Windows 7 and Vista Problem

[lilpate]

After a Fresh install of Windows 7 or Vista my Dual core computer runs really slow. So slow that the mouse skips across the screen. I've installed all the drivers, it took a million hours but it got installed. the bios is all on default. Cant really figure out whats going on. The only thing i can think of is that my hard drive isnt handling it very well. I could use some ideas for some help please!

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Brisbane 2.2GHz
WINTEC AMPX 1GBx2 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 Running as Dual Channel
ASUS EAX1550/TD/256M Radeon X1550 1GB (256MB on board) 128-bit GDDR2
PC CHIPS A33G V1.0 AM2 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
HD is old but its 200g

 

[frozenlead]

Does it do the same thing in safe mode?

 

[lilpate]

It does not do the same thing in Safe Mode. It actually response in Safe Mode. In normal windows with nothing running it takes forever to just open a folder.

 

[frozenlead]

Then you've got a software problem. Are all your drivers up to date?

 

[lilpate]

I got part of it figured out. Vista and Win 7 was throwing a big portion of my ram onto my video card. So the next thing I have to figure out how to stop it from doing that. I guess that's another forum for me to post on. Thanks for the help!

 

[Zoron]

Windows does not "throw" RAM onto your video card. Do you recall how AGP was supposed to allow direct transfers from the video bus to main system RAM? This was supposed to allow video cards to use main system RAM as texture memory if the local memory on the card was filled. Well, this is exactly what is happening in your situation. With AGP you had a "AGP aperature size" setting in the BIOS... but I don't think there's any such setting with PCI Express.

Now, of course if you have an onboard card that uses main memory as texture memory, then that also would explain why your RAM is being used for video. You'll have to look into your video drivers to change the amount of shared memory to allocate to it. Unless it's taking up 50% or more of your RAM, it's probably not the source of your problem.

 

[a_en]

After a Fresh install of Windows 7 or Vista my Dual core computer runs really slow. So slow that the mouse skips across the screen. I've installed all the drivers, it took a million hours but it got installed. the bios is all on default. Cant really figure out whats going on. The only thing i can think of is that my hard drive isnt handling it very well. I could use some ideas for some help please!

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Brisbane 2.2GHz
WINTEC AMPX 1GBx2 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 Running as Dual Channel
ASUS EAX1550/TD/256M Radeon X1550 1GB (256MB on board) 128-bit GDDR2
PC CHIPS A33G V1.0 AM2 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
HD is old but its 200g

your harddisk is sata? does it have bad sectors?
if no then check the sata plug/connector.
then go to device manager and delete all ide connection under ide /atapi controllers, reboot then windows will reinstall the driver.
hope that help.

 

[threednonsense]

It's the stupid AMD setup with that chipset. It's not your hard drive, reinstall Windows again and see what happens.

I'm going to assume that you have a clean legit copy of windows 7 and Vista. I'm also going to assume, not to insult your intelligence, that you knew what you were doing when installing drivers for the system.

 

[lilpate]

Correct I did a fresh install of both OS and both times I had this PCI Express 16 video card installed. When I installed Both OS different times I monitored the system. Checking all the driver making sure they was installed and working right. I came across my Video card and it says it was at 1gig of memory and it should of been at 256. I finally pulled the Video card out and turn the system back on with just running the onboard video and it works perfect. I would like to use this video card so I don't have another computer piece laying around not being used.

 

[frozenlead]

Your card is not the problem - the driver is. If it functioned normally in safe mode, that means you have a software issue. You need to find a different driver for the card.

edit: precisely where did you "come across" your graphics card telling you it had 1GB of memory?

 

[threednonsense]

I had the same experience with an AMD setup and similar on board graphics. It just doesn't like to play nice. I guess I shouldn't have assumed he installed his drivers correctly either.

I would check into what anonymous said, cause that sounds like the on board graphics being able to scale to 1 Gig of video memory.

Either way, I'm sure if you were to install that on an Intel mobo, it would be different...

 

[brendano257]

Your card is not the problem - the driver is. If it functioned normally in safe mode, that means you have a software issue. You need to find a different driver for the card.

edit: precisely where did you "come across" your graphics card telling you it had 1GB of memory?

From what his specs say, it looks as if the card can use up to 1GB of memory from the systems motherboard installed memory, but has 256MB of memory on the actual card as local ram.

I would guess that if it is under Vista/Win7 that it would be Aero. Aero could easily kill a card like that, especially with a limited amount of ram such as yours. I remember running Vista32 on a 4600+ AM2 with 2GB of ram and a Radeon x1300. It wasn't a happy scene with Vista. Vista in my experience really wants more than 2GB of memory to truly function, especially with a lower end card. Check if Window's Aero is running, and or any other visual enhancements.

As for on-board or installed graphics, there should be a BIOS option somewhere that tells the computer what to use if your motherboard has built in graphics as well. (Make sure the cable is plugged into the one it's instructed to use of course.)