Slow Performance

[MundoDragon]

Hey everyone, it's been awhile. First off, I would like to thank everyone here for their information in the past. While all of it may not have specifically got to the root of the problem, it ALL surely helped. Great community here in that regard. But now that the suck up is done, lets get down to business.

I recently upgraded my OS from Vista 64 bit Home Premium to the Windows 7 equivalent and now everything hangs, no matter what I am doing. It gets especially bad when multi-tasking. I notice it mostly when extracting or installing applications. It takes FOREVER. A lot longer than it ever did on Vista. I have tried turning off Windows Search and a few other services I've heard can affect performance, but to no avail. I even reinstalled a clean version (again) and it still is back to it's old antics. I am seriously considering giving this to my girlfriend and getting my copy of Vista back, it is that bad. But before I do that, I figured I'd pop something on here real quick in case anyone had a similiar problem in the past and may know some way to fix it. I am not a neophyte, yet I can't seem to figure it out. Thanks alot and looking forward to hearing from all of you knowlegable members.

P.S. Just thought I should add that games (even hardware intensive games) seem to run smoothly and effortlessly. It is just in the Windows environment itself, manipulating files and such, that the slowdown (interpreted "crawl") is experienced.

In case anyone is curious:

AMD Phenom X4
4 GB DDR2
Gigabyte 770
Rocketfish 1000W PSU
GeForce 9800GTX+

 

[iam2thecrowe]

did you do a clean format and reinstall of win7? or just upgrade from vista? i have tried a few upgrades and they dont ever work properly. Do a format and full clean install, make sure you install the 64bit version to be able to use all your ram.

 

[MundoDragon]

Yeah, format and clean install. Still didn't clear the issue. Hardware seems to check out okay, which leads me to believe it is something in Windows 7 itself that is causing it.

By the way, you must have missed above where I stated that I installed the 64 bit version.

 

[hang-the-9]

Aside from applications installing slowly (which should not be anything that people do that much of anyway), what else is slow? Is this right after a clean setup or did you add things to it? Was this a real Windows 7 version or a cracked one?

Windows 7 by itself I never ran into any issues with, I've installed in on Pentium 4 systems and it ran as fast as XP did, even with 1 gig of RAM.

Did you move any files/profiles over? This can cause issues if you plop a whole profile over due to registry issues, hiding viruses and such.

 

[MundoDragon]

Nope, completly clean install. It mainly happens when accessing the hard drive for any reason, which makes me wonder if it could be a virtual memory issue. I haven't changed it from the default settings. It seems like my hard drive isn't being utilized fully. I have ran an intensive diagnostic on all of my drives and came back fine. I'm going to have to check into the virtual memory issue and see what a good setting would be for 4GB physical memory, unless anyone know why Windows might not be utilizing my drive fully. Transfer rates are extremely low. For example, even extracting a simple zip file can take an excruciatingly long time, yet it was fine with Vista. Not to mention, any time the hard drive is being accessed (which is almost constantly with normal use, of course) the machine is sluggish as hell.

EDIT: It runs fine during boot up, speedy as hell, until it actually gets to the windows environment, then it hits an invisible force field. I just got done installing every single Windows 7 Update available, other than IE 9, which I dont feel like doing now after all the others, in the hopes I may have gotten a hold of something I didn't have on the last install, but that doesn't appear to be the case. I'll try messing with this a little longer and if I can't get it sorted out, it's back to Vista for me. I never understood the negativity towards Vista, as I never had a single problem with it.

 

[hang-the-9]

There is no way that virtual memory would cause this. All the drivers up-to-date? Slow trasfer rate could be caused by controller issues. And for kicks, any other drive you can try this on? Although since Vista has no issues, it sounds like this is a drive controller issue. Check motherboard support maybe?

 

[MundoDragon]

SATA drivers? I checked on the Gigabyte site and I got the catalyst drivers for my mobo, but it didn't fix anything. Not sure if controller drivers were included. Any advice on where I might be able to find out which ones I need and where to get them?

EDIT: When transferring back and forth between my other drives, it is speedy. Only the system drive is affected by this issue.

 

[hang-the-9]

What's the exact motherboard model? Another thing to try is a firmware update for the hard-drive, and a BIOS update for the MoBo.

 

[MundoDragon]

Okay, I just tried transferring a large file from the system drive to one of the data drives and it zipped right through it, but upon transferring it back, its down to about 1 MB a sec. and keeps pausing and transferring in little spurts, bogging the system down in the process. Definitely not normal.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte MA770-UD3. I don't understand why all those updates would be needed, considering it ran fine in Vista, but who am I to argue. I'm off to try and find some. Will post back soon.

EDIT: By the way, the system drive (the only one with the problem) is a Western Digital WD5000AAJS. If nothing else works, I may try installing the OS on one of the other drives and seeing if it clears up, although, I don't see why it would, considering this drive passed the scan with flying colors. Off to look up the firmware and BIOS update.

 

[hang-the-9]

There are 3 revisions of the board, http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/download-center.aspx?kw=MA770-UD3&ck=

You want the chipset driver for sure, and may want to flash the BIOS as well. As you may know the BIOS flash has a very small risk that it may go bad and toast the motherboard, but it's a really really small chance. Like getting hit by a plane while jogging.

 

[MundoDragon]

This is the part I hate, I can never remember the revision. Is there any software that can determine the revision without ripping the PC apart?

 

[hang-the-9]

Hm.. CPU-Z may find it. Should be a sticker on the motherboard also, maybe on the box it came in if you have that (if it was not a pre-built system).

 

[SuperCruz]

That hard drive only has a 8MB Cache.. Maybe time for an upgrade. Maybe a SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3. Or a SSD...you deserve it.

 

[swapnil mantri]

Hey, i think i know the solution to your problem. i have a similar config to you, but my problem was when i installed the win7 64bit on the brand new config of Phenom II X4 945 3.0GHz and 4 gb DDR3 1600 ram and Gigabyte 785 chipset motherboard, the problem was that when i transfered stuff from my hard disk it would slow down too much during transfer, and also i faced a similar problem with when accessing data from other hard disk,,, i did a lot of research on this issue and finally found a solution that worked for me,, i have 3 hard disk, samsung 80Gb, wd 640gb green, and wd 1TB green, and this thing worked....

os is installed on samsung 80GB HDD

u can also give it a try,,,

ull have to format the hdd, so create a backup of all the important data,,,,,

u have to set the hdd mode in bios to raid... but u dont have to setup any raid config,,,,, just enable it

that is it....



now ur existing installation will not work in this mode.......


so u have to do a clean reinstall .... install win 7 64bit and install the chipset drivers and all other drivers

no need to install the raid drivers.... first see how the pc works.... if required then install the

raid drivers


i faced this problem when i installed 64 bit on the pc, and then added an additional third 1tb drive...
after the new 1tb drive,,,, i faced the slow pc problem

and it was on some forum that someone who had faced a similar issue like yours told me to try it out......


and from then on,,, it has been 8 months i havent faced any hdd problem....

Note:- after enabling raid everything will work normally only the hdd option of safely removal will not work....
and the hdd details like the temperature of the hdd or the data from the hdd will not be read from
certain applicaions like the speedfan or wd lifeguard software,,,,

so i suggest u please try it out !!

if u have any questions feel free to email me... or
even if the solution works then plz let me know about it...

 

[MundoDragon]

I wrote the revision in my motherboard manual for future reference, which is 2.0, by the way. Yeah, I was thinking about getting an SSD, but I'm still perplexed about this problem, because simply having an 8 MB cache would not cause it to act like this and if it does, there are some serious design issues in this operating system.

I installed all those drivers, although I had most of them already installed, and still nothing. I did notice that when it starts transferring, it zips through at first then slows down or even halts and just creeps the rest of the way. For example, I had a 4.24 GB file on the system drive that I moved to one of the data drives and it zipped along. When attempting to move it back, the first 500-700 MB transferred in a few secs, then it just stopped dead and hung there while I watched the MB/s go from around 80 something to about 1, all the while with no progress in the transfer, other than a few ticks every minute or so. Weird.

I am currently running the disk scan on it now (again) and see if it finds anything. If that doesnt work, I may either just go back to Vista for awhile or try installing 7 on another drive and using this one as a music data drive. We'll see. Thanks for the help and I'll post back if I get it resolved or move on, in case anyone is interested.

@swapnil: Thanks for the advice, but I'm not sure if I'll go through all that to counteract a faulty OS, if that is indeed the problem. Then who knows what else will turn up later? I'd rather just go back to Vista, where I don't have to make sacrifices to run the software.

Good tip, though. And I'll keep it in mind.

 

[hang-the-9]

For the disk scan, what are you using? The built-in Windows one is no good to find hard-drive errors. You need to run a utility to do a physical scan on the drive, there may be on in the BIOS, or from the drive vendor. I thought you ran that scan, but maybe not. The thing that bugs me about this being a drive issue, is that it should show the same simptoms under Vista. Unless, this issue turned up at the same time as your Windows 7 setup, and even Vista will have the same thing.

 

[MundoDragon]

Yeah, hang, that bugs me too. I have ran several different diagnostic utilities on the drive, including Windows built in disk checker, and still comes back fine. Even no performance hit on boot, nothing that would suggest faulty hardware, which is what I suspected right off. Though the odds of hardware failing at the exact time you change OS's is fairly high, it is still not impossible.

Right before responding here, I just took a trip through BIOS to see if some setting got changed somehow, but all's well in there as well. This problem has got me, and everyone else, it seems, completely stumped. I've been messing with computers since the DOS 5.0 days and this has got to be right up there with one of the most perplexing.

The drive reads everything fine, doesn't seem to have a problem with anything except when it transfers or accesses something larger than a few hundred MB's, then it starts going unresponsive. I've noticed the system is unbelievably sluggish even when simply downloading something from the internet, which should definitely not be happening.

I'll probably end up going back to Vista, but I think I'll screw around with this a little longer, if only for learning purposes. I'm still open to suggestions, as well, so if ya got any, throw em at me and I'm all over it.

 

[hang-the-9]

If you have an imaging software and an external drive, try to take a full disk image of the drive with the issue. If it completes with no errors, the drive is probably good. Clonzilla should work fine for this method. Imaging software, like full disk encryption, is very sensitive to drive issues, and will complain when it hits any.

 

[MundoDragon]

Thanks, although I don't have an external drive. Anyway to do it with an internal drive?

EDIT: Just thought of this, wouldn't writing zeros to the drive accomplish the same thing, or no? By the way, thanks for all the information/suggestions. You've been here with me right from the beginning and I applaud and bow to the patience you have shown.

 

[hang-the-9]

Well, you don't really want to wipe the disk, and a program that us used to wipe data does not behave the same way as an imaging program. You can do it with an internal drive also. Make a boot CD form clonezilla. Then select the source drive to image, and place the target image on whatever drive. I like using an external drive because you can place the boot and program on the same drive as the images.

 

[swapnil mantri]

if u r going to install win vista on the pc anyway,,, i suggest that u install the win 7 64bit and enable raid option... in the bios... and give it a try for atleast a few days and see ,,,,, i guess i would be worthwhile using win 7, 64bit in the long run..... also if u get access to a new release of the os u can install the same on the pc.....

 

[MundoDragon]

Well, figured I'd update here for anyone that is interested. I reinstalled Windows 7 using a different drive as the system drive and all seems to be well, so far. (Knock on wood). It's only been about an hour or so since I did it so, who knows what it will be like when really put to the test, but so far everything is zipping along. I did notice that the original drive is still unresponsive as hell. I've checked it over and over and couldn't find any errors and it never corrupts data or anything. Just takes forever to access it.

I suppose it could be a compatibility issue with that drive and Windows 7. So, I never really figured out the problem, just worked around it. Again, I wish to thank everyone for their suggestions and advice, especially hang_the_9, for his unwavering dedication on trying to see this thing through.

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks for the kind words, glad you got a fix for this, or a work-around at least. If you really want to put a nail in this thing, you can try to find a firmware update for the drive. Don't recall if that was tried already.