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Very slow boot time, decreased general performance
Hi All.
I used to run my PC on Vista Ultimate 64bit and was very happy ith its performance, but after seeing it forget the window layout for the umpteenth time, I decided to install Win7.
Purchased a Win7 Home Premium 64bit Systembuilder package, formatted all my drives and installed it. Turns out there was a problem with the boot manager.
The repair function of the installation DVD didn't really do anything, so I re-installed the whole thing and this time it worked ... sort of.
I get to see my desktop pretty quickly, but then it takes more than 2 minutes to load the 3 sidebar gadgets, open Wampserver (which I need for work) and connect to my home network. During that time the CPU is near idle (1-10% CPU usage) but it won't respond to any commands. The "Computer" won't open, right-click menus don't open, etc.
In Vista I could play GTA4 with all settings maxed out at 55fps. Now the PC is struggling to reach 30.
Before the install, I have re-downloaded all my drivers from the various manufacturers' websites, to make sure they were all for Windows 7 x64. The Device manager isn't indicating any problems either.
I'm no noob when it comes to PCs and have plenty of experience with sorting out OS-related issues, but I'm truely lost here. This OS has been fighting me on this PC from day one.
I'm having all kinds of internet-related software problems (Skype failing to make calls, Wampserver not showing full connection, etc) and even resorted to another re-install recently.
On Vista the problems disappeared and it responded instantly, but I then installed Win7 again and I'm back at square one.
I must add that I have a laptop and a tablet on Win7 and neither of them is having any issues. I like Win7 and would like to keep using it on this PC, but with these problems I'm about to revert back to Vista. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to respond.
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Hardware specs :
MoBo : Gigabyte P67A UD3P B3
CPU : Intel Core i5 2500 @ 3.3 GHz (stock speed)
Memory : 16GB (4x4GB) GeIL Black Dragon DDR3-1333 CL7-7-7-24
GFX card : 1x ATI Radeon HD4870X2
PSU : BeQuiet! Dark Power Pro 850W
HDD 1 : OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB (System disk)
HDD 2 : OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD (Game modding disk)
HDD 3 : Seagate ST31000340AS Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM (Data disk)
HDD 4 : Samsung HD240UI 2TB 5400RPM (Media disk)
DVD 1 : Sony Optiarc DVD RW AD-5260S
DVD 2 : Sony Optiarc DVD RW AD-7261S (Lightscribe)
The GFX card and PSU are 2.5 years old, but the rest of the PC was bought in March 2011. The motherboard was replaced in May due to suffering from the known SandyBridge issue with the S-ATA controller.
Software-wise :
I run the usual stuff. LibreOffice, Paintshop Pro, etc. Wampserver is required for my work, but that doesn't give any problems on my Win7 laptop. The problem appears on a default system, so I'm pretty sure that none of my applications are responsible.
Normally I don't use an antivirus on this PC. I'm a careful browser and have another machine with AVG for downloading.