General system slow down issue

[Hapkido]

- Vista Ultimate SP-2 (all current updates)
- AMD 64 X2 6000+
- 4 gigs PC6400 RAM

I am experiencing a general slow down of my Vista system, e.g., 5-30 seconds
for applications to load, 5-10 seconds for a new tab to appear in IE8,
applications displaying "not responding" while an operation is working such
as saving an image or file, etc.

This is isolated to Vista only. I have Windows 7 and XP installed (tri-boot)
as well and they do not exhibit this problem. So, I have to conclude it is
not hardware related. The system is squeaky clean; full scans with KAV
9.0.0.746 and Malwarebyte's Anti-malware. I've run both Chkdsk and SFC
/scannow resulting in no change. Task Manager shows no unusual CPU usage nor
Memory usage.

Any ideas what may be causing this? I do not know when it started but it has
been ongoing for a couple of months. Everything works but slowly. I've run
out of ideas as to what to check.

 

[Alias]

- Vista Ultimate SP-2 (all current updates)
- AMD 64 X2 6000+
- 4 gigs PC6400 RAM

I am experiencing a general slow down of my Vista system, e.g., 5-30
seconds for applications to load, 5-10 seconds for a new tab to appear
in IE8, applications displaying "not responding" while an operation is
working such as saving an image or file, etc.

This is isolated to Vista only. I have Windows 7 and XP installed
(tri-boot) as well and they do not exhibit this problem. So, I have to
conclude it is not hardware related. The system is squeaky clean; full
scans with KAV 9.0.0.746 and Malwarebyte's Anti-malware. I've run both
Chkdsk and SFC /scannow resulting in no change. Task Manager shows no
unusual CPU usage nor Memory usage.

Any ideas what may be causing this? I do not know when it started but it
has been ongoing for a couple of months. Everything works but slowly.
I've run out of ideas as to what to check.

Have you checked to see if Vista has changed your hard drives to PIO?

Alias

 

[Hapkido]

And how/where do I check to see if DMA has been replaced with PIO?

 

[Saucy]

-Defrag the harddrives.
-Check to see what programs are run at startup
-Check to see if the harddrives are set to DMA not PIO (as per Alias's
suggestion)
-While you are checking DMA / PIO, you might set the Write Caching to ON
(thru the drive's Properties' Policy tab) and any other performance
enhancements offered
-Make sure any anti-virus programs etc. are set to run at low priority when
they do their scans
-KAV has been known to slow some systems - the engine is supposed to be
ancient.
-Note that Windows optimizes application start up. An application that might
start in a second if optimized might take longer if not.
-Be aware that Vista is slower compared to Windows XP and Windows 7
-Check Services in Vista to see if some third party software has installed
some indexing etc. service.

Just some ideas,
Saucy

 

[Bigguy]

- Vista Ultimate SP-2 (all current updates)
- AMD 64 X2 6000+
- 4 gigs PC6400 RAM

I am experiencing a general slow down of my Vista system, e.g., 5-30
seconds for applications to load, 5-10 seconds for a new tab to appear
in IE8, applications displaying "not responding" while an operation is
working such as saving an image or file, etc.

This is isolated to Vista only. I have Windows 7 and XP installed
(tri-boot) as well and they do not exhibit this problem. So, I have to
conclude it is not hardware related. The system is squeaky clean; full
scans with KAV 9.0.0.746 and Malwarebyte's Anti-malware. I've run both
Chkdsk and SFC /scannow resulting in no change. Task Manager shows no
unusual CPU usage nor Memory usage.

Any ideas what may be causing this? I do not know when it started but it
has been ongoing for a couple of months. Everything works but slowly.
I've run out of ideas as to what to check.

How much space is left on the Vista partition?

Less than 20% and things start to slow; anything less than 10% and they
crawl.


G

 

[Hapkido]

Saucy,
- HDDs are defragged regularly
- Startup programs are minimal
- Write Caching is on
- Latest KAV uses very little resources. The problem is recent but use of
KAV has been years long with no negative effects on any of my systems.
- Unfamiliar with "optimized" applications
- My Vista system has always been very fast until recently albeit slower
than perhaps XP and Win7
- Don't see any additional indexing service(s)

Now... on the matter of DMA/PIO. I checked in Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers > IDE Channel (primary and secondary) > Advanced Settings:
- Channel 0 has DMA enabled and seems to be controlling my 2 IDE optical
drives
- Channel 1 has no option for DMA

Is there some other location I should be checking to find out if DMA is
enabled for this particular HDD? All three of my drives are SATA Western
Digital drives. The one Vista is installed on is quite new; 500 gig Black
Edition 32 meg cache. It runs the coolest of the 3 drives.

 

[Hapkido]

Thanks for replying... 96 gigs free on this 152 gig partition.

 

[Saucy]

If they are SATA drives, they aren't on the DMA channels regularly per se.
Instead, enable faster performance through the Policy tab of the drive
Properties (if the options are there).

Saucy

 

[Alias]

And how/where do I check to see if DMA has been replaced with PIO?

In the device manager.

Alias