For those of you who don't know yet, I resumed work on my mod Azure NPC after almost a year. However, it appears that there are going to be some technical difficulties in the line of modding, connected to my ancient computer with its 400 mhz processor (Yes, I know it needs upgrading, but it's really not an issue, as I'm considering buying a car, which is now a priority. And I really don't NEED new comp. for the lack of free time to play the newer games. Heck! I don't even have time to play BG and try the mods that you guys and girls release.). For some time the PC's vent (I'm not sure the one on the power supply or the processor, but I gues it's the second) started making some very weird noises. It didn't bother me till now, because all I used the PC for was writing some articles, and the occasional game of Heroes. But now that I'm working on the mod and have BG2 installed I noticed that the game runs slower than it did before. In fact it's so slow that even the starting cutscene with Jon makes the computer get out of breath and the framerate drops from 30 to one or two per second.

My wild guesses about the problems are:
1)What comes to my mind is that the vent is rotating too slow (which makes the sound), and with the Celeron not being able to cool as effectivly as before, performance goes drasticaly down and even affects the clock frequency. Is this last thing actually possible?!?
2)Another wild guess is that something went wrong with the video card, and that's why I don's see all frames. But the card is still working, and when I tried to play a video file on the computer, it was just fine.
3)The last thing that comes to my mind is that the slowdown might be caused by installed mods. I have the major NPC mods (Kelsey, Sola, Valen, Tashia + a few others that are significant in install size, like Saerileth and the others that can benefit from the Crossmod banterpack), Tactics, Refinements, Ease of use, Bettles, Ascention, EMaD, D0Tweak, Baronius' potions mod, TS, the Druidic Sorcerer, NPC Flirtpack, the regular Banterpack, my own mod (Improvements), and probably others that I cannot remember.

Anyway. If someone has a solution for my problem (other than replacing the processor or the entire copmuter) or even an idea what's causing the problem, I'd really apreciate it if you post it here.

You could start by replacing the fan, if you think overheating is an issue. It's cheaper than a new computer.

That is if the problem is indeed in the fan. But first I have to eliminate all other options.

So is it only BG2 which is slow, right? Not other games, and not the operating system/other programs?
In this case, check BG2's graphics/display configuration (tone down all special effects, and see video card settings), I guess you've already did it though.

This must be an independent issue. Hit the computer case at that part where the box of the PS is located. If the weird sound decreases or stops for some time (it be can seconds, minutes or even hours), the axis of the power supply's fan might need to be oiled. (The "bearing" around the rotating axis is probably frayed.) If the sound doesn't decrease after the determined hit, the problem is most likely still the same, just the device is more frayed. (Only very little, some "soft" oil is needed, and with care.) Since I haven't heard the sound of your PC, this is just a guess.

well the only things you should be able to hear are the fans and the HDD.
instead of hitting it you could unplug cpu fan and then gpu fan to see which is making the noise if neither then it should be the psu. (do this after turning off, back on to test, ect)

a heat sink and fan for a cpu is less than 12 euros (guessing on the $ conversion) for a fair quality, probably 2-3 times as much for a copper seat sink.

also make sure your heat sink and fans are clean then oil. it is probably best to oil a cotton swap or ball and wipe it on.

SK
Hitting is not for finding which fan is giving the sound, it's for stopping the annoying sound for some time, furthermore no need to open the case or to turn off anything so it is an easy way to make sure about the problem.

If the fraying is around the axis as I described, you've to disassemble it to be able to oil it.

P.S.: balduran, don't be afraid of hitting, it cannot harm your PC unless you use a hammer or you have an iron fist.

oh! see I have those (if you could not tell from my typing on irc

Baronius' post got me thinking. IIRC, 400 MHz is right around the default setting for BG2 (minimal recommended?). When you open the configuration file, the first screen lets you set the difficulty, but the next screen lets you set your processor speed. Have you tried turning that down? You probably have, but just in case....

Thanks for all the replies guys and especially Baronius for the agressive aproach advice. The sound did stop, but I'll oil the fan anyway.

I think I have eliminated the problem last evening, as I started uninstalling mods one after another. After each mod that I removed I started a new game. In the end it appears that the slowdown was due to some script in the Battles mod, because when I uninstalled it the game speed was back to normal.

But it was still odd, because I checked the files of the mod and the scripts weren't that big at all The strangest thing is that mods like virtue, that make about 30% of the length of baldur.bcs have no negative affect on game speed, but some 10 or 12 kb sized script has.

As far as scripts are concerned, I don't think a common script can make anything signficantly slower unless there is a lot of them running at the same time.

Furthermore, I think that generally, it is not the script's size which matters, but rather what the script does. If it contains commands that require many calculations, it is possible but I doubt that this can be a problem in case of IE games. Except when there is a bug in the script. When a script which intends to create a creature gets to an infinite loop (e.g. due to an incorrect global setting), it will "produce" more and more creatures in the area. After some minutes, this can eat up a lot of memory (too many objects).
If you suspect that a Battles script was (greatly) responsible for it, then it must have been a resource-eating one. (Or due to a bug, but Battles is a well-tested mod I guess.)

BTW glad to hear your problems have been solved!

What interests me at this point is why the problem would surface now when it had been working previously. I doubt you changed your installation that much since the last time you played.

Actually, I installed the game some ten days ago, but didn't have time to even start it. And as fas as the Battles mod goes, this was the first time I installed it.

BTW I check all the fans and the final diagnose is that the video fan is responsible for the noise. I tried to replace it with the one from a spare Vanta I had, but the power cables didn't match, so I guess I'll have to find some dealer who sell TNT2 Ultra spare parts (Which I think will be a quest of epic proportions )

Yesterday I tried to start the game again (with battles installed), this time on a Athlon 3500+ with 1GB DDRII and 256MB GF 7900, and guess what happened - awful framerate. Apparently the battles mod can cause issues regardless of the testing system.

Battles is a relatively popular mod, I wonder why other players haven't reported this problem yet. (Well, I didn't check its forum if there is any, but I guess you searched for information earlier.)

I don't have time to check the mod's files, I guess the scripts are responsible for the problem ("resource-eating", or rather some other problem that can't be seen or detected directly from the game).

I guess I should send a report to the author of the mod.