New Installation- Windows 7 Stuttering/Lag

[Captain Picard]

Hey All,

I am having a pretty frustrating issue I am hoping someone can help me with!

I own a MacBook pro that is dual booting Windows 7 with bootcamp. Up until about 3 months ago I haven't had any issues. I run my Windows 7 partition about 99% of the time. However, in late November I noticed my computer would start to stutter. That is, no matter what program I was in (Firefox, Word, Outlook, watching a movie..didnt matter), what ever action I would do would freeze for a second or two followed by it catching up to itself. This is the case for the mouse if I was moving it, a webpage scrolling, or typing an email response.

I originally thought it was just a virus and decided to wipe my hard drive and just start over. I reinstalled Windows 7 again, and I instantly knew my problem hadn't resolved itself. It is incredibly frustrating and is definitely affecting my productivity.

I have tried everything I could think of to fix the problem- updated all the drivers I could think of, reinstalling the operating system again, etc. Does anyone have insight as to what might be causing this and what I can do to fix it?

Thank you!

EDIT: This stuttering problem is also happening on my Mac partition (although to a lesser extent), leading me to believe it may be a hardware issue. I ran a couple of different hard drive tests, but they all came up as passing. Any other hardware that might cause this?

 

[whs]

Check whether you have a DPC latency problem. Run this latency checker. If you have a lot of red spikes, see what it tells you about the cause of the problem. If it is all green, then it is another problem.

 

[Fred Garvin]

What did you run for hard drive tests? It sounds like a failing drive or a drive with bad blocks. I can't be of any help on the MAC end, but a program like hard drive tune can scan your drive through Windows and show you a visual map of any defects found.

 

[Captain Picard]

@Whs: Here is a screenshot of my DPC Latency checker:

I assume being in the red the majority of the time is not a good thing? What could be causing that? I am also not sure why there was that extreme spike- that absolute maximum is super high.


@Fred Garvin- I will give that tool a shot and let you know what it finds!

Thanks

 

[whs]

This does not look good at all. First have a look in device manager whether there are any yellow flags. But even if your drivers are all up-to-date, there could be one that is misbehaving. Hard to tell from here. It is a matter of trial and error and a good portion of luck.

Since I have no idea regarding a Macbook, I am afraid that I will be of little help on the details of the trouble hunt. Maybe the guys on a Mac forum would have a better suggestion.

 

[FliGi7]

Run a Disk Check in Windows to see if it finds anything.

 

[Captain Picard]

Couple of updates:

FliGi7- Ran a disk check when I first started having issues, ran a second one today. No errors found.

Fred Garvin- Finished running all the tests I could find on Hard Drive tune, but they all passed.


In terms of testing the drivers, is the best method just to disable them one-by-one and watch for changes in the latency checker?

Thanks

 

[Dwarf]

It could well be a hardware issue. MACs, like other Apple products, tend to use propietary hardware. Did you have this problem prior to you installing Bootcamp? You might be better off going to a MAC forum that specialises in Bootcamp issues.

 

[Captain Picard]

I actually installed bootcamp and had it running successfully for quite a long time before this issue cropped up. Its sudden appearance leads me to believe that it is either a hardware issue or some driver incompatibility that came as a result of a Windows update or something funky.

 

[richc46]

Did you try a memory test with memtest?
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/246994-guide-to-using-memtest86/

Hope that I can help the good Capt Picard. The best Captain of the Enterprise.