Need help diagnosing PC problem

[moog]

After seeing my Shammies in action, a friend has upgraded his PC to start 5-boxing.

However, he's having FPS issues just running 1 WoW

His PC spec is:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping L2 8MB Cache - running at stock settings
• ABIT IP35 Pro iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
• 8GB RAM (4 x 2GB OCZ DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel)
• 512MB Inno3D GeForce 8800GT
• Coolermaster Silent Pro 700W Modular PSU
• Samsung HD502IJ SpinPoint F1 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache
• Creative Soundblaster X-Fi
• Dell 24" TFT @ 1920x1200
• VIsta 64

It's a fresh install of Vista64 and the latest nVidia drivers for Vista 64 (release 175.19 from 23 June) running a single WoW in windowed mode 1920x1200.

I have a worse spec PC (E6600 / 4GB RAM / XP32 / 640mb 8800GTS) and he was seeing huge stuttering during a dungeon run with me yesterday when, for example, 4 fire nova totems went off simultaneously).

We'd compare FPS looking at the same part of the dungeon and I'd be wavering around the 57-62fps and he'd be down at 29-32fps!

Things already tried:

• completely disable all addons - made no difference
• check the config file for rogue maxfps settings - none found
• enabled hardware sound in WoW - probably added 2-3 fps

He's very disillusioned that, after building such a high spec PC, it's having such problems running a single WoW... he's not even going to activate 4 new accounts until it's sorted.

So... does anyone have any ideas what could be causing the problems?

Any help very gratefully received from a potential new 5-boxer.

[Alienenduro]

Was this a fresh install of wow or was it copied across from another location? if it wasnt try deleting the WTF folder and give it another bash. sorry i cant be much more help as i have never used vista 64.

[iztehzha]

Should also try checking the driver for the graphics card.. And try deleting the "cache" folder..

[mikekim]

try downgrading the driver to 175.16 as the .19 has some issues with framerates on certain machines

[Savage]

Do what everyone has said so far. If that doesn't help, make sure you have UP TO DATE DRIVERS on everything. If that doesn't do it still, reinstall WoW.

[moog]

Thanks all.

I've sent him a link to the 175.16 drivers to try as a first step.
If that doesn't work, I've told him to reinstall WoW from scratch (as this was a migrated WoW from his previous PC incarnation).

Fingers crossed!