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Vista x64 has suddenly got soooo slow, , 2 weeks old ?


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#1
rxkevco

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Hi all, ,
My new pc build that i have been so pleased with is starting to give me problems.

Its only 2 weeks since i installed vista x64 and apart from an issue with flash player/content displaying on x64 explorer it has ran at blisteringly fast speeds. I mean, previously, , i would click on a folder, and its open instantly with all the contents displayed instantly.
Open up an email or internet explorer, its there right away, , google pages, , there straight away, , open up favorites, , all there straight away, , , As i say, , blisterningly fast.

A few days ago, it suddenly slowed down, , dramatically. I mean my old slow system was faster.

If i open up a folder, it takes up to 10 or 20 seconds to open and display contents, , , if i open up my favorites in explorer, then the list slowly appears one at a time, , very, very sluggish.
Everything i do on this pc now takes an age, , and i know its fast as its only just started doing this in the last few days.

I have full kaspersky protection, i have malwarebytes and both are up to date, and both come up with clean scans so i dont think there is any type of infection or malware on my pc (although i could be wrong). I have also ran adaware and spybot, although i know that malwarebytes has near enough superseeded them both. So, , all four scans came back clean with nothing found at all.

I have ran active smart for my 3 drives and that comes up with good reports for all three.

I have ran memtest on my 2 x 2gb modules of GEIL ram, , , that came back as all good.

The Q6600 cpu is running fine and its temps only go above 40c if the pc is under load and all four cores are at 90% plus , , even then , it doesnt get more than 43c or 44c. Usually at idle my cpu temp is about 35c to 37c, but at idle with nothing open, the cpu seems to be doing something and now i never see it at the usual 1% to 3%% at idle, , instead its 10% to 15% whilst the pc is at standstill.

I am at a complete loss as to why its suddenly started acting like this, , its only been alive for a little over a fortnight,, , , i havent even got a system restore point set yet, as i was waiting to make sure it was running at its best with everything installed first.

The only thing i have downloaded around about the time that this started happening was 3dmark06, , which stated showing artifacts from my 8600gts card, , and then wouldnt run particular parts of the program, , , , i got a BSOD shortly after as well, but didnt get the stop code in time before it shutdown ([bleep] )

I have since completly deleted 3dmark06, , and i have evne replaced the 8600gts, with an ATI HD4850 card, just to rule out graphics problems as the culprit for the slowdown.
Unfortunatly, , even with the new graphics card in place, , the problem persists still, , , every thing is so slow.

Using a multi core vista gadget (that i have always found reliable in the past,,)And EVEREST , ,
At idle, , all four cores appear to be doing something, , cpu usage at idle is about 10% -15% : : PREVIOUSLY WAS 1% -- 3% USAGE.
When doing something simple like opening an email, a folder or clicking on google , , the usage jumps to anywhere between 45% and 65%, and sometimes, even maxes out at 100%.just for clicking on a page PREVIOUSLY WAS HARDLY NOTICABLE RISE FROM IDLE IN CPU USAGE.

I really dont know what is going on here and am quite concerned now, , its only 2 weeks old for gods sake, , its acting like its 2 years old with malware on it , , at the moment, i am open to any siggestions or advice, , please.

Oh and boot up and shutdown times have increase by about 100 to 120 seconds each, , , every time !
It used to take about 25 to 35 secs from pushing the on button until i had a workable desktop, , now it can take up to 2 minutes to boot to the desktop.

Edited by rxkevco, 25 November 2008 - 11:04 AM.

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#2
rxkevco

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Anyone ! !
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#3
rxkevco

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Hi There,,
Essexboy has been attending to this issue in a malware thread and has advised me that as my pc is clean, this problem will be followed up by one of the experts on this particular forum.

Looking forward to any further input.
Thankyou, kev
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#4
rxkevco

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I had a thought earlier that maybe this slowdown has something to do with the ASUS EPU 6 ENGINE power saving/boost software that was installed along with the boards drivers.
I uninstalled it and unfortunatly, my idle usage has now jumped from the 15% mark to, , well, have a look at the task manager screenshot i have attached as a file, , , 35% to 55% with the occasional spike of 75% to 80%, , AT IDLE, , WITH ONLY TASK MANAGER OPEN !

There is definetly something not quite right here , , on another note, , since deleting the epu 6 engine software my HDDs temps have all dropped by a degree or two and are all 3 between28c and 33c and my cpu temp at idle has dropped to 34c, , with spikes of up to 43c when the cpu is spiking, , as you can see from the attachement (if its uploaded )

Attached Thumbnails

  • Task_manager_shot.jpg

Edited by rxkevco, 29 November 2008 - 05:48 PM.

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#5
Troy

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Hi there,

In the Task Manager, on the "Processes" tab, make sure you click on the button "Show Processes from all users". Your Task Manager will restart in Administrator mode (and you will need to allow the UAC prompt).

What process is using up CPU? Perhaps a screenshot of the top few processes would be helpful.

Troy
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#6
rxkevco

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Hi Troy,
Many thanks for coming on board to help, , been feeling a bit lost with this issue.

UPDATE: I have completly uninstalled the epu 6 engine that came bundled with the drivers and gone a few steps further.
I have increased the fsb from 266mhz to 334mhz giving me an overclock of 29% taking the cpu up to 3.ghz now, , and i have altered the memory timing to 1069 a little above the 1066 it should have been running at as everest and cpuz were telling me it was running at only 400mhz.
I havent touched anything else and left all the other options on auto.
Temps are still in mid 30s for my 3 hardrives, and the cpu is between 37c and 43c at idle, , dependant on room temperature of course. As its cold now, the central heating is on more and i occassionaly have the fire on for a few hours, , this makes the temps all rise by a degree or two at idle.
But stil , temps are all fine and the overclock appears to have gone flawlessly and without any hitchs.

Now, , since i have done this my system is running very stable and has passed a few benchmarks without errors and for some reason, , the pc seems to have returned to near enough the fast speeds i was acheiving when i first built the pc. As you can see from the screenshot, with only task manager open now, i am getting very little (sometimes 1% cpu usage ) I dont know how this has happened apart from the obvious overclock, , but its worked for the main part.
The only problem that still persists is the boot up and shut down times are still very long.
Its taking 3 minutes to boot up, and about 2 minutes to shut down. Now i know these are not particulary long times and i shouldnt be moaning, , but in comparison to how fast the pc was booting up and shutting down initially,, its very long.
It honestly took less than 40 secs (max ) to boot up, and shut down was almost instant, taking only a few seconds.

Attached Thumbnails

  • Processes.jpg

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#7
Troy

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Hi there,

It sounds like the EPU 6 engine was the culprit, although to be sure I've never had any experience with it myself.

What programs do you have set to startup? Those times sounds pretty long to me... All my computers are fully booted in under a minute. You could try cleaning out temporary files and running a HDD defrag, those things usually help some.

Troy
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#8
rxkevco

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Ihave already cleaned out all the tempory files, prefetch etc,,,

2 of the 3 sata drives are brand new and dont need defragging, , , and neither does the OS drive according to windows , , , dont forget this pc is less than a month old and was built by myself so doesnt have any of the oem crap that usually comes on a pre installed drive.

My drive has X64 Vista on it with the usual printers, scanners and software (all of which certified x64 bit vista compatibel) with no drivers issues or anything.

As i say, since deleting the epu 6 engine preinstalled with the asus software (most asus users dont install it ) and doing a basic fsb increase to get the Q6600 up to 3.0ghz, the issue with the cpu running at up to 50% at idle, apears to have resolved, , but this slow boot up and shutdown is still really annoying me.
I have even tried booting just the pc without the printer, scanner, pda etc connected up to see if it was one of them slowing down (windows searching for a driver that it cant find etc ), but it didnt improve at all.

Even though the pc is faster since the overclock, , i would say its still not as fast at opening explorer, folders and webpages as it was originally, from the day i built it , , My c drive has only got 37gb on it out of a possible 320gb so its not full of crap or anything.
I dont have any know malware or viral problems , , and i dont have any software or anything that isnt genuine and 100%.

Its a really annoying problem that i cant for the life of me even beging to sort out, , as all the usual culprits have been eliminated step by step.

Am looking forward to your continuing advice, kev
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#9
rxkevco

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Anyone, , Still having slow boot and shutdown problems.
This newly built quad core, 4gig ram, x64 vista system is now slower than my previous old system, , and even my old laptop is running circles around around it in every department.
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#10
Troy

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It's slow again all around, not just bootup and shutdown times?

First up I suggest resetting your overclocks until we get everything sorted.

Next, I'm interested in what transfer mode your hard drives are in?

Troy
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#11
rxkevco

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Yes, , i have already set the pc back to stock fsb settings so the Q6600 is running at 2.4ghz again.

I have 3 hard drives, all sata.

1/ 320gb sata drive for OS and software,drivers etc. Only 37GB used

2/ 500GB sata drive For music library and video collections etc. 335GB free.

3/ 500GB sata driveFor storing my Cubase audio data and vst instruments. 462GB free

" Active smart ", has been used to check the condition of the 3 drives and all have come back as Healthy, excellent condition, and without any read/write errors or malfunctions.
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#12
Troy

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Download and run HD Tune from my signature.

I would like you to run the full benchmark on your OS hard drive (320GB SATA).

Post a screenshot of the completed result w/ table here.

Troy
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#13
rxkevco

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Ok, will run the scan and post back asap , ,thanks.
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#14
Troy

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No problems, I'm still here so we can work through this a little quicker for the time being. :)
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#15
rxkevco

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Here ya go, , is this the correct benchmark you were after ? ? there was quite a few options on there and i wasnt sure ?

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  • HDTune_Benchmark_Hitachi_HDT725032VLA_read_test.png

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