Vista Ultimate 32 Sudden Slowdown

[Peter Corser]

Hi

I have Vista Ultimate 32 bit OEM (Self Installed) on a home built desktop.
AFAIK all drivers are up to date and PC runs very well on startup.

If left for some time (usually a couple of hours or so) it suddenly becomes
extremely slow and unresponsive. This can happen even in the middle of
working. I have a UK Network Rail Sidebar Gadget which is constantly
updating with local train times. This will always stop respondiing and
suggest that a screen saver may be running. If I go to Contol Panel I
cannot access the Performance page - if CP was closed when this happened it
only shows a subset of (usually) 12 items - even if it had previously been
open accessing any item becomes virtually impossible. Prior to problem
occurring the Performance Page states that there are no items causing system
performance issues. I have never been able to access the Performance page
once the problem has initiated!
Turning the machine off suddenly changes from very rapid to, at best, dead
slow. I have left it shutting down for over 4 hours (when I have had to
leave the PC room to do something else) and still had to finally shut down
via the front panel push buttons (physically shut off power). Using the
close all programs and shut down icon on the Start menu seems to trigger a
faster initial response, but still seems to come up against a brick wall.
Vista has never asked for a disk verification/check even though I have
forced the shut down.

Does anyone have any ideas where to start looking?

Peter

 

[Vitanov]

Hi

I have Vista Ultimate 32 bit OEM (Self Installed) on a home built desktop.
AFAIK all drivers are up to date and PC runs very well on startup.

If left for some time (usually a couple of hours or so) it suddenly
becomes extremely slow and unresponsive. This can happen even in the
middle of working. I have a UK Network Rail Sidebar Gadget which is
constantly updating with local train times. This will always stop
respondiing and suggest that a screen saver may be running. If I go to
Contol Panel I cannot access the Performance page - if CP was closed when
this happened it only shows a subset of (usually) 12 items - even if it
had previously been open accessing any item becomes virtually impossible.
Prior to problem occurring the Performance Page states that there are no
items causing system performance issues. I have never been able to access
the Performance page once the problem has initiated!
Turning the machine off suddenly changes from very rapid to, at best, dead
slow. I have left it shutting down for over 4 hours (when I have had to
leave the PC room to do something else) and still had to finally shut down
via the front panel push buttons (physically shut off power). Using the
close all programs and shut down icon on the Start menu seems to trigger a
faster initial response, but still seems to come up against a brick wall.
Vista has never asked for a disk verification/check even though I have
forced the shut down.

Does anyone have any ideas where to start looking?

Have very simmilar problems. Started at once. The local Vista guru worked
two days on the Dell (xtp with all whistles) and said the only solution is
to
reload the Vista. Now in the process backing up all the smal programs I
have.
I will report after the reload whenever it happens.

Ted
BC, Vancouver Island

 

[Vitanov]

Hi

I have Vista Ultimate 32 bit OEM (Self Installed) on a home built desktop.
AFAIK all drivers are up to date and PC runs very well on startup.

If left for some time (usually a couple of hours or so) it suddenly
becomes extremely slow and unresponsive. This can happen even in the
middle of working. I have a UK Network Rail Sidebar Gadget which is
constantly updating with local train times. This will always stop
respondiing and suggest that a screen saver may be running. If I go to
Contol Panel I cannot access the Performance page - if CP was closed when
this happened it only shows a subset of (usually) 12 items - even if it
had previously been open accessing any item becomes virtually impossible.
Prior to problem occurring the Performance Page states that there are no
items causing system performance issues. I have never been able to access
the Performance page once the problem has initiated!
Turning the machine off suddenly changes from very rapid to, at best, dead
slow. I have left it shutting down for over 4 hours (when I have had to
leave the PC room to do something else) and still had to finally shut down
via the front panel push buttons (physically shut off power). Using the
close all programs and shut down icon on the Start menu seems to trigger a
faster initial response, but still seems to come up against a brick wall.
Vista has never asked for a disk verification/check even though I have
forced the shut down.

Does anyone have any ideas where to start looking?

Have very simmilar problems. Started at once. The local Vista guru worked
two days on the Dell (xtp with all whistles) and said the only solution is
to
reload the Vista. Now in the process backing up all the smal programs I
have.
I will report after the reload whenever it happens.

Ted
BC, Vancouver Island

 

[Dave Briggs]

Had the same problem, bought and ran ErrorSmart and now no problems. Should
never ever ever have to reload windows.
EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Been building my own PC's for many many years
and only with win98 did I ever do that.

 

[Peter Corser]

Hi Guys

Thanx for the suggestions so far.

Reloading Vista will not work - have already done that and had problem on
previous install as well. I reinstalled for a different problem (lost the
DVD drive(s) as a reader - almost had to do it again (caused by an
incompatible program not rejected by Vista on this machine probably
overwtiting a dll - corrected by a Vista update between my backing up the
data and getting round to reinstalling - too late at night, luckily!!!)

Dave - Thanx will look at ErrorSmart.

Rick

Machine is self build with Vista Ultimate 32. I currently have UAC switched
off, but problem moccurred before I did this.

Processor is Q6600 with 4 GB Black dragon RAM in Gigabyte N650SLI-DS4L
motherboard (problem occurs whether runn at base speed or overclocked 10%).

Graphics is a new Sapphire HD4850 with 512 MB (Also occurred with the old
8400GS board I initially installed).

Screen is 22in widescreen V7 LCD (1680*1050).

Hard Drives are:
500GB Samsunf HD502IJ SATA drive split into c drive for Windows & e drive
for swap file
1TB Samsung HD103UJ SATA drive roughly equally split between d drive and f
drive
Also a further Samsung HD103UJ and a WDCaviar WD-10 EACS-00ZBJ0 1TB (both
SATA). These are currently in external housings connected via usb (the
housings are eSATA as well as USB, but I had problems getting the eSATA
connection to work so opted for USB since I don't really need them yet and I
have physical difficulties in space in pc room, opening machines and
standing up to work at the same time - awaiting hip replacement, in about 3
weeks, and need both hands on walking sticks to avoid falling over!) - the
problems occur whether these (or any other smaller) USB drive is installed.

DVD is a Sansung TSST SH-S182M Ide drive (plus a Liteon USB - problem occurs
whether this is plugged in or not).

Logitech keyboard with optical mouse supplied with kb, Nikkai wireless/USB
optical mouse and Wacom Bamboo (problem occurs whether this is plugged in or
not).

Various printers - HP LJ1020 and HP Photosmart D5160 on this machine, HP
Photosmart 8750 A3+(SuperB) Photo Printer on Network and Canon Pixma 4500 on
other XP machine.

Epson 3170 scanner - transferred from XP machine using latest drivers.

PC is networked via Netgear Gigabit switches to other Vista PC @ gigabit and
older XP machine @ 100MB. The online network is BT via a BT Hub 2 (UK -
specifically for btinternet) with a newly installed BT Vision box connected
to Broadband (via powerline adapters) & tv. I also have a further XP
machine in my bedroom and a laptop. both of which were networked by Netgear
powerlines until BT supplied the new powerlines for the VBox which screwed
up the old network! New Wifi adapters for these delivered a couple of hours
ago (old adapters refused to work when I upgraded the old router to the
hub).

As far as I am aware I have latest Vista updates (auto update enabled plus
manual checks) and latest drivers for hardware.

Firewall/AV is ZoneAlarm Suite (purchased licence - latest version).

I also have Nero 9 (problem occurred when I had N8 installed!)

I have tried Fix-it and Registry Repair Wizard - these do not report a
problem.

I have noticed that the PC can just become totally unresponsive whilst I am
working. I have a sidebar gadget which shows live updates of train running
at our local rail station and this will suddenly report that there may be a
screen saver running. I sometimes also get (at this time) a report that I
do not have permission to access to my own files (not system files - my own
data folders). Every thing just becomes impossible to use (slow is not the
right description!).
No problems reported in performance tab before problem starts and can't
access it after it has started!

Peter

"RickR [WINDOWS-TEAM]"

Hello Peter, My name is Rick and I work with the Windows Outreach Team,
and would like to help you out. I must be upfront and tell you I am not
Tech Support but I do wish to help you out. First I would like to know
some of your system specs. So if you could give me some info such as
Processor/Ram/HD size etc. then I can have a better idea of how to help
you.
Secondly re-install can be a pain, so I would run Windows Updater first
and see if anything there helps out your issue. Please get back to me
with your Specs and we shall take a look and see what can be done.
Rick