Almost no response from windows 7..angry wife

[Layback Bear]

gregrocker good point. I have no idea what happened. I have went through all these post many times and I can't keep track of what is or is not being done by the OP. It appears like the dog is chasing his tail. gregrocker you are a very patient person.

 

[gregrocker]

I persist because I never give up on these things. It isn't really within me to walk away even with hurdles being tossed unnecessarily in the path.

I can't think of a situation with this level of confusion, even though others have blundered worse not following the steps. I'd really like to understand why.

This may be explained by something which hasn't been revealed by OP including possible handicaps which have been revealed late before.

Some may remember another marathon thread where OP revealed he's 14 during the middle of a complicated partitioning rebuild on his brother's p.c. He not only learned from it but is teaching others and the brother was amazed.

I should mention as an aside that I PM'd the OP before and after first reinstall to offer to connect with TeamViewer to look over his system closely to check and troubleshoot performance, but got no reply. My offer still stands.

 

[TVeblen]

gregrocker you are a very patient person.

+2 on that!

 

[Keiichi25]

I also don't like problems like this not getting resolved... Eventually, something similar might happen.

My only wish, however, is in situations like this, we try not to jump around too much. Jumping around and scatter shotting the issues makes it hard to solve problems. It generally works out better to do things one at a time, otherwise a lot of problems happen at once and it is difficult to determine what is going on.

 

[Layback Bear]

Folks we are here to help and learn. We are not here to play checker boards. If one works with us we will figure it out. IF one by chance is playing games I DON'T have time for it. Good by.

 

[masplin]

Guys

Firslty can I once agian say how much I appreciate all the input. In my defence I am somewhat dyslexic and they may not have helped my understanding of the instructions or my explanation of what I have done. As someone with no experience of hardware and OSs allthe advice is extremely confusing at times. to clarify a coupel of things:

1. In one of Gregs original posts you said

When it is finished, clean and order the HD perfectly using state-of-the-art free CCleaner and Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers. Then save a Windows 7 backup image so you never have to reinstall again.

 

[masplin]

I took this to be a very important step to take a systme image once the OS was installed. This was the cause of all the flailing and reinstalls as could not comlete this step.

1. I misread the instructions about AV and installed AVG free as a low resource solution as have used that for years and seems highly recommended. After re reading all the posts I saw the reference to MS security so changed over. My mistake
2. I didn't wipe the RAID drives in case it all went horribly wrong and I had to sell the pc. I used a 3rd drive that was completely blank for the new OS, but unplugged the RAID drives.
3. I did have the RAID drive disconnected all along during installation. However I could not get the system image created on any network drive due to the errors reported. Several people said to put the system image on another drive. I therefore used my imagination and reconnected the RAID drive so I could put the system image there. I did not appreciate that the simple act of conencting the RAID drive could affect performance even though the OS and programs are not being used.
4. I did respond to Gregs kind offer of help asking what time, but presumably that got lost in the post.

The pc seems to be working well will just Office 2010, IE8, Blackberry Desktop and MS security installed. I have reconencted it to the Dell monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse (I appreciate these new components could be ab issue). My wife is now back using it.

I can disconnect the RAID drives without any issue as only just connected them for system image purposes. Sounds like even though they aren't "active" they could still affect performance?

Hopefully the above explanation of my actions will make me seem like less of an idiot.

Mike

 

[Keiichi25]

Okay... To clarify something here...

Gregrocker asked if you needed the Raid. You stated no. It was recommended, at that time, that you should break the RAID in general. If you don't need it, get rid of it. Of course, it was also probably under the belief that you were not going to be needing RAID on that system in general.

From my view. I can understand your desire to have RAID, however, you need to understand part of what I have been trying to state about performance with regards to the computer. What makes your computer suffer performance issues similar to this would be Disk Access. When you involve a hardware RAID, which in this case, the drives you have been hooking up and disconnecting within the system, the Operating System needs to know how to properly interact with this.

When I stated to put your image on an external drive, this does not mean put it on the raid. This means 'Get an external, USB Hard drive and save it there.'. This is the simplest, easiest thing to do for any version of Windows 7. You need, minimum, Windows 7 Professional (Not Home Premium) installed to do a network image. (This is for others reading this thread and not familiar with this, not just directed at Maspin)

Now, when I speak of 'scattershot' method, I refer to how it seems we were talking about one thing, then we hear problems with something else, but put in the context of the original problem. Things being done, but not clarified as to what. It is important to note that when asking for help on something, to be as descriptive as possible and stick with one situation at a time. As pointed out before, we can understand people not having the 'time' to note some things, but the problem with diagnosing what could have happened is all about details. Regardless of your level of expertise, anyone who has seen drama shows or mysteries will have at least understood one thing that those shows harp upon - Details are everything. Techs like myself and others find that we can help resolve your issues better once we have full details.

 

[masplin]

OK so meerly the presence of the RAID drives connected in the system even if they aren't being used to boot from could impact performance. Sorry I didn't understand that and didnt have a USB hard drive. I tried to put it on my pc but could not make the backup work without errors. I'll disconnect the RAID and get a USB drive as you suggest. For what it's worth so far the system is running fine with the RAID attached, but sonds like not helping the cause.

I was being a chicken with not formatting the RAID (i.e. keeping the old setup as a backup) as had a spare drive to try out the new OS. I thought once the new OS was running consistently I could go back and break the RAID etc.

I have made extensive notes of every step taken with the current OS install.

 

[Keiichi25]

OK so meerly the presence of the RAID drives connected in the system even if they aren't being used to boot from could impact performance. Sorry I didn't understand that and didnt have a USB hard drive. I tried to put it on my pc but could not make the backup work without errors. I'll disconnect the RAID and get a USB drive as you suggest. For what it's worth so far the system is running fine with the RAID attached, but sonds like not helping the cause.

I was being a chicken with not formatting the RAID (i.e. keeping the old setup as a backup) as had a spare drive to try out the new OS. I thought once the new OS was running consistently I could go back and break the RAID etc.

I have made extensive notes of every step taken with the current OS install.

Note - You could also try and image the RAID to an external hard drive as well if you wished to preserve the data.

Another thing to note, whenever you are dealing with something that affects performance, in this case, the RAID itself, you may have to use the manufacturer drivers, as I mentioned before. When the system has to access or do something that involves hardware and you see a plummet in performance, this is a key indication that whatever hardware being accessed may not be accessed in the most optimal way.

For others - Things that slow down the computer will be one of a few things:

1) Disk Access - The slowest part of any computer will be the Hard Disks themselves. If the disk is suffering problems, it will DEFINITELY slow the system down to a crawl, especially if it has to access something from it.
2) CPU Usage - Next to Disk Access getting killed, CPU usage, as processes take up more CPU time, other processes are waiting behind that one for its turn. If you see your system capping out processing wise, the slower it will go.
3) Memory in general - Low Memory with high memory usage, evidenced by low available memory (And I mean AVAILABLE, not Free) and really large memory paging - Which invariably leads to higher disk accessing for Virtual Memory (Which might only happen at the 32 bit level and lots of programs going)

Now, I maybe recalling incorrectly, but Windows does occasionally poll the drives. RAID drives do get the occasional poke to insure consistency as well as status. Depending on how a person sets up their system, or where they start putting items, disk access can vary over time. Large transfers to a disk array will often times require a bit more 'assistance' than just the baseline drivers, mostly with Hardware RAIDs due to how the RAID controller handles data. If you were using a Software RAID architecture, the problem would be less about the OS being able to talk to the drives and more on the OS, Processor(s) and software handling the RAID information.

 

[neo101]

If she was angry @ the first post - what is she like after 250+? I have pictures of her in a straight jacket being dragged out of the family home on her heels - foaming at the mouth!

 

[gregrocker]

Since you now have a working install with good performance and don't need to save the old corrupted RAID install any longer, I'd suggest you take one of the HD's, plug in to format it as a data drive then save your Win7 backup image to it.

Might as well get some use out of the other HD's by adding them in as needed for storage purposes.

The step to make the Backup Image was for after install was finished - sorry if I didn't make that clear. You want to image after it is set up as you like and running perfectly, but before corruption can start creeping back in. This "baseline image" is all I then use for reinstall.

Use System Restore to get back before itinerant corruption. If necessary, apportion more disk space (10-20%) for System Restore at Computer>Properties>SysProtection.

Be aware that there will be a huge wad of Windows Updates for Office. I would install only a few of these at a time with Restore Points, as they are ones I've had issues with before.

Have you checked Optional Updates for any newer drivers?

 

[masplin]

I've taken that baseline image and renamed it and put it elsewhere for safe keeping. Just took a lot of tries to get it to run without throwing an error, but as you say that is a differnet issue. Haven't tried again.

So far I have taken windows optional updates for Graphics and network cards.

Unfortunately wife now in bed with flu so not getting much use!!!

 

[masplin]

So a week later thnigs are still going ok and have installed itunes without an issue. However I have a feeling this isn't going to last. I went to install the next program and saw that her memory usage was up at 70%. One big culprit that I had warned her about was leaving the BBC sport website open which we know about. However there are other programs using unreasonable amounts of memory for example:

Outlook 2010: Hers is doing nothing and sits at 120,000, mine sits at 10,000
Blackberry Desktop Manager: Both are disconnected, hers 140,000 mine 10,000

Does anyone know why these programs would be so memory hungry on her machine, but not on mine. I'm guessing the answer is she never shuts anything down so is this just the effect of a weeks drift?

Thanks for any advice as suspect a lot of her problems are related to the way she uses the pc.

Mike

 

[gregrocker]

Is everything unchecked in msconfig>startup except AV and gadgets/stikynotes?

I wouldn't worry about high memory usage unless it causes system to hang at all.

 

[Keiichi25]

Well, there is also another thing to consider with regards to Outlook and Blackberry. Compare her usage of Outlook, database size, how much mail, how it is organized and how much stuff in general. Blackberry will also be looking at that and trying to sync that with their Internet Service, as that's part of its job. Depending on how active your wife is with regards to her Outlook, hers can be more than yours. Also, don't forget, there is that inherent Windows Search indexing that will eventually come into play as an active outlook will be part of what it indexes as well.

 

[masplin]

Only MS Security, sidebar and Office BCCync.exe in the msconfig

Oddly we have identical Outlooks as we sync them together across pcs so if anything hers is smaller than mine in that I have al lthe archive folders etc. We therefore have identical Blackberry syncs...even the same phone...how twee we are! I was just wondering if this was an idndication that her pc configuration was fundamentally less efficient at manging memory.

I don't know if I can or need to train her out of this, but I found the pc at 84% memory usage this morning agian mostly iexplorer. I closed it all down and restarted and I get 2 processes using 60,000. I then opened a new tab with her igoogle homepage goes to 130k and within an hour is at 200k. She has lots of silly moon cycle gadgets etc on Google. Is this normal as surely lots of people have web pages that update running constantly? It was at 850k first thing partly due to BBC sports being open.

As Greg says maybe it doesn't matter if pc is behaving OK just made me hestitiate before loading the next program.

Thanks again

Mike

 

[Layback Bear]

I think the user of the pc doesn't understand that opening a program and then minimize it just makes it smaller in appearance on the task bar. It is still running in the background using resources. If one minimizes enough things and will not change there ways you will just need more computer.

 

[masplin]

I think she means to close them then one of the kids demands something and it gets forgotten!

I'd still love to know why something dull like Blackberry desktop manager that is inactive loads with 6 times the memory usage than on my pc. I don't really understand memory and all the different types. Itunes loads with 140k on her pc when inactive, mine with 4k!!!! Her library is much bigger so maybe that is the explanation.

 

[Keiichi25]

Maspin... Explain how your wife uses Outlook...

From the sounds of it, she has a 'smaller' mailbox, but you also state that you sync both your mailboxes together. That doesn't make sense to me.

And just cause you use the same VERSION of Outlook, does not mean your version of Outlook is setup the same as hers. There are several things that still come into play, such as if she wishes to use specific sounds. Outlook does have one or two non-control panel sounds. Her calendar may have more information or is more active than yours or her contacts get updated more than yours or even has pictures associated with her contacts.

The next thing you have to understand is that if her computer is handling memory differently, it would not 'grow' from programs. System Configurations with regards with memory would hit on Performance, not on memory bloat. Things like how fast memory is accessed or how fast things are handled, but never on how much memory there is unless we are talking about the difference between x32 implementation and x64 implementation and how the program is coded, and even then, the system configuration would not qualify much more than just the amount of memory you put into the system. The OS determines the amount of memory used based on the type of program it is working with.

Lastly, Blackberry Desktop is hardly inactive. It checks with outlook if something is going on. Again, depending on HOW active Outlook is being used will also affect the memory size. If she is reading and deleting mail, that is activity. Even if her mail is smaller than yours, it still has to sync that information to the blackberry via the Blackberry Desktop program.