-23, 09:57:

• MSI Z77A-G43 (MS-7758)

Do you have any noise on PCI ports?
I have same mobo (MSI Z77A-G43) and my Audigy 2ZS card make the background noise like cheap AC'97 codec.
I was afraid A2ZS was broken, but when I checked it on another computer (P4/i865PE) the noise was gone.

EDIT:
I tried to move A2ZS card to another PCI port, it didn't help.
PS: All analog/digital inputs in the mixer were muted.

ott wrote on 2025-06-25, 07:22:

Do you have any noise on PCI ports?
I have same mobo (MSI Z77A-G43) and my Audigy 2ZS card make the background noise like cheap AC'97 codec.

I don't currently have any PCI sound cards in this system, as I have no use case for them.

However, about 5-6 years ago, when I was just getting back into retro PC hardware, I did briefly put a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (SB0100) in this rig. From what I recall, it worked fine, and I don't think there was any excessive noise. In case it matters, my motherboard revision is 1.3.

I have the exact same motherboard and used PCI X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro with it for a while with zero issues. I may have also had PCI X-Fi XtremeMusic in there for a moment, not sure, but if I did it also worked fine.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-06-25, 08:25:

I have the exact same motherboard and used PCI X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro with it for a while with zero issues. I may have also had PCI X-Fi XtremeMusic in there for a moment, not sure, but if I did it also worked fine.

I have first revision Audigy 2ZS with golden jacks, maybe it is too sensitive?
Anyway, I got such noises on the ASRock Z77 Pro3 mobo. Then I tried A2ZS on the Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3-A mobo and didn't detect any noise.
So I think the noise issue related to ASMedia PCIe-PCI bridge, which is used on MSI Z77A-G43 and ASRock Z77 Pro3 mobos.
GA-B85-HD3-A has another iTE PCIe-PCI bridge.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-06-25, 05:41:

But I'm certainly not looking forward to opening up my Xbox 360 S or my PlayStation 4 Pro when the time comes. The latter is almost 10 years old now, and the fan has started to get pretty loud, despite being cleaned regularly.

I just cleaned and repasted my PS4 Pro using this video as a guide. While my console wasn't nearly as filthy as the one from the video, it did have considerable dust buildup between the heatsink fins. I got that new Duronaut for the repaste job, and also some 1mm thick strips of Minus Pad 8 for replacing the old thermal pads on the memory chips and the VRM. Lastly, I took this opportunity to replace the CR2032 battery as well.

Anyway, it took a couple of hours to do all this, but the results exceeded my expectations. With around 25C room temperature, my launch model PS4 Pro (CUH-7016B) is now nearly silent while playing Horizon: Zero Dawn in its 4K mode. Previously, the fan would ramp up to very loud levels under similar circumstances. All in all, this was definitively worth it. Hopefully, I'm good for the next five years or so.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-03-25, 18:02:

I researched this a bit, and eventually realized that there's a setting which can smooth it out. It's called "Maximum pre-rendered frames" in older Nvidia drivers, such as 355.98 which I'm currently using. You want to set this to "1" then enable V-Sync in the Nvidia drivers, and lastly disable V-Sync in the game's video options.

Do you do this for every game? Or just the ones that exhibit frametime spikes?

You mentioned turning off V-Sync in the game's video options. What if the game automatically V-Syncs with no option to turn it off? NFSU1 and Midnight Club 2 work like this. They are automatically locked to the monitor's refresh rate.

Thank you. Your posts have helped me a lot in optimizing my Windows XP rig (RIVE, i7-4930K, GTX 980 Ti, Asus ProArt monitor).

Barley wrote on 2025-09-05, 20:23:

Do you do this for every game? Or just the ones that exhibit frametime spikes?

Just for the ones that have frame pacing issues. Basically, I fire up a game, look at the frametime graph via MSI Afterburner, and if I don't see a flat line, I try this. By the way, there are some modern games with uneven frame pacing where this method is applicable as well. However, the setting has been renamed to "Low Latency Mode" in newer Nvidia drivers.

You mentioned turning off V-Sync in the game's video options. What if the game automatically V-Syncs with no option to turn it off? NFSU1 and Midnight Club 2 work like this. They are automatically locked to the monitor's refresh rate.

In such cases, I try forcing V-Sync on via Nvidia drivers together with setting "Maximum pre-rendered frames" to 1. Sometimes, this can override the game's own V-Sync settings. And if that doesn't work, manually limiting the FPS to 60 via Riva Tuner Statistics Server can help in some cases.

Thank you. Your posts have helped me a lot in optimizing my Windows XP rig (RIVE, i7-4930K, GTX 980 Ti, Asus ProArt monitor).

Cheers! As mentioned elsewhere, I too have picked up most of these tips from other people. Usually from this forum, but also other places like Anandtech and such.

Thanks for the responses!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-09-06, 03:31:

Basically, I fire up a game, look at the frametime graph via MSI Afterburner, and if I don't see a flat line, I try this.

What is your threshold for "flat line?" I did some experimentation last night, and no game ever had a completely flat line. Most had miniscule wiggles (not enough to notice unless looking very closely), or periodic blips that were nowhere near as high as your example. Using the NVIDIA driver fix did not improve on these results. Does that mean I'm ok, or is there something else going on that I need to address?

Barley wrote on 2025-09-06, 13:53:

What is your threshold for "flat line?"

Literally a completely flat line, as can be seen in my Mirror's Edge screenshot after applying this tweak:

I did some experimentation last night, and no game ever had a completely flat line. Most had miniscule wiggles (not enough to notice unless looking very closely), or periodic blips that were nowhere near as high as your example.

Some of the frametime spikes are the result of the game streaming in data, and they can't be fixed. But generally, those only show up if you're rapidly traversing the world. If you're just standing still and looking at a wall or something, your frametime graph should be completely flat.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-09-06, 15:24:

Some of the frametime spikes are the result of the game streaming in data, and they can't be fixed. But generally, those only show up if you're rapidly traversing the world. If you're just standing still and looking at a wall or something, your frametime graph should be completely flat.

Ah! That's the missing piece. I have to stand still and do nothing. I will do that. Thanks!

Barley wrote on 2025-09-06, 15:31:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-09-06, 15:24:

Some of the frametime spikes are the result of the game streaming in data, and they can't be fixed. But generally, those only show up if you're rapidly traversing the world. If you're just standing still and looking at a wall or something, your frametime graph should be completely flat.

Ah! That's the missing piece. I have to stand still and do nothing. I will do that. Thanks!

Wow! Did some tweaking on my games, and although a lot of them did not need this fix, the Half-Life 2 games and Portal 1-2 really benefitted! Thanks again!

Barley wrote on Yesterday, 13:02:

Wow! Did some tweaking on my games, and although a lot of them did not need this fix, the Half-Life 2 games and Portal 1-2 really benefitted! Thanks again!

Have fun! For me, the main benefit of this tweak is that it provides more consistency to player input. So mouse (or controller) movement feel smoother overall.

That said, not everyone is super sensitive to frame pacing issues, and many people won't even notice the difference. The guys from Digital Foundry have been covering this for years (mostly on console titles) and that's how I became aware of it.