Solved My computer is running slow and bogged down at times

[adamwentzell82]

Here's my spec's
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core 3800+ 2GHz
AMD Sapphire PURE CrossFireX 770 model PC-AM2RX780 motherboard
6GB DDR2 800MHz (3 2GB sticks)
ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256MB
WD 500GB hard drive
500Watt Power supply with cooling fan on bottom
3 system fans for cooling 1 on the front of case 1 on the back and 1 on CPU
My problem is my computer is slow and bogged down at times and takes up to 5 minutes or so to boot up and also standby don't work. Everything is new besides the CPU and the video card that I see by looking this card it don't support Windows 7 I am just wondering what could be the cause of this problem I talked to 3 different computer shops and 2 said it's my video card that is causing my problems but the third said that this card will not cause problems besides maybe problems playing games. I plan to buy a new video card but if I do will this change my problems or would there be some other cause that I don't see. Also I built this system myself thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[RST101]

First things firsts welcome to seven forums, sorry your computer not running good but with the folk around here I'm sure they will be able to sort it.

I'm unfamiliar with that card/chip(gpu) but after a brief search I am of the opinion that your computer should be able to run win 7 with no probs.

Who installed windows 7? Was it a clean install or an upgrade? Has it always run like this?

What programmes are enabled from the start because 5 mins is it touch too long for a boot up.

 

[adamwentzell82]

I installed Windows myself and it was a clean install not a upgrade also my other computer I had before this one was done had XP Home installed and this video card and it worked great fast but as soon as I installed this card in this computer and installed Windows 7 it ran slow at times most of the time it was just a slow boot time and some programs would be slow to load IE, Windows media player, Firefox, IE8, AVG anti virus programs like that are always alittle slow to load and also my online games the run on flash player don't work to good but worked fine with XP. opening folders like my computer or other folders are very fast about 90% of the time.
Also I only have the minimal programs running at start up only about 2 programs running. and after startup I am only using about 14 to 20% of system memory and about 4 to 8% of the CPU
The video card I plan to buy today is the Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 1GB DDR2 I wonder if this card will make much of a difference?

 

[TVeblen]

Very often when you get a slow Windows start up the issue is with device drivers. Bad driver installs, incorrect drivers, conflicting drivers. These bad drivers can also slow down the system once the OS is started.
There are other possible causes, like defective hardware, but the drivers are a good place to start.

The first place to start is Safe Mode. Does the box run faster in Safe Mode? If yes, then you are on the right track with drivers. If no, then you may have an issue with a core component.

The second is to RUN > MSCONFIG and use the Diagnostic Startup option and see if the operations improve.

The video card drivers could be the issue, and changing the card could solve that problem by default. But you want to test the possibility that the card is OK but the drivers are not by completely removing all the video drivers and associated programs, restart, and run on the basic low res driver and test.

Then you can start to isolate individual components and test. To test you want to disconnect, disable, or stop individual devices not needed to have a running system (sound, LAN, etc.) and see if the problem disappears, then add the devices back to see if it reappears. Then you have your problem device. Start by disconnecting any external devices, like printers and drives.

Post back what you find.

 

[adamwentzell82]

I just found out that to run in 2 channel memory mode you need even sticks of memory of the same size and I had 3 sticks in so my computer was running in 1 channel mode. I just took one 2GB stick of memory and now it's running in 2 channel mode and it looks like it's running better. Instead of it taking 4 to 5 minutes being stuck at the Windows welcome screen it's now at about 2 minutes in total it now takes about 3 or 4 minutes to boot up to the desktop before in total it took over 5 minutes. I also replaced the video card and my online games all work great with no problems. I will post later after I try it in safe mode later.

 

[Zomby88]

In my opinion even 2 minutes is a long time for 7 . Could be a hard drive.

 

[ionbasa]

or bad memory, could you try running Memtest86+ for at least 8 passes?

 

[prudhivisekhar]

One option is to perform the memory and hard disk checking....

 

[thefabe]

Memtest 86 download Memtest86 - Download Page Just follow the instructions to make a ISO run 1 stick at a time in the proper slot refer to your manual or download it on line.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html You can run check disk to do a system file check.

Or you can run Western digital datalife guard to check your disk WD Support / Downloads / SATA & SAS / WD VelociRaptor

For a clean install 2 minutes is long see here http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/592-reboot-time.html

Then do this and show us http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/720-restart-time.html
Thanks. Fabe

 

[adamwentzell82]

I just upgraded the memory to 8GB and changed the Bios memory setting from Auto to 800MHz and now my computer is working alot faster. Now it takes 50 to 51 seconds to get to the desktop and another 30 seconds to be 100% booted up. Also I had the hard drive divided before but now it's no longer divided. I plan to upgrade the hard drive next week by adding another 1.5 TB Seagate hard drive for a total of 2 TB.
Had to take the new 1.5TB Seagate hard drive back cause it started to get the click of death after 3 days so I bought another WD 500GB hard drive so I have 1TB I total

 

[adamwentzell82]

SOLVED thanks for all your help