Tyan s5396 running windows 7 poorly

[mneil]

I built a workstation almost two years ago with a Tyan tempest s5396 motherboard, 8 gb of kingston ram (4x kvr667d2d4f5/2g to be exact) and 3 intel 5345 clovertown processes. I had windows xp professional running very well. I skipped straight from xp to windows 7 professional 64bit just this week and now the computer is sluggish.

Okay, my applications run pretty well but the overall OS seems to be slow. For instance, when I open the control panel, start>control panel, it seems to sit there for a bit. And, while it's sitting there if I right click on the desktop it may not open the context menu or if it does it takes a second or two. I'm using an nvidia 8600gt video card.

This issue happens with absolutely nothing open. I can start the computer and let it get all the services going, open up my computer, and watch it have to find my drives. This computer has always started slowly; that's the nature of this processor, but in my mind this thing should be a beast and not have trouble with the OS. I'm a developer and run eclipse (ZEND), adobe flash, photoshop, and illustrator along with wampserver2 and check my outlook, read pdf's and cruize firefox with 10+ plugins no problem. Why would windows 7 run so poorly? Am I asking too much? Thank you.

 

[Gandalf]

Did you do an upgrade to Win7 or a clean full install?

 

[mneil]

I ran an upgrade to windows 7. I know that there were supposed to be some issues going from xp to 7 but mine seemed to go well other than the performance. No old services running or anything like that. It basically took my whole drive and dumped it into a folder which I then picked files out of and erased.

 

[Gandalf]

Upgrading could be part of your problem. The only way to be sure would be to invest in a full clean install of Win7.

Do you use Ccleaner?
http://www.ccleaner.com/
This program is free and might help.

 

[JessicaD]

Mneil,

Microsoft does have an official Windows 7 Support Forum located here http://tinyurl.com/9fhdl5 . It is supported by product specialists as well as engineers and support teams. You may want to also check the threads available there for additional assistance and feedback.

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team

 

[mneil]

Thank you both for the input. I ran ccleaner and found 3 dozen or so dynamic libraries still on the computer as well as a couple extra services I didn't need. I removed all of those and got a big performance boost. It's still not quite what I'd expect but I can live with it a bit longer. I think a fresh install may be the way to go but I just got everything back on the machine so I can hold off for now. I run windows 7 on another computer and it's just so much faster and less of a machine. When I do finally do a fresh install I'll be sure to update this thread.

 

[Rtitan]

I have a S5396 with 24GB ram, two X5450 Xeon, two Adaptec controllers - 5805 & 4800, 12 hard drives, two video cards - FX Quadro 3700 & NVS 290, and everything else you can think of. Windows 7 64 bit runs great - much better than XP did. Hard drive performance at first was 92% of XP but since has made it back with newer Adaptec drivers (on the 5805). It takes a while to boot but I have isolated that to Creative drivers and services. Nvidia also have a service which causes a lag because of two video cards. I also had problems with a 750W power supply and have since updated to a 900W. Once up and running, system performance is great! The best I have every had.

 

[mneil]

This thread is a bit old now. I'm not sure how to mark it as resolved. I'm glad your system is running well; it's quite a bigger beast than mine. I eventually (since my last post) did a fresh install of 7 pro and it's running great now! Much better than the upgrade and better still than xp. I did add a new video card as well. Anyway, thread is resolved and thank you again to everyone who suggested fixes.