Vista upgrade at 28+ hours. How to troubleshoot/benchmark?

[Yelnoc]

I'm on my second attempt at upgrading my fairly standard low-range home-built to Vista (MSDN). The PC has an Asus motherboard, big WD drives with plenty of space, 1 GB memory, ATI video, 2.4 Pentium D CPU (no overclocking), etc. There shouldn't be any bottlenecks there.

After abandoning the first attempt on "Expanding Files" after several hours, I decided to fetch a fresh MSDN copy, burn to CDs and let it run overnight.

I suspect that my disk drive performance is at fault. Could be the CPU as the upgrade seems to fly at first and slow down over time, but I sense no out of the ordinary heat around the CPU (sorry, can't provide actual temps). Supporting he suspicion: boot time on this machine is at times ridiculously slow -- always assumed that Systemworks and/or Net Nanny were updating, scanning, whatever. Being the kid's PC, didn't really care .

My install has made it to "Completing Upgrade" and I assume it will finish. Once it does so, what tools can I use to troubleshoot the situation? Specifically, I want to benchmark (especially the drives) against expected values.

I haven't found any similar stories with the Vista upgrade on the net. Thanks!

 

[Assman]

There shouldn't be any bottlenecks there.

lol, give us some more specs, what graphics card etc.

 

[Yelnoc]

It's a Radeon 9550, but I'm not sure what that would have to do with the upgrade process.

Ok, I now have Vista (after 36+ hours), but something about my machine is very suspect. What software can go fetch that might tell me what system is not performing well? Again, I suspect the drive, but I'm not sure about that.

 

[mesarectifier]

You might have some hardware which Vista just isn't compatible with.

While 1gb RAM should be enough as a minimum for decent Vista performance, and a PD should be able to handle CPU duties (although for great performance that'll want an upgrade at some point) a Radeon 9550 is a pretty old card, and not exactly a top-of-the-range pretty old card either. I'd imagine it might struggle a bit when you finally get Vista sorted.

 

[croc]

There have been several MSDN versions released... What build # are you trying to install? Is it a fresh install or an upgrade? And where did this 'MSDN' version come from?

Just a few questions...

 

[Yelnoc]

I have a TechNet subscription, final build - used the Home Premium option.

haven't had time to mess with it tonight, but the hard drive light comes on and stays on for lengthy periods of time while my daughter is IM'ing. Sometimes temporarily freezing the screen.

 

[croc]

Ok, I'd suppose then that the build # was 6000, as that is the build of RTM.

I'm running5744, (rc2) have an amd 3700+ a DFI LP MB, and 2 GB of OCZ ram... (3200?)

This takes about .5 hour to install. Some of the much older versions took huge amounts of time to install, hence I asked for version #. Some of the bittorrent versions just won't install, but add a few magical bits to your PC...

Have you filled out a whinge form back to MS yet? That'd be my next step.

 

[pat]

It's a Radeon 9550, but I'm not sure what that would have to do with the upgrade process.

Ok, I now have Vista (after 36+ hours), but something about my machine is very suspect. What software can go fetch that might tell me what system is not performing well? Again, I suspect the drive, but I'm not sure about that.

Your video card should be enough for vista. your slow performance may be because of an overheating cpu.

 

[Yelnoc]

Just before copying everything from drive 1 to 2 and making that my primary drive, I decided to see how the system performed with just one drive...

Drastic improvement! I don't know how much more I'll troubleshoot this, but there is/was obviously a problem with the configuration or with one of the drives.

Strangely, Vista recognized that my primary drive was a Hitachi (yes, I know I said I had 2 WD drives -- forgot about the Hitachi) as soon as I removed the 2nd drive (it gave me the little "your new Hitachi... is ready..." balloon popup. Perhaps the drive was in some sort of "compatibility mode" and Vista is less tolerant than XP? Perhaps I had the master/slave jumpers not quite correct -- I'll take a look tonight.

Thanks for your time All.