Running slowly/lagging? And other problems.

[eterniawolf]

Okay. So I'm going insane trying to figure out what's wrong with this computer! I've reinstalled Windows 3 times now, and I don't know what's wrong. I'm thinking it's a hardware problem, but I need opinions.

Okay here's what's going on guys. I recently just built a new computer, which I asked for help here, and took most of the advice, but made a few different decisions on my own). I do not have a working DVD drive because the one I bought ended up not working. It works, but the tray will not open when you press the eject button. So I left it. I didn't want to take the computer apart again considering I had to take it apart a few times after building it to get some things right. Here's EVERYTHING that's happened so far so maybe someone can figure out what's go on.

First installation of Windows 7: So I put Windows 7 on a USB stick. I had to go out for a while, so I shut it down right after installing Windows 7. I did not put any drivers on it or anything. So the next time I go to boot it up, it just hung on the Windows logo screen. So I tried to boot into safe mode. At first I thought that wasn't working either, until I checked on it again around 10 minutes later when safe mode finally loaded. I try to do something, and it runs really slowly and pretty much locks up (running so slow it can't load anything). So at this point I decide to remake the USB stick and reinstall Windows 7.

Second installation of Windows 7: I wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows 7. I put Daemon Tools Lite on a different USB stick and install it. I made copies of my driver disks and copied them to an external hard drive. So I used Daemon Tools Lite to install my drivers. Everything worked fantastically! So by this point I had mainly just been rebooting. I do turn off the computer so I can get to the back to plug in my ethernet cable. I turn it back on, update Windows, and install a bunch of random things (Malwarebtyes, Firefox, Avast, etc.). So it seems my computer is good to go. The next day I turn it on and decide to install Microsoft Office 2007. I leave it for a while, and the installer for Office gives me a weird error. So I try to close it, and it says removing backup files. Everything's still running, but nothing is loading. So I try to ctrl + alt + del, and nothing happens until about 2 minutes later my screen goes completely black except for my mouse cursor. I let it sit for around 2 or 3 minutes before I just turned off my computer. So I boot it back up and everything seems fine until about 3-5 minutes later, everything starts freezing. It's funny, because I can run my mouse over icons and the highlight animation is not slow at all. I can also move windows like they are nothing. But I can't close or do anything with any program I run. It will finally either close or do whatever I was trying to do, but it takes like 2 or 3 minutes just to do it. The next time I try something, it'll freeze again and then finally do it around 2 to 3 minutes later. I decide to install Windows again, thinking I did something wrong.

Third installation of Windows 7: Same process as above installing Windows 7 and drivers. Everything seemed fine. I only turned off to plug in ethernet cable again. Installed Windows updates. This time I updated EVERYTHING. Last time, I did not do all the updates. I installed all my programs again. By this point, I'm thinking everything's fine. So I shut it down. Later I turn it back on. For about 5 minutes it runs perfectly fine. Then everything loads slowly again. I almost threw my keyboard at the computer in frustration!

So here's the TLDR version: Computer works fine for about 5 minutes. After that, programs start running so slowly that they practically lock up. They eventually load, but as soon as I try to do something again, they start running slow again and lock up again. The process repeats. The ONLY exception to this seems to be before I plugged in the ethernet cable and installed Windows updates. I am able to turn off the computer, and everything works just fine. It's only after I've updated and installed everything that this seems to happen.

Anyone have any clue what's going on? Typing this made me think of a few things to try, but any other suggestions would help.

Well...just today I was going to try something else before posting this. I was going to reinstall Windows 7 again, but the USB stick did not boot up right. It is suppose to flash up with a screen with 2 options saying Windows 7 installation and windows recovery 64bit or something like that. That did not happen. Instead, it said Starting Windows with no Windows logo for a few seconds. Then went to the "Loading Windows files" screen. Then it flashed to what looked like the Vista Starting Windows screen. After that, it just turned completely black and stayed black. So I turned off the computer and removed the USB stick and decided to try and mess with my current installation of Windows 7...except it did the same thing the USB stick did with the whole Starting Windows, to loading files, to starting windows, to black screen.

So now I'm super royally confused on what happened (did the USB stick overwrite my installation of Windows to that weird Starting Windows, to loading files, to starting windows, to black screen thing?).

So I don't even want to touch it anymore and just want to wait for help. Also let me know if you need more information.

 

[smorizio]

First off unplug the pc let the mb drain and then unplug the cd-rom sata and power cable. pc at post test the hardware. the dvd drive might be the part that hanging the system after the mb chipset drivers are installed and the mb is rebooted.
on new build before you install windows make sure your mb bios is up to date. a lot of the z77 mb have usb device bug fixes.ram and cpu code updates. if your booting from an ssd make sure the ssd firmware is up to date. also make sure your ssd and hard drive are on the intel sata 6 ports and not the 3 party chipset. in the bios make sure your sata ports are set to achi mode and that your ram is set to xmp mode if it a intel mb. if it an amd mb make sure the mb set the ram speed and timing right.
make sure on your bpu you have all the power plugs plugged in and the video card in the right pci video slot. (ps make sure in the bios you set the first video device to peg to ipgpu ..onboard video). make sure the video cable on the gpu. make sure on a usb stick you have the newest intel/amd mb chipset drivers and the newest drivers for sound and Ethernet. the ones on the mb cd may work but they can be a year old. some new mb are sold with mvp mux chip that with the mvp software will bond the ipgpu and gpu. do not install this software it buggy as heck. i would boot of of a hirem boot cd do a fdisk/mbr and then remove all partion on the hard drive to start fresh. boot off windows 7 install cd. dont make any partion let windows 7 make the two partion a 100m system partion and the rest the data partion. on reboot let windows load to the desktop. install the chipset drivers for the mb first..reboot. then install the gpu drivers..reboot. install the sound and ethernet and reboot. install the usb drivers and any missing drivers. running an ssd make sure have intel srt driver installed. if system is fine not hanging install newest version of a anti virus and reboot. if it fine after the reboot download hardware monitor check you system cpu and gpu temps. cpu should be 30-45c. same for the gpu. I like to install msi afterburner if it a nvidia gpu so i can see the power/heat/fan speed of the gpu.

 

[smorizio]

dont let windows update run at this point. with a stable system no updates run prime95 to see if the system will lock up or pass under load. also want to run unreal game engine demo to stress the gpu. if there fine and the temps are fine..go into windows update and select one or two updates at a time. install them and then reboot. (if your cd does not have the windows 7 service pack built in then install that first then reboot.).

 

[Nedal0]

I'm interested in your PC's CPU,GPU and any other Temps available via AIDA64, SPECCY or SPEEDFAN.

If you are not Overclocking, it will be very dangerous to run Prime95. I think AIDA64 can help with stressing the PC enough

 

[eterniawolf]

Well, at the moment I can't get past the Setup screen on reinstalling Windows 7 (a completely new problem). So I'm going to remake the USB stick to see if that's the problem.

Whatever happened with that glitch earlier completely messed up Windows 7 and it's not longer working. So I can't give you guys information from AIDA64 or anything like that. However, my motherboard's BIOS screen tells me temps and frequencies. I also could not figure out how to find if the RAM was set to XMP or not? I'm not really sure if it's intel or amd. I'm guessing it's intel since my processor is an Intel Core i7-3770K? Either way, my RAM is Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory. Oh, because I didn't have enough money at the time, I did not buy a SSD. It's a regular hard drive.

Here's some information directly from my BIOS (i:

BCLK: 100.12MhZ
CPU Frequency 3880-3901Mhz
Memory Frequency: 1601MhZ
Total Memory Size: 8192MB
CPU Temperature: 48 - 50 C
vcore 1.128-1.152V
DRAM Voltage 1.524V

I don't know how much more I can work on this today. The rest may have to wait until Sunday or Monday, but this information should help you guys.

 

[swifty_morgan]

list all hardware.

 

[eterniawolf]

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
CPU Cooler: ZALMAN CNPS9500A-LED 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Western Digital WD Green WD10EARS 1TB SATA/64MB
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 CA-PH410-B1 White Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Power Supply: XFX 750W PRO750W Core Edition Single Rail ATX 12V 62A 24PIN ATX Power Supply 80PLUS Bronze PSU

The optical drive is relevant since it's not plugged in now, but in case you want to know, it was MSI DVD Burner Black SATA Model DH-24AS U88.

Also, that hard drive was taken from my brother-in-law's old computer, so it's used. It's possible that hard drive might be the problem since it's used. However, he said it was working when he gave it to me. If that hard drive ends up being the problem, I'll have to wait until next pay check to buy a hard drive. Hopefully it isn't.

 

[swifty_morgan]

dvd from B-i-L computer?.... try it.

 

[Nedal0]

Is it possible your USB installation is not being done properly ?

I think you should get that Optical Drive working or at least find a External USB Optical Drive


I really don't trust USB's as some brands don't work properly with Windows 7 Installations

 

[eterniawolf]

First of all, swifty_morgan, what is B-i-L computer?

Second of all, after tinkering around with this stupid computer after work today, I'm pretty sure it's the hard drive...feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, or if someone else knows what's wrong, but I have some evidence today that points to the hard drive.

First thing I did today was put Ubuntu on a USB stick so I could wipe my hard drive, because I couldn't get any of the hard drive wiping programs that don't need an operating system to work. Ubuntu loaded up like a charm and Ubuntu worked perfectly off of my USB stick. This is further reason why I think my problem is the hard drive, as everything seemed to be running fine in Ubuntu even if Ubuntu was running from my USB stick. So when I went to wipe my hard drive on Ubuntu, I noticed it said I had something like 368 bad sectors on that hard drive or something like that. That's quite a lot, right? So I went ahead and wiped the drive to see if I could get past the "setup is starting" screen on the Windows 7 installation.

Well, after wiping it, I still can't get the Windows 7 installation to get past the "Setup is Starting" screen. I tried both my USB stick and my external optical drive, and neither of them will get past the "Setup is starting" screen. I had ordered an external optical drive after I discovered my internal optical drive was broke, I just haven't opened it until today to see if using the external optical drive would help anything.

So yeah. I'm thinking I might trying pulling my hard drive from either an old laptop, or my old desktop and see if either of those work in this computer before I go out and spend money on a new hard drive. I don't plan on keeping any of the hard drives I pull out from one of those computers in my new computer, but I just want to see if any of those will work in this computer.

If anyone has any more suggestions though, I will gladly take them.

EDIT: Oh wait. I spoke too soon! I left my external optical drive plugged in my computer, and it finally got past the "setup is starting" screen! It just took FOREVER (probably because it's an external optical drive) Maybe I'm good! I'll edit this post later with updates.

EDIT 2: It's just running super slow on the hard drive screen, and it's not letting me format anything or do anything...so I think I'm going to try my hard drive from my old desktop (If I can).

EDIT 3: Stupid me forgot that Windows XP doesn't work with my motherboard without making an XP SP3 disk with drivers from my motherboard's driver disk on it. The hard drive I pulled was from an old desktop with XP on it. However, it seemed to have no problems accessing that hard drive. So I'm just going to buy a new hard drive. It'll be a while before that happens, so I'll just make a new topic in the future if I need help in the future after I get a new hard drive. Thanks for you guys trying to help me.

 

[Nedal0]

Its good to hear you have narrowed the issue down to the HDD.

Keep us updated and Good Luck

 

[eterniawolf]

Best answer selected by eterniawolf.