Really shoddy performance with decent specs

[0rbytel]

Hi all,

I only ever seem to post on these forums when I have issues- and here I am again!

Ever since I've installed W7 (upgraded from the RC), I've found things to be incredibly slow. Not just slow- but at times unusable.

Boot times take forever, and once windows has loaded it takes a good 5 minutes before the system is usable. It stutters and lags even when I attempt open a window.

After a good five minutes- I find that if I try and open windows mail, IE, firefox, or any other programs that it takes forever (a good 10-15 seconds before it opens). Once the program has loaded, things are normally ok- within that program.

I have dealt with a multitude of fixes over the past few months to deal with various issues that I've run into, including:

*Freezing on boot (during windows animation), caused by a BIOS issue.
*ie tabs not loading (now switched to firefox, which still has issues and crashes)
*WEI not completing, due to a BIOS issue
*Sound popping/crackling, caused by conflicting drivers
*Network dropout and dodgy performance, caused by driver issues
*Crashing on boot after a restore, and having to manually change the AHCI settings in the registry
*crashing on boot due to using an IDE optical drive (which I have had to swap for a SATA optical drive)
*Constant BSOD when coming out of hibernation (0x0000007A ataport.sys) which I am still trying to resolve- and I have just downloaded two hotfixes to try and stop the issue.

So things really haven't been going too well, as you can see. I don't mind so much about the teething problems with a new OS, but the performance issue is just ridiculous.

I have done everything from removing programs, and startup service/programs, turning off all the visuals (which made little difference), splitting the page file (half on the main, and a larger page on another drive, to equal 2/3 the size of physical ram). I'm also using a 2gb flash card as dedicated readyboost and it still makes little difference.

I've run chkdsk and software from the hard drive vendors to check the stability of the Sata drives I'm running, and they are all fine. I've also scanned for malware etc and it's all fine.

I've got all the latest stable drivers, and updated to the latest bios revision last week with still no improvement.

Considering the hardware i'm running, I wouldn't expect this kind of performance. Especially considering I'm also running W7 on a toshiba A200, and my wife has an Acer e-machine, and we get better performance out of those.

If I'm running games, graphics applications, video encoding, or any other applications- It runs fine within the application once it has finally loaded, so it's appears to be the OS itself.

I have been considering buying a SSD, but I was planning on holding off until the pricing dropped and larger drives were affordable. if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know, as I'm starting to pull my hair out!

 

[electrotune1200]

With the amount of problems you have had.....Have you tried a clean install?

 

[0rbytel]

Yes, two since the RC. After I upgraded from the RC it was sluggish, do I performed a clean install.

It was still slow, so I purchased a new hard drive (the WD 'green' 7200) and performed another clean install, and still no change.

I really have no idea what could be causing the issues. I initially figured it may be the RAM as it idles at around the 40% mark. The CPU idles at around 1-2%, and i rarely get above 50% cpu usage for general activities.

Before I go out and buy anything, I figured I'd check if anyone had any suggestions.

Also- just in case anyone asks, my WEI score is as follows:
Processor: 7.4
RAM: 7.6
Graphics: 7.4
Gaming Graphics: 7.4
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9

 

[housry23]

Windows 7 is snappy for me and my laptop specs are no where near your specs. What Antivirus do you use? Have you tried Google Chrome browser? This seems like a strange problem since people with much lower specs are loving the speed of Windows 7. Your PC should be fast. You have to have something running in the background bogging it down.

 

[0rbytel]

I'm using AVG free edition, and i've had good chrome in the past and wasn't too keen on it.

This is what I don't understand though- my specs are decent, so it should run smooth as a babies bum.

 

[CommonTater]

I'm using AVG free edition, and i've had good chrome in the past and wasn't too keen on it.

This is what I don't understand though- my specs are decent, so it should run smooth as a babies bum.

I'd bet my money on AVG... IMO it's as bad as Norton.

Full time anti-virus protection is way too system invasive. Everything you do is checked, every time you do it. Your system actually spends more processing time making sure software that's been safe to use for years doesn't suddenly sprout a virus on you. In general it is enough to scan your system for viruses about once a week and to check executable files you download... you don't need these system crippling things running in the background.

The software industry has people completely paranoid about viruses. Yes they do happen and it's nasty as all get out when they do... but unless you are extremely careless, it's beyond easy to avoid them.

The best antivirus scenario is an on-demand system where you tell it when to run, just like you tell defrag when to run.... The only free one I know of is a-squared Free - Free of charge Anti-Virus, Anti-Trojan, Anti-Spyware, Anti-Dialer and Anti-Worm Software - Freeware! and it seems to work well enough. I just run it every Saturday morning and all is good.

I don't know what's causing the BSODs you're getting but I would suggest you enter your BIOS and reset everything to default values and run your system for a while to see if it steadies up...

 

[0rbytel]

Thanks for that, i'll remove AVG and see if I get any improvements.

Whats concerning me at the moment is the frequency of the BSODs. Initially I was only receiving them when going into/resuming from hibernation.

Now i'm receiving the exact same BSOD stop error during normal operations:

Kernel_data_inpage_error

Stop ataport.sys 0x0000007A 0x0...020 0xffffffffc00009D 0xfffffA8006442078

I downloaded a couple of kb fixes for the issue from the MS support site, and it hasn't helped at all.

Perhaps i have a dodgy HDD, as I've changed the drivers for the host controller from MS to the third party drivers and it hasn't made a difference.

 

[CommonTater]

Perhaps i have a dodgy HDD, as I've changed the drivers for the host controller from MS to the third party drivers and it hasn't made a difference.

That could well be. Head for the manufacturer's website for your drive and see if they have downloadable diagnostics for it... Pound it with their factory tools for a couple of hours and see what you get.

Other possibilities include poor power connections or bad data cables... it might be worth a couple of open-case minutes to check that everything is hooked up properly... My trick --especially with edge connectors-- is to disconnect and reconnect each one a couple of times, to push any dust or icky stuff aside.

 

[0rbytel]

no worries, ill give that a go tonight. i've got plenty of spare cables laying around and i'm running full diagnostics on it now. so far two damaged blocks at .1% of the total hdd capacity.

I'll keep you updated- this has got me baffled.

 

[0rbytel]

Ok, i've changed over the power and sata cables, and run a full HD diagnostic. It came up with 2 damaged blocks at .1% of the hd capacity.

I've also received the following error messages from windows:
Windows was temporarily unable to read your hard disk drive. We don't know the exact cause of the problem. In most cases, this type of condition is momentary and doesn't indicate a series problem, but sometimes it means that a hard disk is failing.

Also- when checking the event log, i have several critical errors, relating to eventID:
100
Windows has started up:
Boot Duration : 116585ms
IsDegradation : false
+ System - Provider [ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance [ Guid] {CFC18EC0-96B1-4EBA-961B-622CAEE05B0A}
EventID 100 Version 2 Level 1 Task 4002 Opcode 34 Keywords 0x8000000000010000 - TimeCreated [ SystemTime] 2010-03-22T08:19:22.720820400Z
EventRecordID 795 - Correlation [ ActivityID] {00000100-0000-0003-E672-680298C9CA01}
- Execution [ ProcessID] 1324 [ ThreadID] 2944
Channel Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Operational Computer Luke-PC - Security [ UserID] S-1-5-19

- EventData

BootTsVersion 2

BootStartTime 2010-03-22T08:16:44.609200200Z

BootEndTime 2010-03-22T08:19:17.697611600Z

SystemBootInstance 36

UserBootInstance 35

BootTime 116585

MainPathBootTime 28690

BootKernelInitTime 12

BootDriverInitTime 3230

BootDevicesInitTime 5691

BootPrefetchInitTime 0

BootPrefetchBytes 0

BootAutoChkTime 0

BootSmssInitTime 6874

BootCriticalServicesInitTime 4146

BootUserProfileProcessingTime 389

BootMachineProfileProcessingTime 320

BootExplorerInitTime 4525

BootNumStartupApps 20

BootPostBootTime 87895

BootIsRebootAfterInstall false

BootRootCauseStepImprovementBits 0

BootRootCauseGradualImprovementBits 0

BootRootCauseStepDegradationBits 0

BootRootCauseGradualDegradationBits 0

BootIsDegradation false

BootIsStepDegradation false

BootIsGradualDegradation false

BootImprovementDelta 0

BootDegradationDelta 0

BootIsRootCauseIdentified false

OSLoaderDuration 3110

BootPNPInitStartTimeMS 12

BootPNPInitDuration 6764

OtherKernelInitDuration 2866

SystemPNPInitStartTimeMS 9446

SystemPNPInitDuration 2158

SessionInitStartTimeMS 11789

Session0InitDuration 2458

Session1InitDuration 374

SessionInitOtherDuration 4041

WinLogonStartTimeMS 18663

OtherLogonInitActivityDuration 4791

UserLogonWaitDuration 37210

and 300

Windows has resumed from standby:
Standby Duration : 20426ms
Standby Incident Time (UTC) : ‎2010‎-‎03‎-‎23T05:52:14.655677000Z
Resume Duration : 1266ms
Resume Incident Time (UTC) : ‎2010‎-‎03‎-‎23T06:17:58.384240200Z
- System

- Provider


[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance


[ Guid] {CFC18EC0-96B1-4EBA-961B-622CAEE05B0A}



EventID 300


Version 1


Level 2


Task 4003


Opcode 36


Keywords 0x8000000000010000

- TimeCreated


[ SystemTime] 2010-03-23T06:18:10.964421900Z



EventRecordID 808

- Correlation


[ ActivityID] {00000100-0000-0000-800E-727227CACA01}


- Execution


[ ProcessID] 1336


[ ThreadID] 6116



Channel Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Operational


Computer Luke-PC

- Security


[ UserID] S-1-5-19

- EventData

StandbyTsVersion 1

StandbyAppCount 27

StandbyServicesCount 26

StandbyDevicesCount 201

StandbyStartTime 2010-03-23T05:52:14.655677000Z

StandbyEndTime 2010-03-23T05:52:35.081677000Z

StandbySuspendTotal 20426

StandbySuspendTotalChange 0

StandbySuspendQueryApps 0

StandbySuspendQueryAppsChange 0

StandbySuspendQueryServices 0

StandbySuspendQueryServicesChange 0

StandbySuspendApps 1129

StandbySuspendAppsChange 0

StandbySuspendServices 12

StandbySuspendServicesChange 0

StandbySuspendShowUI 0

StandbySuspendShowUIChange 0

StandbySuspendSuperfetchPageIn 2130

StandbySuspendSuperfetchPageInChange 0

StandbySuspendWinlogon 0

StandbySuspendWinlogonChange 0

StandbySuspendLockPageableSections 0

StandbySuspendLockPageableSectionsChange 0

StandbySuspendPreSleepCallbacks 0

StandbySuspendPreSleepCallbacksChange 0

StandbySuspendSwapInWorkerThreads 1

StandbySuspendSwapInWorkerThreadsChange 0

StandbySuspendQueryDevices 0

StandbySuspendQueryDevicesChange 0

StandbySuspendFlushVolumes 8976

StandbySuspendFlushVolumesChange 0

StandbySuspendSuspendDevices 1239

StandbySuspendSuspendDevicesChange 0

StandbySuspendHibernateWrite 6935

StandbySuspendHibernateWriteChange 0

ResumeStartTime 2010-03-23T06:17:58.384240200Z

ResumeEndTime 2010-03-23T06:17:59.056099500Z

StandbyResumeTotal 1266

StandbyResumeTotalChange 0

StandbyResumeHibernateRead 0

StandbyResumeHibernateReadChange 0

StandbyResumeS3BiosInitTime 595

StandbyResumeS3BiosInitTimeChange 0

StandbyResumeResumeDevices 671

StandbyResumeResumeDevicesChange 0

StandbyRootCauseDegradationGradual 0

StandbyRootCauseImprovementGradual 0

StandbyRootCauseDegradationStep 0

StandbyRootCauseImprovementStep 0

StandbyIsDegradation false

StandbyIsTroubleshooterLaunched true

StandbyIsRootCauseIdentified false

 

[jasin]

Ok, i've changed over the power and sata cables, and run a full HD diagnostic. It came up with 2 damaged blocks at .1% of the hd capacity.

Sounds like you need to do a low level format. If that don't do it you may need to return the hard drive, do an rma and get a new drive. If its less than 5 years old the drive should still be under warranty.

 

[0rbytel]

Thanks for your help guys. I'm waiting for an insurance claim to come through (we were flooded last week, and I lost a shed full of pc gear), so as soon as it comes through I think ill buy a couple of SSD drives. With the insurance money, i'll also be beefing up my ram, upgrading from an i5 to an i7 and buying another 5770 for crossfire.

I'll let you know how it all goes.

 

[jasin]

Thanks for your help guys. I'm waiting for an insurance claim to come through (we were flooded last week, and I lost a shed full of pc gear), so as soon as it comes through I think ill buy a couple of SSD drives. With the insurance money, i'll also be beefing up my ram, upgrading from an i5 to an i7 and buying another 5770 for crossfire.

I'll let you know how it all goes.

Sorry to hear about the disaster. Hope things work out for you. Best wishes

 

[CommonTater]

Ok, i've changed over the power and sata cables, and run a full HD diagnostic. It came up with 2 damaged blocks at .1% of the hd capacity.

Sounds like you need to do a low level format. If that don't do it you may need to return the hard drive, do an rma and get a new drive. If its less than 5 years old the drive should still be under warranty.

I agree there does seem to be a disk I/O problem. However, it's not always the disk that causes them. It could be a buggy driver or it could be the interface chip on the motherboard. One way to eliminate the driver issue would be to uninstall any third party SATA drivers (i.e. your disk controllers) and reboot to let the system reinstall them for you. This forces PNP detection which should allow the system to find the most suitable driver to install.

 

[BruhthaKuga]

Check Speed After Clean Install & Every Step After That

After your clean install check your apeed after Windows 7 install before any other step then check your speed after the various step after that, ie. after every Windows update, after every drivers, after every software install.

I am having some speed issues as well and I believe that some of them just might be in my head as I sold my arm and leg on ebay to buy everything and am expecting too much. I am going to try bench marking to see how my performance compares to million of others with similar equipment.

 

[0rbytel]

Thanks guys, I uninstalled the sata chipset drivers, and let them reinstall and after a reboot it is still running slow. I'm actually using MS drivers which are a few years old now, compared to the 3rd party ones which were from the end of last year.

I'm looking at either going SSD for my system drive, and then having a couple of sata 3gb/s 10000rpm for storage.

The drive i was looking at was the OCZ Vertex 60Gb, which is $300. I was looking at the samsungs, but they cost an arm and a leg.

Just out of curiousity- how comparable would the performance be (for a system drive) between say- 2x wd velociraptor 150GB 10000RPM/16MB/Sata2 drives running in RAID5, compared to the OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD 230/135, which are roughly the same price?

 

[Zomby88]

With those numbers you should be smokin

 

[CommonTater]

Thanks guys, I uninstalled the sata chipset drivers, and let them reinstall and after a reboot it is still running slow. I'm actually using MS drivers which are a few years old now, compared to the 3rd party ones which were from the end of last year.
http://ple.com.au/p-322-wd-velociraptor-150gb-1000016mbsata2-.aspx

Just out of curiosity... and because I know that simple oversights happen all the time... Do you have AHCI mode enabled in your BIOS?

 

[0rbytel]

Yes, I have AHCI enabled in the bios. Primarily because the bios either has IDE, RAID or AHCI.

I was having real issues with IDE, where W7 would freeze on boot, so I enabled AHCI. It boots fine now, but I do get the occasional BSOD and performance is slow. I don't understand why though, considering my WEI is high and all benchmarks are above average. It just seems to be the initial boot (takes a good 5-10 mins before I can do anything), and when I try and load programs everything is unresponsive for a good 15-20 seconds.

And just out of curiosity- would the SSD drive or the raid 2xvelociraptor 10K rpm drives be more beneficial cost and performance wise?

 

[chev65]

IDE works absolutly perfectly for me in RAID0. If you were having problems it wasn't Win 7 causing them with your IDE drive. The bad sectors on your HDD seems to be the real problem here. The rediculously slow loading times after start up and lag when starting up programs pretty much confirms that.