Carter Blum

Honorable
Mar 21, 2012
5
0
10,510
hello, I signed up for Tom's Hardware so I could fix this problem, among others. I recently installed windows 8 onto my computer (about 2 weeks ago). In an attempt (which failed) to create a partition, I defragmented my C: drive(before I switched to windows 8 purely because it failed) , but it when it completed it reported an area that was unfilled and all (i forgot word, but it wasn't allotted to any os). After this happened, I simply chose the upgrade function and proceded to 'upgrade' (read: downgrade) to Windows 8.
Everything went smoothly for a couple days. In an attempt to further speed up my computer, I defragged it 2x more using Smart Defrag. Things continued smoothly. However, one day, when I was playing Skyrim, It froze up. NOw I experience very frequent freezing only on 2 programs (Skyrim and Starcraft II) and everything is exceptionally slow. Safari often fails to respond (which it never did before). Now, whenever I play Skyrim, the framerate has dropped roughly 5 FPS in general, from an average of 12 (I am just above system spec reqs to play the game) to an average of 3-6. The load times are quite ridiculous. Fast traveling used to take about 20s-1 minute, now it take 10 minutes, give or take a couple. Starcraft 2 freezes roughly every 2 minutes ( and for 3-4 minutes at a time), making it unbearable for me and any unlucky person who happens to be in a game with me (this has led to my rank falling quite a bit due to disconnects). To combat these things I have turned all windows 8 settings to lowest (no positive effect) and screwed around with my settings for each game, as well as restarting and generally searching the internet. Restarting solves the problem with crashing for up to 20 mins, but nothing else and is unreliable, not to mention just terrible to stop and restart every 20 minutes to have a chance of eliminating crashing.
With that information given, I have two questions.
1. How can I frickin speed up my computer. I realize that I am barely above system specs, but nothing suggests that I should be dealing with 10 minute load times ( the most ridiculous part of the failure), crashing every 2 minutes ( even though I am significantly above systems specs on Starcraft 2, where the crashing is most prevalent) and 3-6 fps(skyrim) (which on many custom starcraft games is 0-1 fps). Everything is optimized for performance on lowest settings. I do not want to upgrade my actual hardware for three reasons. I am working on a laptop (so it is hard to get new tech in there) I am saving for building a computer (which I will be asking for help on later as to builds) and I simply don't have time to do that or switch to Windows 7 (I'd rather not switch back as I enjoy the perks and prefer it if the crappy bugs could be fixed). I realize that WIndows 8 is in beta and not really meant to be used as a primary OS, but I did and nothing suggests it should be this unstable online. Additionally, On Skyrim, I often experience 3 second mouse lag and up to 30s delay on clicks. IT is incredibly annoying to be fighting a draugr deathlord and trying to shoot an arrow (mostly screws up with bows, but also swords and spells) and nothing happens, and 30s later when you are running for your life your character slows down and starts shooting an arrow at the floor with no control given to you.
2. How can I eliminate the crashes and excessive load times in general, without switching back to Windows 7, doing something that takes excessively long (5 hours +) or switching hardware. I have updated all of my drivers, and I don't think that my system specs are necessary as this seems to be connected to Windows 8 primarily, and not necessarily a hardware compatibility issue. However, I will be happy to provide my specs should they be useful. Thank you very much.
Carter
 

Carter Blum

Honorable
Mar 21, 2012
5
0
10,510
I don't know how much free space I have on my hard drive. When I tried to create a partition initially, it said like 118000 (maybe one more 0?) MB. To the best of my memory. Then when no unallotted space appeared after already having taken the steps necessary to create unallotted space, I tried again and it reported no remaining space at all.