Shocked by the low performance of a Q9550...

Did OP ever figure out the exact issue?

Q9550Tsunami said:

Did OP ever figure out the exact issue?

Yes, indeed. It was really weird.

So, I happened to remove the GT 730, and for the first time I used the integrated Intel GPU. To my surprise, videos were playing back nicely. I can't tell you were the limit was, but definitely could play back 1080p videos. I believe it could play correctly 1080p 60fps or 4K 30fps.

The problem was somehow the GT 730, it was like limited, capped, and was not performing as expected. I don't know if it wasn't receiving enough power, although the PCE met the GPU power, or the adapter. The tests of the GPU I believe were OK, but I don't remember, that's why I thought the GPU was performing as expected.

So, to sum up, there was some kind of problem with the GPU in this particular PC that made some things work incorrectly, like video playback or sound recording. However, you could game fine and the performance was right. After removing the GPU, somehow the CPU or Intel integrated GPU, or both, worked fine and performed as expected, no more playback issues or recording issues, except for 4K, but that's actually the real limit of this CPU.

Very interesting. I will assemble a Q9550 system soon with a GTX980. I'm interested to see if it encounters any of the same issues.

Q9550Tsunami said:

Very interesting. I will assemble a Q9550 system soon with a GTX980. I'm interested to see if it encounters any of the same issues.

Fantastic, I guess as long as you use a good motherboard you won't have any problems. I'm quite sure now that it was the Motherboard, somehow it didn't let the external GPU to perform to its maximum. The GTX980 is quite good, that CPU is gonna make it run slower for sure. I would put at least an i5 2500 or so. It's very cheap and still performs amazing for a low budget PC.

I'm not sure how good the motherboard is. It's a Q35 chipset, which I don't think is ideal. Q45 would be better probably, but it's hard to find the exact differences between these old chipsets now. Mainly building just for hobby/curiosity. Using the GTX980 because it's currently the only extra GPU I have on hand. I don't expect to be able to use full GPU capabilities, but it'll be nice if it can play some games at lower to moderate settings.

rambomhtri said:

Yes, indeed. It was really weird.

So, I happened to remove the GT 730, and for the first time I used the integrated Intel GPU. To my surprise, videos were playing back nicely. I can't tell you were the limit was, but definitely could play back 1080p videos. I believe it could play correctly 1080p 60fps or 4K 30fps.

Exactly as I said.

metamorphosis said:

Exactly as I said.

Where?

rambomhtri said:

Yes, indeed. It was really weird.

So, I happened to remove the GT 730, and for the first time I used the integrated Intel GPU. To my surprise, videos were playing back nicely. I can't tell you were the limit was, but definitely could play back 1080p videos. I believe it could play correctly 1080p 60fps or 4K 30fps.

The problem was somehow the GT 730, it was like limited, capped, and was not performing as expected. I don't know if it wasn't receiving enough power, although the PCE met the GPU power, or the adapter. The tests of the GPU I believe were OK, but I don't remember, that's why I thought the GPU was performing as expected.

So, to sum up, there was some kind of problem with the GPU in this particular PC that made some things work incorrectly, like video playback or sound recording. However, you could game fine and the performance was right. After removing the GPU, somehow the CPU or Intel integrated GPU, or both, worked fine and performed as expected, no more playback issues or recording issues, except for 4K, but that's actually the real limit of this CPU.

Maybe the card is a fake, happened to me when I bought an ebay video card. The fraudsters modify the firmware on the card.
I got a refund

I use WMC modded to work on windows 10, works really good, record lots of TV. The motherboard is an HP ASPEN MSI board with 8gb ddr2, and a 4 core AMD CPU and I have an ssd boot drive, and total of 8TB of storage.

If I use the onboard video it is ok, but is not OK if I am recording multiple shows while watching another show live.
I put in a GT730 from Ebay and it is great.

Windows Media Center 8.8.5 is out - TheGreenButton.tv

a paste in the specs and it looked ok in the preview, but now looks like this

• [COLOR=#696969 !important]Edition[/COLOR]Windows 10 Professional
• [COLOR=#696969 !important]OS Build[/COLOR]10.0.18363.719
• [COLOR=#696969 !important]Serial number[/COLOR] ***************
• [COLOR=#696969 !important]Graphic card[/COLOR]NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
• [COLOR=#696969 !important]Installed RAM[/COLOR]8 GB
• [COLOR=#696969 !important]Version[/COLOR]1909
• [COLOR=#696969 !important]System type[/COLOR]OSType64BitX64
• [COLOR=#696969 !important]Processor[/COLOR]AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 B95 Processor