Computer very slow after wiping hard drive and doing a fresh install of Windows 7

[AlanMatt]

Hello. I decided to reinstall my Windows 7 and now it's been booting up slow and running slow in general. Much slower than before I wiped it clean. I've been trying to figure out how to fix it but frankly I guess I suck at troubleshooting pc issues. I believe I have all the drivers I need, and I have installed all windows updates to date. Any help would be fantastic, this is getting depressing.

Edit: http://www.microcenter.com/product/390451/xps_8500_desk... that's my computer. The graphics card is not a Geforce 670 ftw and upgraded power supply to a 500W.

 

[techie_dude]

how was booting before installing drivers??

 

[jblanda]

Hello. I decided to reinstall my Windows 7 and now it's been booting up slow and running slow in general. Much slower than before I wiped it clean. I've been trying to figure out how to fix it but frankly I guess I suck at troubleshooting pc issues. I believe I have all the drivers I need, and I have installed all windows updates to date. Any help would be fantastic, this is getting depressing.

Is this a laptop or a desktop? Regardless it could be a ton of things.

CPU is congested:
If there is too much dust inside the tower/laptop, it could reduce performance

HDD screwed up after the format:
You could test a differient hard drive; and if that works, reformat the first one.

What are the specs? Give us all the info so we can help.

 

[V1ctor89]

A wiping (zero-fill) process should actually improve the functionality of a hdd. In your case however, i think you didn't optimize your system well enough. Do a cleanup, defragment, reduce the number of useless programs from startup and see how it performs after that.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Did you install the chipset drivers? Check your device manager for any items with a yellow exclamation mark next to them. Those will need drivers.

 

[AlanMatt]

Sorry for replying slow I have been busy last few days. Thanks for the replies!

how was booting before installing drivers??

Installing drivers made no difference in boot speed far as I could tell.

Is this a laptop or a desktop? Regardless it could be a ton of things.

CPU is congested:
If there is too much dust inside the tower/laptop, it could reduce performance

HDD screwed up after the format:
You could test a differient hard drive; and if that works, reformat the first one.

What are the specs? Give us all the info so we can help.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/390451/xps_8500_desktop_computer that's my computer. The graphics card is not a Geforce 670 ftw and upgraded power supply to a 500W.
I cleaned out all the dust when I put in my new graphics card recently so that shouldn't be it.
Don't have another HDD to install on right now unfortunately.

A wiping (zero-fill) process should actually improve the functionality of a hdd. In your case however, i think you didn't optimize your system well enough. Do a cleanup, defragment, reduce the number of useless programs from startup and see how it performs after that.

There's not really anything to cleanup, defrag, or disable on startup. I haven't put much on the computer at all, and it's seen slow on startup since right after the install.

 

[techie_dude]

try fixing your registries as certain installed program may cause resgistry issues.(i had once)
install ccleaner and go to registry analyze and fix.

 

[AlanMatt]

try fixing your registries as certain installed program may cause resgistry issues.(i had once)
install ccleaner and go to registry analyze and fix.

Installed ccleaner and cleaned up my registry. It seemed to find and fix some registry issues but I have the same issues still

 

[techie_dude]

you have a really advance computer..nice specs..
its really difficult to pin point the solution of your problem.
i had asked you earlier - how was your computer before installing the drivers and updates..?

 

[AlanMatt]

you have a really advance computer..nice specs..
its really difficult to pin point the solution of your problem.
i had asked you earlier - how was your computer before installing the drivers and updates..?

Thanks. it's primarily a gaming PC.
Installing the drivers and taking the updates made no difference. As I recall the issue has existed ever since the wipe and clean install, as well as before the wipe.
I have noticed my computer sometimes making noises that I don't think are good though. Best way to describe them I'd say are clicking noises. As well as something kind of similar to a scraping sound on start up sometimes. I'm starting to think it's a hardware problem, not software.

 

[Cristian1988]

you have a really advance computer..nice specs..
its really difficult to pin point the solution of your problem.
i had asked you earlier - how was your computer before installing the drivers and updates..?

Thanks. it's primarily a gaming PC.
Installing the drivers and taking the updates made no difference. As I recall the issue has existed ever since the wipe and clean install, as well as before the wipe.
I have noticed my computer sometimes making noises that I don't think are good though. Best way to describe them I'd say are clicking noises. As well as something kind of similar to a scraping sound on start up sometimes. I'm starting to think it's a hardware problem, not software.

Any luck on your chase? I'm experiencing the same problem at the moment, just finished a fresh install which took me about a whole day, and it's running as slow as hell, afraid to start multiple processes as explorer.exe tends to crash and causing me a BSOD which took me 3 days to fix..

 

[jollyjohn87]

The same thing has happend to me with windows 8 i use to get 50+ fps in arma 3 now im only getting 10fps i have tryed every thing my pc specs.

CPU I5 4440
GPU GTX 750FTW
AND 8GB RAM

Would doing another reboot fix this or will i still be in the same boat

 

[dotaloc]

clicking sounds like hdd issue (big issue). have you tried a SMART test on hdd? i usually boot from ubuntu live CD, but some built-in diagnostics (pre-windows) test will let you determine it, or you can download software from your harddrive manufacturer or many system manufacturer.

 

[Cristian1988]

Our IT-manager confirmed, hdd needs to be replaced.
I've build in a new Samsung ssd 250 gb and laptop is working even better than new.

 

[CanadianPilgrim]

This is a long post to record some important events that suggest what we may dealing with is a rootkit virus embedded to the BIOS.

I had been running Windows 7 Home Premium on an Acer 1830T laptop. i3 @ 1.2mhz and 8 GB RAM. 14 months ago I cloned over my HDD to an SSD. Recently the performance suffered greatly. boot errors started appearing but I was always able to get Windows to reload. Some of the boot sequences also wanted to run CHKDSK, which I did. CHKDSK began to report unreadable sectors, which were reported to be marked and some data moved. But then CHKDSK would report the same unreadable sectors on the next run. Random BSODs became more frequent. Backup to the WHS2011 began to fail. AVG would load but not run. I would manually start AVG, but it would turn off again. Then AVG stopped loading altogether. Installed MBAM and it would not complete before a BSOD. Same with online virus scanners. I retrieved my old HDD which was intact from 14 months earlier. Mistakenly, I wiped it with a utility from Hirens in order to try clone the SSD to it. Cloning (painfully slow process) was unsuccessful because there were too many unreadable sectors. So the HDD had to be wiped again with Hirens. I then removed the SSD and replaced it with the blank HDD and reinstalled Windows 7 from a USB. So far so good, though the speed was unusually slow. I then tried to install some of the Intel drivers but Windows would report an incomplete install because of problems writing to the registry. Reboot then reported that Windows needed repair. Inserted the USB key again and all I get is the spinner. The USB key will neither repair nor install fresh again.

There are other details I have omitted but these are the highlights. I have suffered loss of about 4-5 hard drives in my life and have successfully recovered from each one. This set of problems is far beyond anything I have seen. Rootkit viruses have been around for awhile and have become more prevalent. BIOS infections are more rare and more rarely discussed. In order to repair and infected BIOS, you need to be able to flash it without the hard drive installed. If the BIOS does not have a flash utility, your out of luck.

More attention need be given to these seemingly random acts of what looks like hardware failure.