Solved Unexplained, Unpredictable Windows 7 64-bit slowdown

[askavatar]

Good Morning,
I'm filing this under 'Crash' because I don't know where else to put it. Here's the problem I began experiencing yesterday, and have not yet been able to find a solution for.

I powered up my PC yesterday morning after it had been powered off for 4 days or so. Windows booted up fine, but everything Microsoft-related ran slowly. Windows Aero was dreadfully slow, taking 1-2 seconds for windows to fade in or minimize. When I would attempt to play a video in Windows Media Player, the video was slow, as was the sound, choppy, as if there was not enough memory to be running at full speed. I checked process memory consumption and processor usage, all were normal, and, as you will see from my specs below, I do not have memory issues. First I restarted, to no avail, then I thought perhaps my video drivers were corrupt, so I performed a clean install of the NVIDIA Drivers. This proved to do nothing to remedy the problem. I decided to run a video in Media Player Classic (the media player that comes with the Klite Codec Pack), and video was fine. I also found out later, that when I would play music on the Windows Media Player, it was still choppy and slow, like the audio with any video I would play was. The kicker is, I can still game. I decided to test the system by playing some 'Just Cause 2', which I have on maximum graphic quality settings. It ran just as well as it did before this happened (ran swimmingly). I'm at a total loss, as I said, it's everything Microsoft-related, anything third party runs fine. My hardware specs are listed below, does ANYONE have any ideas how to remedy this, short of a complete system reinstall?

Hardware
Motherboard: MSI Intel X58 LGA1366
Processor: Intel Core I7 2.6 GHz
RAM: Wintec 12GB Triple-Channel DDR3-1800MHz
Video: 2x PCI-E 2.0 MSI NVIDIA GTX260 512MB in 16x SLI
Hard Drives: System: 128GB OCZ SSD on SATA 3.0GB/s
Secondary: File Drive 1: Seagate 500GB 7200RPM on SATA 3.0GB/s
Tertiary: File Drive 2: WD External 2TB on USB 2.0
O/S: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit, up-to-date as of 1/16/2012

Thanks in advance,
Avatar

To Update, I have run restores, done virus/malware sweeps with several different programs: Malwarebytes, MSE, and TrendMicro House Call, to no avail.

 

[scrooge]

go to Command Prompt and run <sfc /scannow> This will find internal errors in the system.

scrooge

 

[askavatar]

Forgive me, scrooge, I did try that, I neglected to list that in the things I have already attempted.

thanks!

 

[writhziden]

Forgive me, scrooge, I did try that, I neglected to list that in the things I have already attempted.

thanks!

Have you made sure the computer is getting enough airflow? If there is dust in the system, you can see the behavior you are seeing. I had the same problem with my laptop a few months ago, and blowing the dust out increased the performance immensely.

If blowing dust out does not help, run through the steps to http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html and determine if it is an application causing the computer to run slow. You may also want to look at the different methods to http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ws-7-a.html?filter[2]=Performance Maintenance.

 

[askavatar]

Hi WrithZiden,
My machine has sufficient airflow when it is buttoned up, but being the motivated person that I am, the side panel has been off of the side of my case for a while now, so there is plenty of cooling, and I have cleaned the dust out of the heatsinks recently. Also, I have seen performance lags from dust build up in the past, but performance drain was across the board, not just in MS-based applications. As I mentioned above, Just Cause 2 at maximum graphics settings shows no decrease in performance.

I will attempt a clean boot tonight and report back.

Thanks,
Avatar

 

[writhziden]

Hi WrithZiden,
My machine has sufficient airflow when it is buttoned up, but being the motivated person that I am, the side panel has been off of the side of my case for a while now, so there is plenty of cooling, and I have cleaned the dust out of the heatsinks recently. Also, I have seen performance lags from dust build up in the past, but performance drain was across the board, not just in MS-based applications. As I mentioned above, Just Cause 2 at maximum graphics settings shows no decrease in performance.

I will attempt a clean boot tonight and report back.

Thanks,
Avatar

Yeah, I guess I missed that Just Cause 2 part. I do see that now and that third party programs run smoothly. Hopefully it is just an application conflict that is slowing Microsoft processes down. Let us know what you determine later.

 

[askavatar]

I'm fast approaching a fresh system install. If the clean boot doesn't yield anything, then that's where I'm heading. I may install Windows 7 in a Virtual Box to see what happens, too.

Thanks,
Avatar

 

[askavatar]

Well clean boot had no effect. I did reinstall windows, and was aghast to find that the problem was still present. That seems to make it a hardware issue of sorts. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[writhziden]

Have you tried resetting your BIOS to defaults to clear the CMOS? Note: If you have a RAID controller, backup any important data first since this will reset the controller and you will have to re-install Windows.

 

[askavatar]

I will give this a shot tonight after I return from work. Any ideas beyond that, Writh? Could it be my SSD?

 

[writhziden]

What are the full specs of that SSD drive? Model number? Have you done a firmware update?

 

[askavatar]

This is the exact model I bought:
Newegg.com - ADATA S599 AS599S-128GM-C 2.5" 128GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Date of purchase was 1/21/2011

I have not done any firmware updates.

I will say, though, that before this problem started, the Windows Experience Index rated my SSD's R/W speed at 7.1. When I ran it the other day, after this problem started happening, it rated it at 7.5. I'm not sure if that makes a difference or not.

 

[writhziden]

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/136226-daily-system-auto-restarts-bsod.html may be of interest to you. Same model.

 

[askavatar]

Thanks for the link. I imagine there's little hardware difference between the 128GB that I have and the 64GB that he's using, except for the memory cells. I will attempt a firmware upgrade tonight, see what happens. I'm not sure why it would take a year for this problem to develop, though.

Otherwise, I have a 640GB Mechanical sitting around, I'll toss that in and see if a system install on that disk will have the same problem. Try to narrow down which hardware groups I need to look at.

 

[writhziden]

Thanks for the link. I imagine there's little hardware difference between the 128GB that I have and the 64GB that he's using, except for the memory cells. I will attempt a firmware upgrade tonight, see what happens. I'm not sure why it would take a year for this problem to develop, though.

Otherwise, I have a 640GB Mechanical sitting around, I'll toss that in and see if a system install on that disk will have the same problem. Try to narrow down which hardware groups I need to look at.

Not sure why it would take a year, either. Possibly just writing to the disk more has started to make the problem more prevalent.

Good idea about swapping drives out for testing hardware issues. Keep us updated on whether the firmware update helps or the drive swapping helps.

 

[askavatar]

Well it's fixed. A firmware update did indeed solve the problem. However, the firmware update that solved it was to the MOTHERBOARD, not the drive. I did update both, but did the motherboard first, and that solved the problem. I've had this drive for a year, I'll never understand why it took a year for the mainboard to realize that "Hey! I need a firmware update!" Thank you both for your help!

 

[writhziden]

No problem. Thanks for posting back your solution. It may help others who have similar problems.