[MichaelsTheory]

With the awesome assistance of the board members here, I built my custom gaming rig a couple years back.

EVGA NForce 780i SLI motherboard
XFX 8800GTS 512MB GPU x2 (SLI setup but not activated since nothing i play actually uses the sli to its advantage)
G.Skill 2GB x2 = 4GB DDR2-800 PC2-6400 Ram
Intel core2quad Q6600 2.4Ghz
Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 500gb SATA 3.0gb/s hard drive
Silverstone 800W Modular PSU
Tuniq Tower cpu cooler


When i initially set this up the only hiccup i ran into was that it would only read my ram if i had the two sticks in the 2 and 4 slots instead of the 1 and 3. I found this odd, and probably should have looked into it further, but was excited and impatient, so i ignored the issue.

About 6 months ago I decided it was time to do a routine reformat and reinstall of vista. Strangely upon reinstalling vista I continuously got errors that required me to start all over again. Just when i was getting to my mental breaking point, the install completed successfuly.

Ever since, I have noticed a sluggishness to my computer that wasn't there before. I used to be able to run programs like World of Warcraft, Firefox, and Ventrilo all at the same time flawlessly. Now, just alt-tabbing out of warcraft or moving a window from one monitor to the other, causes a pause and my computer feels as though it's struggling.

My first thought was that the problem was with my ram. But memtest finds nothing wrong with it.

I really have a feeling that the problem lays somewhere in the space/time that my mobo interacts with my ram. That is a complete guess and just a gut feeling.

I am seriously considering upgrading my mobo and cpu, just to see if that fixes the problem and am wondering if anyone here has an opinion on any of the issues im experiencing or a suggestion for a mobo/cpu that will fit nicely into my existing setup.


Thanks for reading.

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Have you considered the possibility of a HD issue?

It's worth the little time to check it by doing a couple of tests.
First one:

Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click Enter ...It will probably ask if you want to do this on the next reboot...click Y

If the window doesn't shutdown on its own then reboot the system manually. On reboot the system will start the chkdsk operation
This one will take longer then chkdsk /f

Note... there are 5 stages...
It may appear to hang at a certain percent for a hour or more or even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...
DO NOT SHUT YOUR COMPUTER DOWN WHILE CHKDSK IS RUNNING OR YOU CAN HAVE SEVERE PROBLEMS
This can take several hours to complete.
When completed it will boot the system back into windows.

Let me know if this fixes the problem


Second test is to run HD diagnostics by doing the following steps.

Click HD diagnostic in my signature below. Choose the manufacturer of your hd. Download the tool. Running this will tell us if there is a problem with HD itself. If not then we will pursue other hardware or software possibilities

[rshaffer61]

Have you considered the possibility of a HD issue?

It's worth the little time to check it by doing a couple of tests.
First one:

Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click Enter ...It will probably ask if you want to do this on the next reboot...click Y

If the window doesn't shutdown on its own then reboot the system manually. On reboot the system will start the chkdsk operation
This one will take longer then chkdsk /f

Note... there are 5 stages...
It may appear to hang at a certain percent for a hour or more or even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...
DO NOT SHUT YOUR COMPUTER DOWN WHILE CHKDSK IS RUNNING OR YOU CAN HAVE SEVERE PROBLEMS
This can take several hours to complete.
When completed it will boot the system back into windows.

Let me know if this fixes the problem


Second test is to run HD diagnostics by doing the following steps.

Click HD diagnostic in my signature below. Choose the manufacturer of your hd. Download the tool. Running this will tell us if there is a problem with HD itself. If not then we will pursue other hardware or software possibilities