My Vista64 Issues not resolved : Help?

Soldato
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I have recently given Vista64 another trial run. Its stability seems ok but this morning it restarted on me? - this has prompted me to ask for help before I wipe it again. ( This is now the 7th time I am trying it out on this PC )

Anyway, the issues I have at this moment, are :-

1 - Responsiveness.
Its bloody awful and worse than ever. Double clicking on any icon wont do a thing for about 2 to 3 seconds.
Moving around the start menu is the same... Click on start and just over a second later, the menu comes up, I move to Programs and wait for the secondary menu to come up... And wait... I could be here for 3 or 4 seconds, and its the same with all sub menus, its never any quicker than 3 to 4 seconds.

2 - Pauses
I have had this before, when it pauses while playing MP3s etc, but this time, its also doing it with any kind of Media at all, and when trying to play a game of any kind its awful... it just randomly pauses for a second or two every so often.

3 - DeFragging
Its so slow, the whole system trundles to a complete stop.
Normally I use O&O but this has always been useless in Vista, and it is so bad, that I have tried Windows' own DeFragger and its no better? - It took over 3 hours on a fairly fresh install FFS?

4 -Slow File transfers and especially over the network
Again, I have done the known fixes for this, but I have had no improvements.

Now, I have installed Vista on this machine for the 7th time now, I always have one or two issues that seems to be minor issues that eventually get fixed, and one time, I was running it absolutely perfectly for a whoole month but I eventually had to activate and because it was so perfect, I decided to activate it and then within 3 hours I had to get rid of it because it had become so unuseable??? - WHAT?

Annoyingly, al of the issues I have with this PC, I have seen before, either on this PC or on one of my others and I have cured them very easily, but for some reason, all of the normal cures are just not working on this PC at this time? - I have given it a few weeks now, but its juts not sorting itself out either.

I have also upped it to SP1 and, that made absolutely no difference to anything.

Can anyone offer me some advise other than to simply accpet that I will never run Vista64 on this particular PC and use XP64.
 
I'm running Vista x64 SP1 and it has been fine for about a month but I am suffering from issues 1 and 2 as you mentioned. It works fine for a while after a reboot but if I put it to sleep it messes up after waking up or sometimes it happens after using it for a couple of hours. I thought it might have been caused by a recent patch from Windows Update but I can't find anything that might cause it.
 
I had the slow opening of programmes problem and tracked it down to a second HDD that was fitted having gone to sleep and the OS waiting until it spun up before doing anything. took out HDD and all is well.
 
I dont use sleep or anything like that... My PC is running full blast 24/7 with folding on 2 cores.
Its done this since installing so its not a patch for me.

I have cured these issues in the past and on other systems, but this one just wont seem to do anyhting other than be a poor runner for me.

Its not like its incapable of doign tasks, because right as we speak now, its doing all this :-

1 - Folding on 2 of the cores.
2 - Burning 3 DVDs ( Nero 8 from D: )
3 - Converting the kids visit to Chester Zoo into 2 DVDs ( To E :)
4 - Playing The Sex Pistols' Filthy Lucre Live Album ( MP3 on WinAmp )

And its no slower than if it was doing nothing, but the thing is that if it IS doing nothing, then its no faster either.

I get the pauses and the unresponsiveness whether its doing this lot, or doing nothing?

Its just annoying and I dont get any kind of pauses or lagging of any kind with XP64 and I force the PC to do a whole load more than this I can tell you... After a ghost hunt, I can be converting up to 10 AVI Files at once, and burning 4 DVDs at the same time and playing BF2 / COD4 while Im waiting, but this is just not likely with vista64 as it is.
 
Oh, sorry Firewizard & Brian... I missed your posts when I was replying...

Hardware?

Ok, Gigabyte DS3 / Q9450 / Geil 4x1GB / BFG 8800UOC

Normally I do run my system Overclocked, but more recently, I have not bothered as I find its ridiculously quick at stock anyway, so dont see the reason behind overclocking anymore cos I dont get thigns done any quicker... Not really.... Only thing that gets done quicker, is killing the PC.

Second HD
That had crossed my mind.
Im running

C: = Raptor 36GB - Windows only
D: = WD320GB - Apps & Games
E: = WD500GB - Media
F: = WD160GB - Junk
M: = Hitachi 80GB - Torrents / Downloads

T: = Seagate 400GB ( ISO IMAGES - USB Drive but only on when used )

The USB drive certainly does cause the system to pause and the HD clicks into life yes, but the issues mentioned are NOT these ones... I get them whether this PC is on or not.
 
I had very similar problems myself last year with Vista x64, my problems were somewhat worse though.


But it turned out my memory was being overvaulted by my faulty motherboard even though the bios said otherwise.

Memtest didn't pick it up either, but I jus tried my mates RAM (which was more volt leneant) in the machine and all the problems just went away in a flash.

Hope that helps.
 

Every single issue you describe sounds like a HDD issue..

Check whether your drives are running at full DMA, they may have been set to PIO.

If they're running at the correct speed, then I'd swap out the sata cables..
 
memory was being overvaulted by my faulty motherboard

Yes, recently, I was rocked by a storm, and the storm took out my Router and the LAN Port... I now have to run a Network Card... The RAM was among the things I have tested however, the RAM does check out.

Plus, it only does this under Vista64 - XP64 and its perfect.

If its a choice of new RAM or go back to XP64 then Im afraid that its XP64 for the win.


Every single issue you describe sounds like a HDD issue..

Check whether your drives are running at full DMA, they may have been set to PIO.

If they're running at the correct speed, then I'd swap out the sata cables..

This came up last time and its one of the possibles that I have already gone through... So, there are new cables in there now as we speak. plus as I said with the multiple burning and converting etc... in PIO mode, that would be impossible anwyay, but you are right, it all does look like HD issues, but I have done everythign that I can think of to resolve that so, at this time, I am certain that its not?

Im probably wrong, but I am sure Im not.


I seriously think that this PCsimply does not like Vista?

Hell, I got a PC upstairs running Vista64 and its flawless and thats using all the bits that you should not use in Vista and its perfect... A8R-MVP, X2-3800 @ 2.7, 2GB Crucial, POV 8800GTS, X-FI Gamer and it has not put a foto wrong in the 6 months that its been running Vista64 and yet thsi PC here has never been abel to and its clearly more than capable????
 
2 - Pauses
I have had this before, when it pauses while playing MP3s etc, but this time, its also doing it with any kind of Media at all, and when trying to play a game of any kind its awful... it just randomly pauses for a second or two every so often.

I get this with my Audigy 2 value in vista 32bit, Music/Movies play but every so often it pauses for a spilt second. I have tried many different types of drivers, even danielK's drivers. Still the same thing happens. Tried different PCI slots the same happens.

I haven't tried with the on-board sound, but I added my other audigy 2 into the pc instead & that just locks the whole computer up before I get into windows, Works fine on my xp machine though.

I'm Running

E6300
asrock 775Dual-VSTA
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2
Samsung 500gb HD501LJ HDD
ATI 9800pro

[edit : option already turned off here Hudzy, sorry for jumping on your thread FatRakoon ]
 
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Could try setting hard drives to never power down. That's in Control Panel --> System and Maintenance --> Power Options, then edit the scheme you're currently using. It'll be under the advanced option.

It does sound to me like it's waiting for the drive to power up again. And besides, it's not great for the drive to constantly be switched on and off anyway.
 
Well, usually, my 3 PCI slots are ( From TOP to BOTTOM )

1 = AUDIGY 2 ZS
2 = ITE 8212 IDE/Raid Card
3 = TV Card

But, with the O/B LAN going AWOL, I am now using a Realtek 8139 Card instead of the TV Card ( Does not like Vista64 although its great in XP64 - HAHA )
Also the ITE Raid card is no longer being used as Im am 100% SATA now and there is an SIL SATA card in there instead.

They are a little fussy over which PCI slots I use, especially the Audigy... I was considering a PCIE LAN / Sound Card a while back, but never got round to it after being put off because I am told the performance is bad ( I doubt it will be THAT bad )

---

I think that I might try altering the PCI slots however, and see where I go.
 
ARGH..

No.5
When I plug in or unplug the Headphones, the volume goes to full blast!!!

I have just reinstalled the latest drivers and that didnt help, but it was only installing over itself anyway, so Im not surprised.

But either way, I am now deaf.
 
Ive noticed that vista does get better with age, once you have everything installed and indexed it seems to really settle down nicely, which does take a while especially with that impressive collection of hard drives :D

So I would let it run for a month or two and give it chance.

Dunno about the sound card though, I gues thats another thing to add to the long list of vista/sound card issues....
 
Yes, it should get better with age, and the indexing certainly does impress me, however, the one time I had a good install, I was so impressed with that after a month, I decided that I will activate it ( It was bugging me to do so by now ) and so I activated it knowing that I was happy with it, and what happened? within half an hour, I got a reset then a BSOD then in only 2 hours I had hit my 7th BSOD all with di=fferent causes, and the PC was now unuseable. I tried a repair but the disk would only offer a fresh install telling me the installation on the disk was not repairable.

I went back to XP64 and thats once again flawless.

AS of last night, I went back to XP64 again, and ocne again the PC runs sweet as a nut under XP64.

In truth, Vista64 offers me nothing that I dont already have with XP64 other than a bit of silly eye candy ( That I do like I'll admit ) but its slower than XP64 not as clean and not as reliable as XP64 is... For me.

Dotn get me wrong though, I have Vista32 and 64 on a couple of PCs on the LAN and they are flawless and I would have it no other way, but on this PC, its just been a non-stop hell ride in trying to get a reliable Vista64 Setup, well... Setup on it?

I have given up again. I will have another go in another months as I seem to be doing but for now, on my main rig, I need a stable O/S and thats XP64.
 
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