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[Kerensky]

Explorer gets slow when copying numerous small files, this is especially true for SMB transfers but not unheard of in local situations either.

Enabling write-back on USB stick will not get you speed but will give you data loss if you suddenly disconnect or turn the machine off!

 

[demented]

Files aren't small, all are at least 3-4 gb and video files, data loss isn't important since I can just copy paste it again but it does seem bit more consistent with higher speed than before..

 

[Joe]

Are these results normal or bad? My computer is being weird (crashing and lagging) and it seems like it's my ssd drive but I can't tell

SSD Drive:

Model: Silicon Power 120GB S60 2.5" 7mm SATA III 6Gb/s

SATA III 6Gbps backwards compatible with SATA II 3Gbps

Supports TRIM command and Garbage Collection technology

Synchronous flash built-in

NCQ and RAID ready

Equipped with Wear Leveling to extend endurance

Implemented with ECC technology to guarantee data transmission reliability

Low power consumption

Noiseless operation, no latency delay and no seek error

Form Factor: 2.5"

Capacity: 120GB

Memory Components: MLC

Interface: SATA III

Max Sequential Read: Up to 530 MBps

Max Sequential Write: Up to 180 MBps

4KB Random Read: Up to 43,000 IOPS

4KB Random Write: Up to 24,000 IOPS

The drive worked well in a Windows 7 laptop but I've been having trouble ever since using it as my main drive in a Windows 10 desktop.

I did a SMART test in Speedfan and checked for bad sectors with an MS app and everything came back fine.

 

[kennah]

Are you sure you're plugged in to a Serial ATA 3 port and not a SATA 2 port?

 

[Suplexer]

Hopefully someone here can help me out.

I am rocking an old Dell Latitude E6320 that I bought second hand.

I've had it for about 2-3 months. Two or three weeks into using it the battery stopped being recognized. Every once in a while a reboot or re-seating the battery would cause a temporary fix to the issue but nothing worked permanently.

Early on in the second month of using the laptop the battery stopped working completely, no matter what I did. Randomly today, my SO unplugged my laptop while it was on because she needed to do homework and it somehow retained a full charge and I am right now using it off the charger.

The battery is still labeled as "not present", and I have no clue why. Does anyone know a way to fix this?

I have had quite a few problems with this laptop, the battery certainly being the most damning, but I also have had problems with WiFi shutting itself off and when trying to connect. Apparently I have two WiFi receivers AND three battery ports in this laptop and I have no clue why and I feel as though they are interfering with the WiFi working properly and the battery being recognized.

 

[Nostremitus]

Cossposting, just realized I asked the question in the wrong thread...

Any idea why Windows 10 would be spinning my Linux drive at full speed? I mean, it isn't even assigned a letter or in any way used in Windows.

As soon as Windows boots, it spins the drive up to full speed and just keeps it there, spinning the hell out of it. It has no reason to. It has to be shortening the drive's life, right?

It's creating a harmonic vibration that making my whole case (Carbide Air540) buzz once it's been spun up at the constant steady max RPM for a while.

 

[theecakee]

I've had this issue with my Zotac Geforce GTX 960 graphics card. Where, when I power my computer down and then power it back on, my display won't show. It takes like one to three hard resets for it to show back up.

Used multiple monitors, same issue.

Used monitor different cables, same issue.

Updated my motherboard BIOs, same issue.

Updated my graphics drivers (always up to date), same issue.

I checked if there is a BIOs update for the Zotac Geforce GTX 960 2GB but there is not.
Onboard graphics works fine, the graphics card doesn't.

Only have used display port and DVI, I don't have an HDMI monitor...cause....well....idk why I don't I need one lol.

The onboard graphics for my motherboard works fine, it's just when I use my graphics card this issue happens.

I'm almost certain it is my graphics card, I have a co-worker who is building a PC right now so maybe I could ask him if I could plug my graphics card into his machine and see if the same thing happens. If it doesn't, then maybe it's my motherboard?

 

[MonkeyKing]

I would appreciate a little help with this problem I'm having.

Toshiba satellite L675 laptop running windows seven. About a week ago it started freezing after about 7 to 10 minutes of use. Reboot into safe mode, and it seems to run just fine. The only change that I believe that's happened on the system is probably a Windows security update. Thinking that it might be some conflict with the AVG antivirus program, I deleted the antivirus program but still having the hard freeze.

Any advice or feedback would be really helpful.

 

[Joe]

Are you sure you're plugged in to a Serial ATA 3 port and not a SATA 2 port?

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I'm sure. The computer now crashes and bluescreens a minute after my daily initial boot and doesn't crash again until next fresh boot-up (doesn't happen after a restart).

That is a problem I had with my initial Win10 installation and went away (until yesterday) after formatting and re-installing.

Could these be signs of a bad ssd?

 

[DarthWoo]

Has anyone noticed Windows 10 constantly uploading a small amount of data ever since the most recent update? It's only about 10KB/s, but still annoying.

 

[lord]

Anyone knows how to find compatible RAM? I have been trying to find mu model and Speccy and CPU-Z show unknown for the part model. I have reduce it to either:

AD4U2133W8G15-S or AD4U213338G15-S

Both are the same brand and have mostly the same characteristics, the only difference seems to be the "IC Configuration". AD4U2133W8G15-S is 512MX8 and AD4U213338G15-S is 1024MX8. I have no idea what that is, I have tried looking at the modules but they don't really say anything about the part number. I want to buy another pair of modules but I don't want to fuck it up.

Would it make a difference if I get the wrong one?

 

[theecakee]

I've had this issue with my Zotac Geforce GTX 960 graphics card. Where, when I power my computer down and then power it back on, my display won't show. It takes like one to three hard resets for it to show back up.

Used multiple monitors, same issue.

Used different monitor cables, same issue.

Updated my motherboard BIOs, same issue.

Updated my graphics drivers (always up to date), same issue.

I checked if there is a BIOs update for the Zotac Geforce GTX 960 2GB but there is not.
Onboard graphics works fine, the graphics card doesn't.

Only have used display port and DVI, I don't have an HDMI monitor...cause....well....idk why I don't I need one lol.

The onboard graphics for my motherboard works fine, it's just when I use my graphics card this issue happens.

I'm almost certain it is my graphics card, I have a co-worker who is building a PC right now so maybe I could ask him if I could plug my graphics card into his machine and see if the same thing happens. If it doesn't, then maybe it's my motherboard?

I solved the issue, change from "Autodetect" to "PCI" in BIOs for the graphics card. It's different for every board, but ASUS it was something like Advanced Mode -> System Configuration Agent -> Graphics Configuration

 

[TheContact]

Anyone knows how to find compatible RAM? I have been trying to find mu model and Speccy and CPU-Z show unknown for the part model. I have reduce it to either:

AD4U2133W8G15-S or AD4U213338G15-S

Both are the same brand and have mostly the same characteristics, the only difference seems to be the "IC Configuration". AD4U2133W8G15-S is 512MX8 and AD4U213338G15-S is 1024MX8. I have no idea what that is, I have tried looking at the modules but they don't really say anything about the part number. I want to buy another pair of modules but I don't want to fuck it up.

Would it make a difference if I get the wrong one?

You can use the crucial memory scanner. They try to get you to buy crucial brand RAM but you can just find any brand with the results.

 

[SynthFetish]

Ok, this is a silly question but I really don't want to research it so I'm being lazy.

I just got 100Mbps connection and I got that over Ethernet.

I need a router that can get as close that as possible. All devices connected are at least 802.11n with some ac.

Currently using an airport express. (I know)

Small apartment thin walls between devices.

Hit me with recommendations and advice.

Additional info to help me figure this out:

1 iPhone 6 pulls 35 down as the only connection

Macbook as only connection pulls 80 down on the same 5GHz network

 

[Ashhong]

Help please!

Upgraded my parents Mobo/cpu today (A6-7400k), installed Windows, everything was good. Installed gpu drivers, all good, 4870. Installed drivers from gigabyte motherboard CD, mostly good. It also installed and drivers and chipset stuff. Basically everything. All said successful.

I rebooted the pc and now I get no signal whatsoever. Not even the BIOS screen. I have tried via HDMI on the Mobo and dvi->HDMI adapter on the gpu. I unfortunately don't have VGA monitor access.

I don't think the pc is even booting into Windows, the HDD access light isn't blinking and the pc shuts down instantly if I press the power button. So it doesn't seem to simply be a display driver issue..

Edit: wtf, now I tried again and it has a flashing underline after bios screen

 

[Tygamr]

I've been having random severe performance issues in games ever since updating to the latest nvidia drivers. I thought maybe updating to the latest version of Windows 10 might help (creators update), and at first the problem had gone away. But then it came back. Battlefield 1 used to run at 60+, but it runs really choppy—like 15 frames, regardless of settings. Low and ultra perform identically. It's like that in all my other games too—Fallout 4, Battlefront... Even on the main menus.

I have found a workaround though. For some reason, toggling the screen mode (fullscreen, windowed, bordered) gives me my typical performance. Until I relaunch the game, or I alt tab. Anyone have an idea as to why this is happening and how I can permanently fix it? Don't really wanna have to go into the settings and go from windowed to bordered and then back to windowed again for my games to run all the time.

 

[Barrow Roll]

I've been having issues with Sleep Mode on Windows 10 for a while now. My PC is set to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity, and sometimes, not every time, but sometimes, upon waking my PC I hear the fans spin-up, and instead of winding back down to idle speeds and Windows resuming they'll stay spun up and Windows will hang on a black screen. I have no choice but to reset my PC after this happens.

 

[ModernBoxes]

I've been having issues with Sleep Mode on Windows 10 for a while now. My PC is set to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity, and sometimes, not every time, but sometimes, upon waking my PC I hear the fans spin-up, and instead of winding back down to idle speeds and Windows resuming they'll stay spun up and Windows will hang on a black screen. I have no choice but to reset my PC after this happens.

It's possible one of your drivers is not waking up a device that is being put to sleep. Your event log might have a clue to which one this is.

 

[Barrow Roll]

It's possible one of your drivers is not waking up a device that is being put to sleep. Your event log might have a clue to which one this is.

Hey, thanks for the response. Now how exactly do I make sense of the Event Viewer? I've never had to delve in there before.

 

[KraftyKrankins]

Luckily HP/HPE have a lot of maintenence documents from the days where they were together and didn't consider information to be an enterprise-exclusive item.

My only suggestion would be you read this (p45) and learn it by heart.

Thanks for the link, just replaced the thermal grease and the improvements are tremendous. I just saved myself the trouble of selling the laptop and buying a new one.

Protip: Does your laptop tend to overheat? Change the shitty thermal paste the OEM used. Mine went from 50c on idle to 35, and from 95c while playing the Witcher 3 to about 70-75. I've never seen a thermal paste done as badly as the one that was in the machine before I replaced it. Literally 5 to 10 times more than what's actually needed, spread all over the CPU/GPU like fucking butter. Embarassing.

 

[bluestar15]

A bracket for the X button my my laptop keyboard broke. Where can I cheaply get a replacement?

I'd go to AliExpress for a replacement, the parts are cheap (usually with free shipping) and they work pretty good.

 

[Kade]

EDIT: Dealt with my issue.

 

[liquidtmd]

Dang posted this in the Android thread but just seen this thread is alive and kicking so sincere apologies for the double post between and there...

Got a new Moto Z Play and loving it. Have a Bluetooth issue though...I can't seem to find my headphones.

Running Android 7.0 with latest security patch. Headphones are Phillips SHB8750NC. Worked fine with my Moto X Play. Have tried Wiping the Cache Partition but to no avail. Open to troubleshooting tips and providing more info. Thanks

 

[Zoidberg Jesus]

I'm having some trouble with my custom built desktop computer I posted about earlier in this thread, and I wasn't able to find much on Google. When my computer has been off for a while, like at least 12 hours approximately, and I boot it up, it gets to the blue Windows 10 logo with the spinning dots, then some pink and green artifacts appear on the top half of my monitor, then it goes black and won't boot. If I turn it off and back on, it boots fine then, and anytime I restart it works fine, it just seems to happen when its been off for a while.

This has been happening for a couple of weeks now. I tried start up repair and still got the issue today. Tonight I updated my Nvidia video driver to the latest version, so I'll see if that helps tomorrow when I turn it on. In the meantime, any advice? I'll provide more information if needed.

Specs:
Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 Motherboard
Windows 10 Home edition, installed on 512GB Crucial SSD
Intel Core i5 4690K - 4 cores at 3.5GHz
8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 RAM @ 1600MHz
Nvidia GTX 1080, connected to Dell G-Sync monitor via DisplayPort cable

 

[Dominican Power]

Anyone have the issue with the mouse cursor always doing the loading animation on chrome for the smallest things? It's annoying.

 

[ModernBoxes]

Hey, thanks for the response. Now how exactly do I make sense of the Event Viewer? I've never had to delve in there before.

This might be too late, but you Ctrl+R and type in Eventvwr.msc in the run prompt. Should open up.

 

[Sini]

"System" process is constantly using about 3-8% of CPU never letting computer to idle, used to be just 3% before Creators update. When before my computer shut its fans off from time to time then now they're constantly spinning. I reset windows already to resolve other issues I had with the update.

Looks like multiple ntoskrnl.exe!PoFxReportDevicePoweredOn subprocesses take most of the CPU time - ranging from ~2% to 6%, but ACPI.sys goes above 3% frequently as well.

My 6+ month old posts in another forum about it

This "System and compressed Memory" process is constantly using ~3% of my laptop CPU thus generating enough heat to make it spin up its fans for 20 sec every 2 minutes.
What can I do to fix it? I have had this issue before but it fixed itself after a while (couple months), but now it's back.

4 cores 8 threads too and 16GB of RAM. I had periods of time when it didn't use that much CPU and my computer fans would be off for much longer periods which was nice.


Don't have any HDDs

I checked on my old computer and there that process uses only 0-1.5% of CPU (usually under 0.5%). It's 2C4T machine with 4GB of RAM. Doesn't make sense that my way way more powerful computer has such high CPU usage for that process.

 

[rrs]

"System" process is constantly using about 3-8% of CPU never letting computer to idle, used to be just 3% before Creators update. When before my computer shut its fans off from time to time then now they're constantly spinning. I reset windows already to resolve other issues I had with the update.


Looks like multiple ntoskrnl.exe!PoFxReportDevicePoweredOn subprocesses take most of the CPU time - ranging from ~2% to 6%, but ACPI.sys goes above 3% frequently as well.

My 6+ month old posts in another forum about it

A buggy driver perhaps? It's only used for transitioning a piece of hardware from active to sleep states

 

[Barrow Roll]

This might be too late, but you Ctrl+R and type in Eventvwr.msc in the run prompt. Should open up.

I had no trouble opening the event viewer, but I couldn't make heads or tales of what I was supposed to be looking for. I'll take a screencap of the event viewer the next time it happens and post it here.

 

[Rktk]

Files aren't small, all are at least 3-4 gb and video files, data loss isn't important since I can just copy paste it again but it does seem bit more consistent with higher speed than before..

Small USBs heat up to the point where the speed is throttled, that's why you have fat ones or else they would all be small. It makes moving large files a pain, I have one that gets so hot it failed on an 8GB transfer.

 

[Dominican Power]

Anyone have the issue with the mouse cursor always doing the loading animation on chrome for the smallest things? It's annoying.

Anyone?

 

[Darkwater]

I'm getting crashes on startup in Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut, Battlefield 4, Killing Floor 2 and Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

My setup:

i3-4160
MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X 4G
8GB ddr3-1600
350W PSU (80 Plus Gold cert)

I've done a clean driver reinstall. Didn't help anything. You'd suspect the problem would lie with the modest PSU. I highly doubt that, though, seeing as The Witcher 3 of all games runs just fine.

Anyone got any ideas?

Edit: Looks like some Nvidia leftover were the problem. I recently upgraded from a 660.

 

[cpp_is_king]

What's the procedure reformatting a computer with windows 10 after getting the free upgrade from windows 7 last year?

Do I have to buy a new copy? My hard drive is failing and there's no fix other than replacing it, which means i need windows 10 installation media and a license key, which I don't have since i did the free upgrade

 

[The Shadow]

What's the procedure reformatting a computer with windows 10 after getting the free upgrade from windows 7 last year?

Do I have to buy a new copy? My hard drive is failing and there's no fix other than replacing it, which means i need windows 10 installation media and a license key, which I don't have since i did the free upgrade

If nothing else changed, Windows 10 should install without a license key. MS creates a hash based on your system configuration. I've re-installed Windows 10 on two desktops and 2-3 laptops and it always just re-activated without a key.

The W10 media is freely available from MS. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

You can either create a bootable USB stick, or burn it on a DVD.

Edit:

A lot of Win10 upgrades have the same license key. I used to be religious about writing down license keys, but all my upgraded computers and laptops had the same one. They go by system configuration identifiers instead now.

 

[cpp_is_king]

Good to know. Is there a way to know what kind of changes to my system would cause my hash to fail?

 

[Burnburn]

So lately I've been noticing that every +/- 20 minutes my fans go crazy. I've investigated a bit and this is what I figured out:

(I use MSI Afterburner)

For some reason my fan's rpm drops to (almost) 0 after a couple of minutes. Then the GPU gets hot and when it hits a certain temperature the fans kick in again. Well looking at that you'd think an easy fix would be to look into Afterburner's setting and tweak some fan settings. However there's nothing wrong with the fan settings (Atleast I think so) as seen here:

I have updated Afterburner to the latest version, but no dice either. I don't use any other fan controlling software. I'm using the latest Radeon drivers as well.

The weirdest thing is that the fan speed is still correct, however the RPM is not correct as seen here:

Specs:
Radeon 7950 3GB
FX8350

 

[Spladam]

So lately I've been noticing that every +/- 20 minutes my fans go crazy. I've investigated a bit and this is what I figured out:

(I use MSI Afterburner)

For some reason my fan's rpm drops to (almost) 0 after a couple of minutes. Then the GPU gets hot and when it hits a certain temperature the fans kick in again. Well looking at that you'd think an easy fix would be to look into Afterburner's setting and tweak some fan settings. However there's nothing wrong with the fan settings (Atleast I think so) as seen here:

I have updated Afterburner to the latest version, but no dice either. I don't use any other fan controlling software. I'm using the latest Radeon drivers as well.

The weirdest thing is that the fan speed is still correct, however the RPM is not correct as seen here:



Specs:
Radeon 7950 3GB
FX8350

It seems the actual fan speeds are not being reported to Afterburner correctly, use a secondary monitor (like HWMONITOR) and see if it is able to correctly report fan speeds.

Do you have a heavy OC on the card? What happens when you just use the default auto fan curve? Try using that and see what happens, it's usually pretty effective. Which 7950 do you have?
-Edit: Have you ever flashed a new BIOS onto the card?

 

[Burnburn]

It seems the actual fan speeds are not being reported to Afterburner correctly, use a secondary monitor (like HWMONITOR) and see if it is able to correctly report fan speeds.

Do you have a heavy OC on the card? What happens when you just use the default auto fan curve? Try using that and see what happens, it's usually pretty effective. Which 7950 do you have?
-Edit: Have you ever flashed a new BIOS onto the card?

Thanks for your fast reply!

Alright so I've downloaded HWMONITOR and the RPM are the same in HWMONITOR. I have looked inside of my PC (should've done that before posting tbh) and I can confirm that the fans in my GPU just stop running until my GPU reaches a certain temperature. I do not have an OC on the card. I have tried the default fan curve and nothing changes. The 7950 I use is the MSI R7950 TWIN FROZR 3GD5/OC. I have not flashed a new BIOS yet, but will try that once I have the opportunity to! When the fan starts running again it makes this crrrrk sound. I have looked into the GPU fan and there doesn't seem to be a lot of dust in there but I think I will try cleaning it later. I'm not near my PC anymore for the next few hours so can't check immediately!

 

[Spladam]

Thanks for your fast reply!

Alright so I've downloaded HWMONITOR and the RPM are the same in HWMONITOR. I have looked inside of my PC (should've done that before posting tbh) and I can confirm that the fans in my GPU just stop running until my GPU reaches a certain temperature. I do not have an OC on the card. I have tried the default fan curve and nothing changes. The 7950 I use is the MSI R7950 TWIN FROZR 3GD5/OC. I have not flashed a new BIOS yet, but will try that once I have the opportunity to! When the fan starts running again it makes this crrrrk sound. I have looked into the GPU fan and there doesn't seem to be a lot of dust in there but I think I will try cleaning it later. I'm not near my PC anymore for the next few hours so can't check immediately!

I remembered reading something about the fans on one of the MSI Twin Frozr cards, so I went to the Newegg page for your card and read the user reviews. Lots of dead fans. A quick internet search shows me the fans are very effective, but very infamous for having a short life span.

Bad news and good news. First, MSI it seems does not cover fan life in the warranty and will charge you for replacing them. In addition, they cannot replace that GPU as they don't have them in stock any longer, one guy was offered a reference card as a replacement. You can replace them yourself, but it's tricky.

The good news is you can get new fans for it for between $10 - $20 from various online retailers. There are detailed instructions (like in that link) on how to replace them, and youtube videos that go into detail for that model.

My opinion is this is what your issue is, when you mentioned that sound it made me remember reading about this. I don't think flashing a new bios will fix it, but it's worth a try. You can also contact MSI support and ask permission to flash a new bios without voiding the warranty, one guy in the Newegg reviews did just that. Use the support numbers and email addresses on that Newegg review page from the reviews to contact them. Good luck.

 

[Burnburn]

I remembered reading something about the fans on one of the MSI Twin Frozr cards, so I went to the Newegg page for your card and read the user reviews. Lots of dead fans. A quick internet search shows me the fans are very effective, but very infamous for having a short life span.

Bad news and good news. First, MSI it seems does not cover fan life in the warranty and will charge you for replacing them. In addition, they cannot replace that GPU as they don't have them in stock any longer, one guy was offered a reference card as a replacement. You can replace them yourself, but it's tricky.

The good news is you can get new fans for it for between $10 - $20 from various online retailers. There are detailed instructions (like in that link) on how to replace them, and youtube videos that go into detail for that model.

My opinion is this is what your issue is, when you mentioned that sound it made me remember reading about this. I don't think flashing a new bios will fix it, but it's worth a try. You can also contact MSI support and ask permission to flash a new bios without voiding the warranty, one guy in the Newegg reviews did just that. Use the support numbers and email addresses on that Newegg review page from the reviews to contact them. Good luck.

Thanks for your tips, I will follow your instructions and hopefully get some nice results from it!

 

[Khaz]

Hi GAF, I'm trying to use Nero Drive Speed to slow down my CD drive to acceptable speed. I was able to start it once, it worked great. Then I closed the application and now it doesn't start any more. No error, nothing. I tried another software, rimhillex, which does work but gives me this error at launch:

Drive not ready
exception processing message c00000a3 parameters 75b6bf7c 4 75b6bf7c 75b6bf7c

The error message appears once per drive installed. I had two drives, the error popped up twice, once I disabled the virtual drive I only got the error once.

Once the error message is bypassed (by clicking on "cancel" or "continue"), the software runs fine. I don't know if I this error is caused by nero drivespeed, as I never used rimhillex before it.

Nero Drivespeed keeps its settings in the registry. I removed them, but the software still doesn't work. The settings don't reappear so it's unlikely those were the problem.

google didn't help me there. Some answers involve disabling the floppy drive, others to disable the error message itself through the registry. I use the floppy drive on this computer, and hiding the error doesn't make Nero Drivespeed work.

Any idea? Something must have happened between the first and the second launch of Nero DriveSpeed to make it not work, but I don't know what.

 

[Spladam]

Hi GAF, I'm trying to use Nero Drive Speed to slow down my CD drive to acceptable speed. I was able to start it once, it worked great. Then I closed the application and now it doesn't start any more. No error, nothing. I tried another software, rimhillex, which does work but gives me this error at launch:

Drive not ready
exception processing message c00000a3 parameters 75b6bf7c 4 75b6bf7c 75b6bf7c

The error message appears once per drive installed. I had two drives, the error popped up twice, once I disabled the virtual drive I only got the error once.

Once the error message is bypassed (by clicking on "cancel" or "continue"), the software runs fine. I don't know if I this error is caused by nero drivespeed, as I never used rimhillex before it.

Nero Drivespeed keeps its settings in the registry. I removed them, but the software still doesn't work. The settings don't reappear so it's unlikely those were the problem.

google didn't help me there. Some answers involve disabling the floppy drive, others to disable the error message itself through the registry. I use the floppy drive on this computer, and hiding the error doesn't make Nero Drivespeed work.

Any idea? Something must have happened between the first and the second launch of Nero DriveSpeed to make it not work, but I don't know what.

Not sure if I can be of much help, but a few questions. Are you launching Nero Drive Speed (NDS) directly or from the Nero Smart Launcher? When you attempt to launch NDS with the task manager open do you see the process start and then die, start and then freeze, or not start at all? Have you tried re-installing NDS? I assume you've rebooted your PC since NDS has failed to launch yes?

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Alright GAF, needing some help.

My PC is underperforming, and despite what I try, nothing seems to fix it. I've tried clearing out and reinstalling motherboard drivers, my display driver, flashing my BIOS, reinstalling Windows, but nothing seems to work. I have a GTX 970 and i7-6700k; the Witcher 3 was running at a near locked 60 FPS in previous weeks, now struggles to get above 40 in places like Velen and Novigrad. An MMO like Star Trek Online, which I used to run absolutely locked, now chokes at below 10 FPS.

It seems like something is choking my CPU and/or GPU usage - the former won't rise above 50% and the latter wouldn't go above 80% (and took a while to get there in Novigrad), where before the Witcher 3 was something I knew maxed out my graphics card's capabilities.

Is there something I've potentially forgotten, missed, or should test as a possible cause?

 

[Khaz]

Not sure if I can be of much help, but a few questions. Are you launching Nero Drive Speed (NDS) directly or from the Nero Smart Launcher? When you attempt to launch NDS with the task manager open do you see the process start and then die, start and then freeze, or not start at all? Have you tried re-installing NDS? I assume you've rebooted your PC since NDS has failed to launch yes?

I've rebooted plenty of time, yes. NDS doesn't come with an installer, it's a single executable that I got from here http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/CD-DVD-Rip-Other-Tools/Nero-DriveSpeed.shtml (it's not available any more from Nero). The process doesn't show up in the task manager, the hourglass cursor blinks once and that's it.

 

[ColdPizza]

Alright GAF, needing some help.

My PC is underperforming, and despite what I try, nothing seems to fix it. I've tried clearing out and reinstalling motherboard drivers, my display driver, flashing my BIOS, reinstalling Windows, but nothing seems to work. I have a GTX 970 and i7-6700k; the Witcher 3 was running at a near locked 60 FPS in previous weeks, now struggles to get above 40 in places like Velen and Novigrad. An MMO like Star Trek Online, which I used to run absolutely locked, now chokes at below 10 FPS.

It seems like something is choking my CPU and/or GPU usage - the former won't rise above 50% and the latter wouldn't go above 80% (and took a while to get there in Novigrad), where before the Witcher 3 was something I knew maxed out my graphics card's capabilities.

Is there something I've potentially forgotten, missed, or should test as a possible cause?

You using SSD or HDD? check drivers for those. If HDD defrag it. Sometimes a clean install after a full format will do the trick.

When is the last time you pulled off your case to check for dust? Make sure your GPU fan isn't clogged with dust.

Bring up your task manager during gameplay and make sure no CPU intensive background processes are running. Scan for viruses.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

You using SSD or HDD? check drivers for those. If HDD defrag it. Sometimes a clean install after a full format will do the trick.

When is the last time you pulled off your case to check for dust? Make sure your GPU fan isn't clogged with dust.

Bring up your task manager during gameplay and make sure no CPU intensive background processes are running. Scan for viruses.

SSD on Witcher 3, HDD on everything else. Opened it up like a month or so back, but will check. Doing a scan of my system right now.

 

[ColdPizza]

SSD on Witcher 3, HDD on everything else. Opened it up like a month or so back, but will check. Doing a scan of my system right now.

Just rattling off everything I can think of.

Make sure your virus scanner (if you have one) never does random scans while you're playing.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

...Okay, so I have three theories as to possible causes now:
1) Something is up with my GPU's VRAM. Compared to some vids I can find around, its usage in the Witcher 3 seemed low. Could be margin of error stuff, not all games being equal, but is there any way to test this?

2) Something is up with my CPU. I've realised some things seem slightly slower to load than previously, and I've noticed that according to instruments like 3DMark and CoreTemp its frequency is '4197' Mhz instead of 4200. So if that reading - however minor - is a possible sign of something being even more screwed up, what do I do?

3) Something is fundamentally up with my Nvidia drivers. The Nvidia icon isn't showing up in the icon tray, GeForce Experience takes a noticeable while to load, and struggles to connect with Nvidia's server, even just to check it doesn't need the update it already has. Does this seem a probable cause?

 

[Piercedveil]

I'm stuck.

For a few months now, my desktop PC has been hard-locking on me. No blue screening or crashing in any way. It simply just completely locks up. The screen stops but an image still appears and the audio goes silent.

I have run memtest with no problems, tested my HDD, and tested my SSD (that has Windows 10 on it). None of these things were the issue. I have updated drivers for everything including the motherboard.

What else can I do to diagnose the issue? I am worried my motherboard is the problem.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Well, the problem was definitely with my CPU. Felt risky to do, but I uninstalled one of the drivers from device manager, and after the reboot, got back all the performance I should have it.

Why did the solution have to be so obvious but vaguely risky?