My computer is running slow; load times of everything are at a crawl. A program

[derpymcderpderper]

A program (Starcraft 2) took longer than usual to load (load bar) to the point it was overkill, and the music in the background kept skipping like a record when it repeats. I've just come back after 2 weeks vacation to this, so I reinstalled Windows Vista thinking it could be a virus from a program I downloaded before I left. It's actually running slower.

I've installed new drivers for my network card, my mouse, and installed Java as well as Google Chrome, Photoshop CS5, and my NVidia 430 GT. The graphics in-game are actually fine, running very smoothly. It seems like it's taking forever to process things, but the resource monitor shows minimal disc writing and low CPU usage. Memory is also fine. I can't figure this out. As well, when I'm loading a webpage, sometimes it will be loading content and will just stop halfway for a second, then continue. It seems like it's stop-stepping all the processes or something, and I'm not sure what's causing it. Restarts change nothing.

If you need to know more, or have ideas of what I should do, please help. Thanks.

As well, temperatures in the case are fine, CPU isn't running hot, gfx card is low temp, PSU is low temp as well.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Have you reset your modem and router?
unplug both from mains power for a minute then plug modem back in, leave to settle for 30s, then plug router back in, again, give it time to sort its head out
sounding like it might be a network issue rather than your pc to me, post back any progress/lack of
Moto

 

[cadder]

Have you checked task manager? It will show you the CPU utilization and you can see if there are any other tasks running that should not be running.

Have you checked your bios? Maybe you could run a program like cpuid and see what speed the cpu is actually running at. Something in the bios may have it running at a slow speed, maybe speedstep is permanently engaged.

 

[derpymcderpderper]

The CPUID says my clock speed is fine, and my BIOS is up to date as well. It does drop down to 1600MHz at idle, but is running at maximum when the game is active.

It's not a network issue; the installation was offline even though I downloaded the files. I've however taken your advice and tried. No effect, sadly.

I'm looking into fragmentation; my HD was at 55% fragmentation, the majority of fragments being the SC2 files. It could simply be that it's struggling to read information from such a large file (it's over 8 GB) that's so severely fragmented (200+ fragments on the file, and there are a few others).

I will post back with my results in case someone else has the same issue. I hate it when I see "fixed, close thread plz" with no solution.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Oh hell yes, defrag in order lol
possibly a re-install of Sc2 afterwards as well, it may be too far gone to reasonable recover, and dont feel too bad, I have to do the same with my Wow, 35Gb
I'll erm do it later k
Moto

 

[derpymcderpderper]

I found out that defragging did nothing, and in fact my hard disk needed a new Intel Storage Manager driver. I think it's either on the verge of dying, or something else is snagging my games now.

It could be my CPU, but now I'm experiencing stuttering. I took my post to the video game forum to get more information specifically because it's about my games stuttering now. Everything else runs fine; the computer boots normally now and programs load at reasonable speeds.

Here's the link.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/113428-13-stuttering-previously-insane-load-times-before-fixed