Computer Performance Advice Please?

D

Doctor Varney

Cave dwelling Luddite
Right, I'm back and having another stab with what I've got. I'm doing my best to stay patient and calm. I'm willing to persevere... I think.

I've set up the big new AMD Phenom II x4 machine (4GB RAM) with Windows 7 Home Premium. It's taken me about four days of wrestling with driver installations and updates (which can take up to an hour each) to get this thing working anywhere near what I'd have expected from a modern computer. But things are still not right on this clean install and performance is arguably as bad as when I was using XP with the same hardware.

Under Windows 7 I've experienced incredibly slow boot times and a few crashes. I've inspected the Event Log in the Administration tools and found frequent errors and warnings leaning towards the critical.

By removing Start Up applications, I've managed to squeeze the boot time down slightly and the usual critical icon on last boot was relegated to an 'error' in the operational (start up) performance log.

I still have something called 'Yontoo' coming up in my list of installed programs, even though I have no clue what it is or where it came from, despite repeated attempts to uninstall. Any light cast on this would be appreciated.

I haven't yet installed any DAW software or hardware. This is just the basic system with networking; office and graphics production software. It's meant to be my main office/ business computer and that's what I'm setting it up for (at the moment).

Online performance seems satisfactory (fast) but overall, things still aren't as they should be and the CD RW drive has never worked - at all.
As for the CD drive, I've Googled hard and wide for answers and can find no solution that applies. That had me hunting for non-existent high and low filters to delete in the registry. I have repeatedly installed drivers and hunted high and low for better versions to no avail.

Both units I've tried have worked in other computers, so I know it's not the CD drives that are at fault. Two CD drives that previously worked under XP simply don't work under Windows 7. The drive shows up as an icon in the Computer window and Device Manager reports "This device is working properly". The lights come on but when I click on the drive, there's no one home.

So basically, my query boils down to: What steps do I need to take to speed up this system and get it running smooth and stable... and has anyone any suggestions as to what I might try to get this CD Drive (ANY CD drive) working with my PC?

In a nutshell - how do I turn this half-functional egg crate into a fully working computer?

Thanks for your time, friends.



Dr. V
 
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Hey Varney,
Sorry it hasn't gone well for you.

Damn, you're still getting crashes, even with a new OS?
Man, I'd really be starting to think there's an underlying hardware issue.
Are these BSOD crashes or what?

If this was my computer I'd swap out everything bit by bit to get to the bottom of it, starting with the hard drive.
I don't imagine you have draws of spare parts though, huh?

Maybe you can dump your logs here for someone to take a look at?

PS: Everything in google points to yontoo being no good. Perhaps you picked something up sifting through all those add-ridden driver pages?
 
Doctor Varney said:
... how do I turn this half-functional egg crate into a fully working computer?
Click to expand...

I hear that Best Buy has a special this week on ready-to-go-out-of-the-box computer systems......and they also do tech support for the systems they sell.


You know...you're talking about scouring event logs and messing with registry keys just to get a basic OS install running to "your specs"....and I just have to go :facepalm:
 
miroslav said:
You know...you're talking about scouring event logs and messing with registry keys just to get a basic OS install running to "your specs"....and I just have to go :facepalm:
Click to expand...

Did I mention it's a PC... running Windows? Microsoft Windows.

(Google it. There are hundreds of sites where people report terrible performance with Windows 7. That's how I found out about the events viewer).
 
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Steenamaroo said:
Are these BSOD crashes or what?
Click to expand...

No BSOD this time. It was while I was working in Photoshop and suddenly I got a save-before-closing warning for the file. I hit cancel and then sat back and watched the windows go out, one by one, like the stars at the end of the world. Then it tried to restart and wouldn't go past post. It's not doing that now, thankfully.

It has 'repaired' on a few occasions. Most likely because during this incredibly slow boot up cycle, I assumed it had frozen so went for a hard re-start. Obviously that was a mistake. But it's getting a little faster now. Almost as if it were breaking itself in... if you know what I mean.

Steenamaroo said:
If this was my computer I'd swap out everything bit by bit to get to the bottom of it, starting with the hard drive.
I don't imagine you have draws of spare parts though, huh?
Click to expand...

I have a few bits and pieces as it happens. I am thinking it may be the hard drive, too. You'd think a fresh install of the l̶a̶t̶e̶s̶t̶ newer OS would bang things to rights if it were a software environment issue. So yeah, I'm hoping it's just the hard drive as I have one or two kicking about in my box of spares.

Another thing I discovered is that according to the motherboard manual, the memory was ganged up in the wrong slots. So we put that right. Incidentally, I noticed a setting in the BIOS the other day for 'ganged and unganged mode' - and it made me wonder.

Steenamaroo said:
Maybe you can dump your logs here for someone to take a look at?
Click to expand...

Well, if you know what they mean, I'll be glad to...

Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Operational
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance
Date: 12/04/2013 22:12:42
Event ID: 100
Task Category: Boot Performance Monitoring
Level: Error
Keywords: Event Log
User: LOCAL SERVICE
Computer: MainOffice
Description:
Windows has started up:
Boot Duration : 103601ms
IsDegradation : false
Incident Time (UTC) : ‎2013‎-‎04‎-‎12T21:09:38.702800300Z
 
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Do you happen to have a spare hard drive?
If not, maybe you could run chkdsk on the current one.
My familiarity only goes as far as XP, but I'm sure the more modern OSs still have an option to schedule a disk check on boot.

My bad about the logs. I thought it was gona be a detailed crash log or something, like you get with a BSOD. Never mind.
 
Have you ever considered handing the computer over to someone who knows what they're doing to set it up for you and fix it. You don't seem to have any luck at all or a decent enough idea of performance error checking. It shouldn't cost too much and would save you a lot of arseache.
Personally i'd strip it back to bare bones. HDD, Ram, CPU and Disc Drive. Make sure all connections are tight and seated correctly. Do a long format with an XP disc and make sure everything is wiped, partitions etc. Then do a fresh install of Win7. Then add soundcard and everything else one by one, testing for performance issues on each new install.
 
Mr Clean said:
Personally i'd strip it back to bare bones. HDD, Ram, CPU and Disc Drive. Make sure all connections are tight and seated correctly. Do a long format with an XP disc and make sure everything is wiped, partitions etc. Then do a fresh install of Win7. Then add soundcard and everything else one by one, testing for performance issues on each new install.
Click to expand...

+! It really is at that stage now, IMO.
 
Yontoo is definately bad, virus bad. A quick search of google should show that. Either something was still on the drive when you installed windows 7, you used an upgrade, or you've gotten it after the install.

I would first clean the PC you can use the following tools for free (feel free to google them first)

ComboFix Download
Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware download

The first one there is combofix. It is great at cleaning up malware/spyware and anything else. Once it has started DO NOT STOP IT. Let it finish, I don't care if your couch is on fire leave the computer on and deal with the couch.

The second is malwarebytes, it's great at clean up too BUT it also does all the little things that combofix doesn't care about (like if some spyware is set in your computer startup combofix will delete the program but not remove the listing from startup so the computer still TRIES to start it even though it's gone). Run combofix first, reboot. Then run malwarebytes.

After both of those are run you should have a clean or fairly clean PC and we can diagnose any other problems that come up. With malware on the machine though any problem you have could be because of that, or something completely different. Slow startup times could be malware, could be hard drive or any other number of things.

I havent followed all the threads, so excuse me if this has been answered but what OS are you running exactly (win7 32 or 64 bit). Also what DAW, if you're running Pro Tools or some of the other major ones and you have 64 bit OS you might want to consider more RAM. It's a cheap upgrade and well worth it ($20+ depending on type of RAM).

Good luck!
 
After some searching on your error too do you have mcaffee installed as antivirus?

Have you run a checkdisk on your hard drive?
 
Thanks for the advice, Polarity.

I do not have McAffee. I use AVG Free.

I have used a program called YourUninstaller on it's 21 day free trial, just to get rid of Yontoo. This product almost gauranteed to remove things like this permanently. Now, if I go into Control Panel and look at my installed programs, it's still there. So, this didn't work.

I shall try Combofix and MalwareBytes next. I really do think that swapping out the drive and checking it through to find out if it's bad hardware would be wise. I shall have to wait until I know I have all the motherboard and utility drivers at hand before I do this. It's hard having downtime with a computer out of action at a time like this. At the moment, it just takes a very long time to boot up. Though this varies and sometimes seems to boot up in a reasonable time frame. It's still not ideal and I am sure it could be a lot faster, given that it's now running Windows 7.

Cheers

Dr. V
 
No use to you now but I got into the habit of keeping antivirus installers on a flash drive.
It meant any time I installed a windows OS (for someone else, of course :p ) I wouldn't have to go online without protection.
It's fooking ridiculous though that you can't install windows, download your drivers and find AV software without becoming infected.

I was gona say maybe it's lack of knowledge on my part, but the average user should be expected to have advanced knowledge.

The first time I installed OSX I was sold on apple. 15 minute unattended installation - No drivers required excluding audio interface - No AV required. It just worked man.
 
The problem is fairly simple at it's root. During the boot process something (or a number of somethings) are hanging while trying to start up causing delays. Once the windows boot time is over so many seconds you get that error. The trick is finding which thing is holding up the process. Unfortunately most things these days you download and install also install other crap with it (like yontoo).

Yontoo will not be removed by any standard process, you will have to run some type of removal tools to get rid of it (like combofix/malwarebytes or any of the other well know ones). Sadly enough having antivirus these days is not enough, it doesn't protect you from MOST of the issues people are having these days. Malware/spyware barely ever gets caught by your standard AVG/Norton/McAffee and now you need specialty applications for other types of security. The more secure you get the more your machine is loaded down with bloated software that slows everything down. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Personally I don't run any type of active monitoring (virus/spyware/etc). I keep my browsers up to date which helps a little, I run a weekly scan to clean up any problems and I don't open things I don't know. I also know how to spot fake websites and programs that most people would click on. With Yontoo on I know you are having a spyware problem, but we don't know if you're also having a hardware problem.

Check disk should be able to give you some idea if your hard drive is having errors. You can download memtest86 to see if your memory is working properly. If you've been in the BIOS you have probably also seen the hard drive tests there, I forget what it's called DPS or DHS self test, something like that. You could try that.

I would clean up the spyware first and then start looking at other problems.
 
Also if you happen to be at the computer at the same time I am (Any day from 8am - 4pm EST) I could always remote in and help you if you like.
 
Steenamaroo said:
The first time I installed OSX I was sold on apple. 15 minute unattended installation - No drivers required excluding audio interface - No AV required. It just worked man.
Click to expand...

Precisely why I'd love to go Apple Mac. Except I can't afford it right now. I was always the first one to point out that Macs were a waste of money, considering what a great PC you could build for a third of the cost - and do more with, due to customisable options. While all the time hiding a plethora of problems and issues that I now recognise Mac owners simply do not experience. I suspect it's the same for all the other PC die-hards I meet today. The PC is selectively praised and many niggles simply aren't mentioned - due to pride, I suppose.
 
polarity said:
Also if you happen to be at the computer at the same time I am (Any day from 8am - 4pm EST) I could always remote in and help you if you like.
Click to expand...

You're a star mate! Actually, I keep some pretty weird hours compared with the average Joe. We could do that. I'm very thankful for your offer. :)
 
Doctor Varney said:
I was always the first one to point out that Macs were a waste of money, considering what a great PC you could build for a third of the cost - and do more with, due to customisable options.
Click to expand...

I don't even see it to be honest.
The 'professional' models are a bit of a rip off, and 'customising' anything on apple.com is just silly money, but the mac mini and MBP are bang on in my opinion.
My bro bought a mini for about £600 there. I won't hear from that guy again for years, at least not to do with computers.lol.

PS: There's two votes for checkdisk. I'd do that ASAP.
If all this came down to a dying hard drive it'd be a kick in the stones.
 
I am a mac lover too (although most of my computer experience is built around PC.) I've done about 13 years of IT work (from customer support to programming or network admin / server admin / etc). I currently use a mac mini with Logic. Only paid $200 for the mac mini, grabbed some ram and a better hard drive online for cheap and I am good to go.

If you start looking at mac I would highly suggest checking craigslist/ebay for a used mac mini. You can do the same upgrades and have a great machine at a low cost.
 
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