Sluggish performance in Vista64

C

crankerchick

New Member
I have been battling a problem with my new build for almost 3 months. My rig:
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
Core2Quad Q6600
G.Skill DDR2-800 2x2GB
Geforce 6800 GT
PC&P Silencer 500W
WD Black 1 TB
Vista Home Premium 64-bit

My performance is terrible! This is my first experience with vista. My pc runs sluggishly, sims 2 game crashes at startup, my other 2 games (half life 2, left 4 dead) are very choppy and unplayable. Browsing playlist in iTunes with cover art displayed is choppy and slow (unusable, i have to turn the cover art off).

If I take out 1 of my sticks of RAM it seems fine. If i load XP, it seems fine, even with both sticks.

I have ran memtest on my ram, tried my ram in all the slots, ran prime 95 for hours with no errors, ran diagnostics on my hdds, rma'd my motherboard (they returned it saying nothing was wrong with it), purchased a new motherboard (asus p5q), tried 2 other kinds of RAM, updated all of my drivers, reinstalled vista a billion times, and NOTHING has worked.

The only thing left to replace is my cpu and before I go through that hassle, I just want to exhaust the last avenue, since the problem is only evident in vista with all my memory sticks installed.

Does vista not like my 6800 GT when I'm using all my RAM? It seems silly that its a hardware issue considering things work fine in XP and considering all my other hardware seems ok. Any insight?
 
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My Computer

System One

your video card is a bit of a clunker. it was manufactured wayyyy back in 2004.that is probably what is slowing your system. especially if you have all of vista's eye candy on.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Aleinware Area-51
    CPU
    core 2 extreme x9000 2.8 Ghz
    Memory
    4 Gig
    Graphics Card(s)
    (2) Nvidia 8800m GTX in Sli
    Sound Card
    Onboard RealTek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    42" JVC LCD HDTV
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080p 32 bit
    Hard Drives
    (2) seagate 7200rpm in RAID 0
    (1) maxtor external 1 terabyte firewire
    Case
    laptop
    Keyboard
    a really spiffy backlit one that i can change color ;>)
    Mouse
    logitech Anywhere Mouse and built-in touchpad
    Internet Speed
    Cable
yeah it is old, i know that. i am going to upgrade it soon but didn't at first because its supposed to work fine with vista.

in fact, it does work fine in vista when i use just 1 stick of memory. i'm trying to understand why more memory makes my performance suck.
 

My Computer

System One

are the two memory modules EXACTLY identical?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Aleinware Area-51
    CPU
    core 2 extreme x9000 2.8 Ghz
    Memory
    4 Gig
    Graphics Card(s)
    (2) Nvidia 8800m GTX in Sli
    Sound Card
    Onboard RealTek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    42" JVC LCD HDTV
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080p 32 bit
    Hard Drives
    (2) seagate 7200rpm in RAID 0
    (1) maxtor external 1 terabyte firewire
    Case
    laptop
    Keyboard
    a really spiffy backlit one that i can change color ;>)
    Mouse
    logitech Anywhere Mouse and built-in touchpad
    Internet Speed
    Cable
I'm not sure how to verify that. I can tell you I purchased them in a kit. I also purchased OCZ 1066 memory in a kit, and tried my friend's SLI memory (kit also) and observe the same behavior each time. Find it hard to believe 3 different kits all have mismatched sticks.
 

My Computer

System One

for anyone who may have the same problem. i fixed the problem by replacing my video card. my card is not broken, it works fine in other systems. apparently, there's something with vista and "more memory" that was causing my performance hiccups. i'm curious to know what the issue is, but i've seen at least 2 other forum posts of the same issue with the 6800 gt card and larger amounts of RAM.

My card ran fine in XP with 4 gb of RAM, but in vista, it didn't like 4 gb and ran better with 2 gb.
 

My Computer

System One

well i can tell you one thing about it, that the card doesn't work on and that is an almost 0 compatibility with a 64 bit system there is your issue right their with your graphis your system was slugish because it was using the cpu or onboard graphics to generate the images rather than the graphics card and probably causing memory conflicts as well or some other mishap within your system.

thier is no getting around it though if you want better performance from a home built system do a little research into what you are buying for it first make sure everything is compatable before fitting it, may seem like a drag spending some time that way but the upshot is alot less time trying to solve problems.

glad to hear you got is sorted though and do remember everyone when building a 64 bit system their is alot of hardware out their that is not compatable with 64 bit :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    me
    CPU
    intel Q6600 @3.0Ghz
    Motherboard
    gigabyte EP35C DS3R
    Memory
    8 GB OCZ 1066 HPC REAPER
    Graphics Card(s)
    Sapphire 4870 HD 1024mb gddr5
    Monitor(s) Displays
    lg flatron 20.1
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    western digital 350gb
    samsung spinpoint 120gb
    PSU
    900w
    Case
    thermaltake aguila
    Cooling
    2x 120mm 2x 10cm
I did plenty of research and went to both nvidia site and microsoft to check compatibility of that card with vista64.

The card ran fine with vista64 on 3 different motherboards as long as I limited the system RAM under 4 GB. There is no doubt a compatibility issue, although I question if lack of research is a good explanation, considering if I had just chose to to instal 2x1GB of RAM I would have never found this "incompatibility" in the first place.
 

My Computer

System One

crankerchick said:
Being that I like to support my claims:
Windows Vista Compatibility Evga 256MB DDR3 GeForce 6800GT PCI-E
Click to expand...

Yeah, just posted almost the exact same thing in http://www.vistax64.com/gaming/209783-6800gt-vista64-6gb-ram-issue.html]. Definitely compatible. Nvidia even offers a vista 64 driver that supports the 6800GT.

well i can tell you one thing about it, that the card doesn't work on and that is an almost 0 compatibility with a 64 bit system there is your issue right their with your graphis your system was slugish because it was using the cpu or onboard graphics to generate the images rather than the graphics card and probably causing memory conflicts as well or some other mishap within your system.
Click to expand...
The lack of research response is ridiculous, unless you really think my mobo/cpu was capable of rendering aero at 1920x1200.
 
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My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    i7 920 (slight OC)
    Motherboard
    x58 "Blood Rage"
    Memory
    6GB (3 x 2 GB) Corsair Dominator
    Graphics Card(s)
    2x GTX 285 SSC (SLI)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    24" LG
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    PSU
    800w "Black Widow"
    Case
    HAF 932
    Cooling
    Liquid Cooled NB and CPU
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