I have a GeForce GTX 660 but can barely play games

[Kamen Rider Yeah]

I've been having problems for the last year or so with this computer I got off a friend. He told me he put in the GTX 660 himself just before he gave it to me and it has an AMD FX-4100 Quad-Core Processor and 8GB RAM. To my understanding, he was able to play games fine on it. However, ever since I've gotten this computer, I can barely play most of my games.

League of Legends will drop to under 20 fps even on the lowest settings, Fortnite drops under 30 fps on the lowest settings, my computer will just completely lock up (the screen is frozen, no sound coming from the games, but computer is still running) when I play games like Overwatch and Dark Souls 3.

I've taken my computer in twice to a repair shop and they tell me it runs fine, my RAM isn't damaged like they thought it was, and they didn't seem to find any problems with it. Every now and then though it still freezes and I can't play any of my games like they should be played. I was wondering if anyone on here had any idea what could be wrong with my computer. Is it the CPU? The motherboard? Unless there's something wrong with my graphics card it should be playing my games fine. I'm at a total loss and would appreciate any help or advice I can get, thanks.

I haven't updated my drivers for a while but they were still having these problems even when I had them all up to date.

[⛧EyMi Mayhem⛧]

引用自 igloosfolly：

You need 8 more gigs on board memory and another 660 so you can sli. Depending on your mother board you could grab a newer fx8350 and yes it is better than some g4560. Really you should think about a newer setup. Not everyone has a ton of money and a new system cpu/ram/mb is going to cost over 350 and 1060 card is 400. To tell you how good a Fx8350 is with all those cores Today i downloaded music while listening to music while playing a game on Steam and never lost a beat.

wtf..

[Arya]

引用自 Jamebonds1：

I'm living proof of evidence the fact that I still using 6 years old i7-3770K at 4.2 GHz and GTX 680, and will not throw away unless need to.

There's a massive difference between a 3770K - which isn't far off a modern 7700K - and an FX4100. There's also a huge gulf between a 680 and a 660.

[igloosfolly]

Agree

Thats right Eymi the old FX8350 is a multi task beast and it can play everygame i have ever purchased at a mininum of 60fps and most at higher than that. While slower is single core speed it has a full set of instructions unlike most Intel pentium chips. Unless you have one dont comment it helps no one.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

an i7-8700 based PC would be alot more then 3X difference.
Even Ryzen-5 1400 / 1500 is around 400% faster over an FX-8350

[Arya]

引用自 igloosfolly：

Thats right Eymi the old FX8350 is a multi task beast and it can play everygame i have ever purchased at a mininum of 60fps and most at higher than that. While slower is single core speed it has a full set of instructions unlike most Intel pentium chips. Unless you have one dont comment it helps no one.

Depends on the price. FX are horrible compared to a modern i5 or Rz5, but if you can get one for a bargain it's worth pursuing. It would certainy be a huge improvement on what you have now.

But don't overpay. It's not worth the $100+ they're often listed for. I'd say $50 absolute maximum value.

[Kamen Rider Yeah]

Holy heck I did not expect such quick responses but I've never used these forums before. Thank you all for your advice and information! With every idea I've got here I'll most likely start with wiping the computer clean and seeing how that does. If it doesn't fix anything I will start looking at a better CPU. From what I know my GPU SHOULD run things the way I want them to so I don't think I need to look at a new GPU unless there's actually something wrong with mine. I'm not looking for mind blowing quality or >100fps I just want to play my games without struggling to play them when they framedrop every few seconds. I had always assumed from the start my CPU was way too outdated especially since the previous owner of this machine said he put the graphics card in himself. And I'm currently saving money for an entire computer upgrade but for now I just want this one to work at a decent price.

Once again, thank you all for your help, I've been struggling with this for so long with very little knowledge on what to do.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well let us know the Motherboard model before we "could" recommend a better FX CPU to hold you over til maybe late 2018 / early 2019 perhaps.

[igloosfolly]

No the Ryzen 4core fives are not a good deal maybe 30 to 40 percent faster. For Ryzen the 1600 or better and not even 400% faster. If the OP does not have money for a I7 how is he going to build a system around one. Maybe the new I3 8100 now we are back to 350 and still need graphics. Anyone with older hardware is at dilemma right now. It is not a good time to go modern due to memory and GPU costs and it does not make a lot of sense to upgrade older platforms.

The FX is on a AM3+ socket so he could go FX8350 but that is only buying time as even that upgrade is obsolete.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

引用自 igloosfolly：

The FX is on a AM3+ socket so he could go FX8350 but that is only buying time as even that upgrade is obsolete.

Its not that simple; the Motherboard has to properly support the CPU.
FX-4 is very low end, so even on a cheap motherboard with added BIOS support, that is fine; but not for a CPU above 95W if the motherboard isn't up to realistically handling that.

[Jamebonds1]

引用自 Bad_Motha：

引用自 igloosfolly：

The FX is on a AM3+ socket so he could go FX8350 but that is only buying time as even that upgrade is obsolete.

Its not that simple; the Motherboard has to properly support the CPU.
FX-4 is very low end, so even on a cheap motherboard with added BIOS support, that is fine; but not for a CPU above 95W if the motherboard isn't up to realistically handling that.

I was going saying ever if it is same, it might not able to handing 95W because it can be old motherboard.

[Kamen Rider Yeah]

ASRock Product: 960GM-GS3 FX
Serial Number: E80-28004501826

This is what came up when I looked it up. Honestly have never looked up my motherboard before so I hope that's what you're looking for

Another thing I should mention, after a couple months with this computer it started giving me error messages about Windows 10 needing to be activated and has been having problems doing windows updates. Either I was given some illegal copy or it's screwed up so there's that.

[Jamebonds1]

It look like it should work. Here is link for you to look up.

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/960GM-GS3%20FX/index.asp#CPU

As for Activate, have you look at COA? As legal expert, it is not illegally to have OS without COA for 30 day then it will need to be activate. I'm not sure how many day left since I don't have it. Hacking windows 10 that bypass COA is illegally yes.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

引用自 Jamebonds1：

It look like it should work. Here is link for you to look up.

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/960GM-GS3%20FX/index.asp#CPU

As for Activate, have you look at COA? As legal expert, it is not illegally to have OS without COA for 30 day then it will need to be activate. I'm not sure how many day left since I don't have it. Hacking windows 10 that bypass COA is illegally yes.

There is no more COA for OEM systems; they did away with this.
If it was a custom-build, then yes you should have an official Microsoft WinOS COA sticker; it comes with the OS itself when you buy it. Unless maybe you purchased via Digital Download from Microsoft, in which case they email you your Windows OS Product Key and such.

You can look at the current WinOS' product key properly using Piriform Speccy

There is also zero "trial" with Win10, so you "can" use that fully un-activated; minus a couple things; [1] Water-mark on your Desktop [2] Cant change the wallpaper [3] No access to Microsoft/Windows/Xbox Store; Microsoft will still push Windows Updates your way and the OS is otherwise fully usable when un-activated. But that pertains to Win10 only. Previous WinOS' you'd get 14-days of a "trial" period when un-activated to where the OS is fully usable that way, until you pass that period, then it will not allow things like Microsoft Store and it will always be nagging you to activate, etc.

[Jamebonds1]

引用自 Bad_Motha：

引用自 Jamebonds1：

It look like it should work. Here is link for you to look up.

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/960GM-GS3%20FX/index.asp#CPU

As for Activate, have you look at COA? As legal expert, it is not illegally to have OS without COA for 30 day then it will need to be activate. I'm not sure how many day left since I don't have it. Hacking windows 10 that bypass COA is illegally yes.

There is no more COA for OEM systems; they did away with this.
If it was a custom-build, then yes you should have an official Microsoft WinOS COA sticker; it comes with the OS itself when you buy it. Unless maybe you purchased via Digital Download from Microsoft, in which case they email you your Windows OS Product Key and such.

You can look at the current WinOS' product key properly using Piriform Speccy

Another reason. Had Windows installed one hard drive then switch motherboard with same hard drive that led to prompt to ask for re-activate. That is my theory.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well you can legally re-activate; just call Microsoft and explain "my motherboard died"
It's fairly simple, it's not hard to do.