Underperformance concerns

I received my Digital Storm pc about 3 weeks ago.

My specs are:

Windows 7 (64bit)
p67 Sabertooth
i7 2600k oc to upto 3.9
GTX 570
8gb ram
Corsair 750TX psu
HaF 922
and Logitech LS21 2.1 stereo speakers


I have a few issues and while I've looked around but I just can't seem to figure out whats wrong or what I can do about it.

1. Sound: When using a decent quality of headphone (plugged directly into the jack on my case), even with my pc volumes set to max, I cannot hear anything while playing games, and I can barely hear anything when watching dvd's.

I am sure it's not the headphones as even with my 6 year old pc I can hear things just fine in games and movies.

When plugged in via my speakers system I can hear both in games and movies, but its still way way too quiet.

2. Sound: My speakers themselves, While anything heavy bass like comes in pretty loud even when set on lowest bass settings, in most situations it's hard to hear dialogue in both games and movies.



My other problem stems from the problem that games that my specs blow out of the water I still cannot play on high settings.

the 2 I will example here are, Mass Effect 2 and Fallout New Vegas.

Both of these games frequently end up with app.crashes, anytime I set the resolution above 1280x760 (I don't remember if thats the exact rez, but its in the ballpark)
and/or if I set the graphics settings above medium qualities and/or with AA at higher than 2x.


I was really hoping to be able to play games at my monitors max res (which is 1680x1050 on medium to high or better settings) with this computer, and from what I have read about computer specs, there shouldn't be any reason why I can't.....and yet.. I cannot.



Any help, advice, or reference would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

@Vigoon1st,

I'm sorry to hear about the issues you are having. We'll be more than happy to help you resolve all of them.

1. Do you have your headphone or speakers plugged into the green port on the back of your motherboard? Also, your speaker mode should be on 2.1, I believe you may have it currently set to 5.1 or some multi-channel mode.

2. The stability issues you are having may be a driver conflict. I was unable to look up your order with your forums account to review our testing reports. Try to re-install the latest graphics driver and see if that resolves the issue. If not, please contact our support team on Monday so we can help you.

Feel free to email as well ([email protected]) with your order number and I will be more than happy to create a support ticket for you.

with one 570, you should be getting around 55 - 60 fps average if not more.

try installing older drivers.

run MSI Afterburner and see if you pass combuster tests.

No at the moment I am running just the onboard sound.

To find the Realtek that Alex is talking about go to Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Realtek HD Audio Manager, and click on speakers. In this section click on stereo and you shouild be good to go. You can also set the volume here too.

Ok was having a hard time finding this because nothing in my control panel or Sound and Hardware was listed as Realtek, I did ultimately find what I believe you both were referring to, but it had some generic name.

It was already default on Stereo.



Will be attempting to get the ticket number for you tomorrow Alex.


Honestly I am a bit nervous about uninstalling and then installing drivers. While I have done this before on other pc's, I can never quite remember the exact way to do this right, and always end up missing a step.

where can I go to get a step by step guide for uninstalling/installing the drivers?

Could be the new drivers, which is why I recommended using an older set, all drivers don't play nice.

1. go to nvida site and grab the new version of the drivers for your os, and grab a set of older drivers (one before this one, no betas).

uninstall drivers, if you have CCleaner you can do it from the uninstall window of it, if not, then just go to add/remove programs, uninstall all the nvidia drivers.

reboot, upon getting to your desktop, don't let windows install drivers, instead run the new drivers you downloaded earlier from nvidia.

reboot again, now see if that helped, if not uninstall again, reboot, this time when you get back to desktop, again don't let windows install drivers, this time install the set of older drivers you downloaded earlier, reboot, see it that helped.

Well evidently Nvidia released new drivers in June that I hadn't come across.

I followed DST4ME's instructions for uninstall/install of the drivers, and while I haven't tested it on Fallout yet, there is a vast improvement in Mass effect 2.

Everything on High res of 1680x1050 (i don't know my exact framerate, only because I don't know how to get it to show in game) but no discernable framerate issues.

I noticed that a HD Audio driver was included in the Nvidia package, I don't know if that affects my system in any way, so it could just be coincidence, but since installing the new drivers, the sound coming from both my speakers and my headphones has much louder and clearer sound.

Though my headphones now give off a weird echoing sound during direct dialog scenes.

I haven't tested it yet with other games or movies but will be soon.


Thank you all for the help.


(and thanks for the info about the subwoofer needing to be adjusted, I'll keep that in mind).