Mysterious Win 7 Pro 64 Slowdown - Maybe Underclocking Itself?

I doubt the cpu speed is causing your slowdown problem unless you are underclocking due to overheating. To see if you are, download and run hwinfo64 and watch your "distance to TjMaxx" lines and see if they turn red because your cpu temp is getting elevated.

otherwise, underclocking is just a power saving feature that turns off in a few microseconds, so you should not notice it. But to turn off underclocking altogether do these two things:

press del at startup to open your bios, then disable cpu features eist, intel c-state, and c1e support. Your manual will show you exactly where they are in bios

within windows do start > run > control powercfg.cpl,,1 > processor power management > min processor state > 100%

Then undo all of the above if the problem persists, which I'm assuming it will.

Does the problem also occur in windows safe mode? If so, please re-fill out your specs with much more detail. From your description it sounds like a bad or very full hard drive, but more info is needed.

Thanks for the tips, johnhoh. Yeah, I also doubt it’s running hot. One sign is the case and PSU fans are slow spinning and the air coming out is barely lukewarm.

The motherboard temp is higher than the CPU (at 37-39°C), but it’s been that way on every build I’ve done.

For an update: the system ran at 816MHz the rest of the evening (for hours) last night. And that was no matter what I did, meaning at idle or running programs. I usually turn off the system at night but I put it to sleep instead.

This morning I woke it up and it ran at 4590MHz for about 1/2 hour, both at idle and working. Then it dropped back down to 816MHz and stayed there for a couple hours regardless of usage. I had to go out so I put it back to sleep.

When I came back and woke it up this time, about 4 hours ago, it was and still is running normally at 4590MHz all this time.

When it running at 816MHz it is quite obvious as even simple Web sites are jittery when you scroll down/up, and everything else runs slow, too.

“To see if you are, download and run hwinfo64 and watch your "distance to TjMaxx" lines and see if they turn red because your cpu temp is getting elevated.”

Things seem fine, screenshot below, but I have to admit most of the info it supplies is far beyond my smarts here.

“… otherwise, underclocking is just a power saving feature that turns off in a few microseconds, so you should not notice it. …”

I do get that, but it’s has always run ‘full bore’ at 45xxMHz since I put it together, even at idle for extend periods. So that’s why I’m baffled on why it’s all of a sudden throttling down. (I don’t know squat about OCing and to get this thing to run at 45xxMHz took a lot of help from the MSI forums.)

“Does the problem also occur in windows safe mode?”

Haven’t tried that.

“From your description it sounds like a bad or very full hard drive, but more info is needed.”

My OS SSD and both data hard drives (two partitions each on all three) give good SMART reports. All have lots of free space.
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did you try the below yet?

press del at startup to open your bios, then disable cpu features eist, intel c-state, and c1e support. Your manual will show you exactly where they are in bios

within windows do start > run > control powercfg.cpl,,1 > processor power management > min processor state > 100%

Base clock is applied not only to the CPU but to everything (Memory, chipset etc). Some of this components my be failing.
Try to set you base clock (102MHz) back to default (100MHz).

Update. Two days ago I got to spend some time on the computer. It worked fine. I had about 7 hours in the morning without a glitch. And all afternoon and evening things were good, too. I had only one ‘stutter’ for about 20 minutes in the evening, but other than that, it ran full speed.

I was pretty busy with errands, chores, and the like yesterday, but again it ran without a hitch.

This morning is a different case, though. It fired up at 816MHz and has stayed there for the 2 hours or so it’s been on.

“ did you try the below yet? …”

No, not yet as it has been working fine and I want to give it a day or two to see how things go. More clues below.

“Base clock is applied not only to the CPU but to everything (Memory, chipset etc). Some of this components my be failing. Try to set you base clock (102MHz) back to default (100MHz).”

I really don’t know anything about OCing so messing with those setting is not only very iffy for me, but scary, too. More clues below.

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This thing is running painfully slow. I figured I’d go into BIOS and see if I could find the ‘base clock.’ I did but don’t know how to change only that as it's greyed out and won't change.

What I notice right off is even in BIOS it is running at 0.8GHz. See first screenshot below. Also note the “Game Boost” block in the upper left corner. This is the only thing I’ve set in regards to OCing. It is set at ‘4’.

So I changed the ‘4’ setting back down to ‘0,’ rebooted, but no change. See second screen shot.

The other two screen shots are to (hopefully) provide more details of various setting when the Game Boost was set to ‘4.’

The Game Boost ‘dial’ in the BIOS is software driven. There is a physical knob on the motherboard with the same settings. I don’t remember if I set that when I built this box or used the BIOS to ‘OC.’

Any ideas on what to test or do?

I’m still clueless…
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i'd do a simple bios cmos reset. should be in your manual

i notice that in bios, the cpu is 27c and 800mhz. This is not a windows issue