46 replies to this topic

[Nazgûl]

I know it does Plokite... but not this time. I had this laptop for 6 years, with Norton. This started degrading a few days ago. Could be hardware related if I'm unlucky.

[Kwen]

You're not all that likely to get degrading performance from failing hardware. Failing hardware will give you crashes and instability. You might be running into thermal problems if you haven't cleaned the insides in a while though.

[Nazgûl]

A thermal problem is a hardware problem imo But no, i cleaned the fans and vents this summer, after never having done that (not easy with a laptop), and that caused fans from going 100% speed to maybe 10-20% after the internal temperature dropped drasticly. At its worst the shell was so hot I could barely rest my hand upon it. Ovetall though, this has been an excellent computer with specs that stand up to the competition even today, 6 years later. I hope this reset will get me another 5-6 years before it's outdated or dead

Took me all day and all night to update everything on C:. That's the downside to not having partitions, so I will probably use my external Iomega 2TB backup unit as server from now on instead. Despite it being USB it's surprisinly fast anyways.

[Nazgûl]

Looks like I'm f*cked... After 2 days of backup and reinstalling updates after updates after updates after updates... the laptop ia still as slow as before, and this is after a format mind you.

Windows Update btw is probably amongst the worst piece of crap ever produced by Microsoft. It can take hours and hours with the "Looking for updates" message and you have no idea wether it is or if it's stuck.

Will probably have to buy a new system.

[Kwen]

Well realistically it's probably due time for an upgrade anyways. No matter how "solid" it has been to you, you cannot really expect the lifespan of a laptop to carry on for such a long time. You're already outdated, and for the most part laptops are just not meant to go for a very long time.

Out of curiosity though I would like to know your specs in detail.. What is your processor? Don't just say how many cores or ghz.. Exact name of the thing. What is your RAM and the frequency you run at? What is your graphics card? Again, not just how much VRAM it has. I'm curious what a six year old laptop has for hardware.

[Nazgûl]

I find it technically close to the models of today actually..

It's a HP Pavilion dv6 running on a Samsung S27C750 27 inch Full HD via HDMI.

- Intel Core i5 CPU @ 2.5 GHz
- 4 Gb DDR3-SDRAM @ 1333 MHz
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650 GPU @ 1Gb DDR5-SDRAM
- 640 Gb SATA HDD @ 5400 rpm

Specs on 2015 systems are not that much better. Some have more RAM but no huge improvements in 6 years Imo

[Phil]

Instead of reinstalling or buying a new computer, I'd use the Sysinternals tools like Process Explorer, Process Monitor and Autoruns to figure out what's making your system slow and fix it. Windows itself is rarely ever the cause for problems. Usually it's badly written and/or misconfigured third-party software.

[Kwen]

What type of i5 though? You have to remember that hardware does not relate directly to others evenly in terms of performance. Another processor with the same number of cores running at the same frequency could be very different in terms of overall performance. I'm guessing you're using an i5 750 or something similar, which is really really old and outdated. A modern i5 with similar ghz can be many times better. The 4gb RAM at 1333 is pretty slow. Nowadays if it's not 1600 or 1866 at least then it's not comparable.

You're right that it's not all that bad, but it's still old. I wouldn't overlook upgrading just yet.

[Nazgûl]

Phil, if the computer is slow instantöy after a fresh install, I'd say it's hardly 3rd party. I have done this a couple of timed before, years ago, with 0 problems. Something have happened, to the hardware or to Windows. Maybe it's like with Android phones that decline intentionally with time ti get ppl to buy new ones.

Kwen, I don't find those numbers to be that huge considering the number of years having passed. Naturally a 6 year old pc would be outperformed by a new one, but the technical advances are not what they used to be.

The bottom line is that I've had virtually no problems with this machine in all this time, and I could even wotk in zBrush with hefty models carrying insane amount if polys like 8, 9, 10 or even 11 million polygons with ease. But just a few days ago, after the Erebor dwarf, a slow decline became rapid and I could hardy do anything without it taking 10 times linger then it used to...

I have now frnistalled again, and again I get insane problems with Windows Update. It takes ages to search, download and install and it hangs often. Framework.NET or whatever it's called takes 1-2 hours to get. It installed Service Pack 1, without it showing up afterwards and when Update wanted to install it again, the installation froze.

I could try a third time but I'm pretty sure it will be the same. So either Microsoft wants to try to force me to upgrade to W10 by rendering W7 useless, or some hardware is declining and are about to die. Maybe the cpu, or ram. Anyways, can't afford a new full system now (as I don't want another laptop) so this might affect modding for a long period of time again.

[Nazgûl]

Sorry about spelling. "Smart Phones" aren't that smart. I miss buttons...

[Kwen]

Actually, based on that I would say that the most likely thing to be failing if it's anything hardware related would be your hard drive. I repeat what I said earlier, the majority of hardware (hard drives are the exception) will NOT cause slow performance. It will cause your PC to simply not work at all, or become unstable. If your RAM was going bad you would get blue screens and failure to POST. If it were your CPU, the same. If it were your graphics card you would get artifacting, black screens, or lock-ups. If it were your Power Supply it would give you shut downs. If it were your motherboard, it could be any one or a combination of those things. But, if your hard drive is failing then it could explain slow downs and failure to update because the drive is possibly not correctly writing information anymore.

[Graion Dilach]

I've once had an issue with the HDD that it fell back to PIO mode from DMA, resulting with everything involving virtual memory usage slowing down to a crawl, but had no issues while idle/low usage. (You can check that out on the HDD connection's properties IIRC.) No it wasn't a falling HDD - the HDD could still go on for atleast 1.5 years later - and IIRC a power spike came in by then.

[Nazgûl]

I really appreciate all the input, thoughts and ideas guys. I've buolt computers for 20 years, but there's always good with second opinions and other peoples experiences.

 

The problem atm seems to be isolated to Windows Update. I simply can't get past all them updates, especially Service Pack 1. And when googling the matter, it seems lika a very common problem, in Windows7, just like in 8 and 10 aparently. The big question is why I never had it before. I think I did a clean reinstall back in 2012, 2 years after purchase, and that went smooth without any complications what so ever. So either something happened to my system since then, or Microsoft deliberately fuggs it up to push me towards Windows 10, like I'm convinced that Android Smart Phone manufactureres do with each software update.

 I have a nice case, my external 27" monitor and a new GeForce GTX770 with 2Gb DDR5-SDRAM standing by, but I need to haul up about $1200-1500 for the rest, and that's not gonna happen right now  so, I guess I'm gonna have to keep trying to get this in order, somehow. There're seems to be various methods of trying to tackle the dreadful Windows Update issue.

[Kwen]

For the record.. It's 2GB of GDDR5-VRAM.

[Nazgûl]

So it is, you know your stuff

 

Found something interesting about Windows Update problems:

https://www.winhelp....ows-update.html

 

 

Windows 7 devices must have Service Pack 1 installed to continue receiving security fixes via Windows Update. Clean installations without Service Pack 1 might fail to start BITS and Windows Update services. Either use the link above to download SP1 (the huge ISO file in the list applies to all Windows 7 computers), or use WSUS Offline Update to download and install all necessary prerequisites, SP1 and latest security updates.
Since October of 2015, many users are complaining that Windows 7 looks for new updates extremely slowly. While the PC itself works fine, searching for updates takes 2-4 hours to complete. This seems to be "normal" behavior for now, so please do not try fixing what is not broken. Alternatively, please use WSUS Offline Update (link above) instead.

 

 

And this:
http://www.extremete...e-to-windows-10

 

Windows Update error forces some users to upgrade to Windows 10

 

 

Here's the problem, exactly:

http://www.sevenforu...es-forever.html

Edited by Nazgûl, 04 January 2016 - 10:07 PM.

[Nazgûl]

This guy is currently my God:

 

 

...what a complete and utter, unmitigated pile of steaming horseshit Windows - in all its forms - has become.

This utter manure of an OS has become completely unusable. Microsoft should delete the source code, delete the binaries and format their servers, burn the backups, bomb their DR sites. AND START AGAIN from scratch.

No more of this utter utter utter dross, PLEASE.

[Kwen]

Just use windows 10.

[Nazgûl]

Don't want to - don't like it - it looks like Windows 8, and reports say it's quite buggy.

Can someone verify that BFME-series works a-ok on Win 10?

 

Win 7 came with this laptop. I paid for it, I want it 

Also, if I want to upgrade to Win 10, I need Win 7 to be fully updated first, as they option is not there as of now.

 

I have read TONS on this matter now, and it's quite aparent that Microsoft is trying to force people towards W10... but I shall not yield yet. Trying all kinds of fixes... 

Edited by Nazgûl, 05 January 2016 - 03:14 PM.

[Bashkuga]

I have windows 10 and altough I had some problems at start, I quite like the new interface. Dont worry about Bfme, it all works for me. Hell even the old Fellowship of the Ring works.

Edited by Bashkuga, 05 January 2016 - 05:51 PM.

[Nazgûl]

I read that many people have problems with all kinds of things, BFME games being one. There's supposed to be a fix, but mainly I'm against the Win 8 look and style.

Left Update running this morning. 228 updates... Hoping it has finished tonight.