Slow loading times

marcooli0

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Dec 26, 2012
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Ok so this isn't a huge deal but it's been bugging me a little bit so I'm going to spell out the problem.

I've built a new a computer replacing my old one featuring these parts:

AMD Performance RAM 4 GB @ 1600 mhz
Amd Radeon 7870 2 GB
AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0 Ghz

My hard drives were retained from my old rig.

First let me point out that game performance isn't an issue. They all run just as they should. What I've noticed, however, is that the operating system in general tends to be hampered by very slow loading times (I'm using Windows 8). Very often, I'll download a small file via firefox and try to open it and it will sometimes take about 30 seconds before the "are you sure you want to open this?" prompt shows up. Or clicking the Origin icon to launch it will often temporarily freeze my computer for about 10 seconds while it's loading.

Other problems include very long loading times in multiplayer matches in Starcraft 2. When I say long, I mean I am always the last person to finish loading by about a minute. The same thing happens in the Company of Heroes 2 Beta, the Witcher 2, Battlefield 3, etc.

It's not a problem that prevents me from going about my daily computer activities but on my old build with inferior hardware, I loaded things much faster. Could this be a RAM issue? I was planning on upgrading to 8 soon anyway but what do you guys think?

Thank you.
 

blader15sk8

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Feb 6, 2006
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With Prefetch/Superfetch enabled, more RAM could help a little bit, but it would be like trying to put a bandaid on something that needs stitches.

Some antivirus software auto scans every executable you try to run, so that could be slowing down the files you are trying to launch after downloading.

But it sound like just a hard drive issue. Your drives are probably getting old. Try running a benchmarking software and see how your drive looks.. it should be a pretty consistent curve in terms of speed from the middle of the disk to the outside, but sometimes you will see spikes of slow sections as the drive gets older.

And of course, make sure your drives are defragmented. Win 7/8 usually set this up automatically to run every week, but going in manually to make sure is a good idea.
 
My hard drives were retained from my old rig

And you wiped those HD's clean by formatting and installed windows and all drivers fresh right ? Are those featured parts from old rig or new? Motherboard new ?

If so, your performance is exactly what I'd expect.....Windows is looking for the hardware drivers from your old build and doesn't quite know what to do with the new stuff. Start fresh
 

marcooli0

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Dec 26, 2012
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Only the Hard Drives are from the old rig. Motherboard is brand new so I had to wipe the hard drives clean. They may indeed just be getting old.