core i5-3570 - performance is orders low

[darrello]

BASELINE - http://www.passmark.com/baselines/V8...?id=5446803320

I'm trying to help figure out a whacked out performance issue. We (father + son team) built a basic gaming box, Intel Core i5-3570, nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti, ASUS P8Z77-VK mobo, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD.

This machine performs horribly - incredibly badly. The Passmark CPU Mark gets only a 579 (all tests are abysmal) as opposed to the average 7,147.

I have tried turning off power-saving (both in Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, and in the BIOS) - no delta. From my understanding this machine should be scoring quite well (at least 10 times on many tests).

Some games (e.g. good ole CounterStrike) run amazingly well, others tank. 3DMark 11 scores are abysmal too.

Any ideas? This is quite ridiculously slow

[David (PassMark)]

See this old post to start with,
Causes and Solutions for a slow PC

The most common problem with home built machines is a failure to correctly attach the CPU heat sink.

[darrello]

David - thanks for the help - that nailed it - the fan wasn't correctly seated. My son is one happy kid now. Thanks again.