Vista, not responding

[Chrono]

so ive had vista now for a few weeks, its nice... new visuals and stuff.

althou i keep hearing that it is much more stable that xp. and i have yet to see this.

vista manages to stop my programs responding, from games, net, media player etc. i just wanna load up and listen to music, and bam... it stops responding

it seems its killin my apps at least 4 times a day, and its annoying as heck. whats worse is it wont even let me stop that process, it normally will kill the whole system, and force me to reset.

this is just gettin insane... what causes this? cos i dont wanna feel i blew hundreds of dollars on this thing, that i would rather run 98 over.

my harddisk is only months old, and vista was installed fresh after a format.

anything else that could cause this, and any way i can fix it?

cheers

 

[atomic tofu]

besides the sig specs....what is the hardware for your vista? Some people try to run Vista with nearly minimum specs...doing so gives behavior like you mention

many people run Vista flawlessly, me included....E6600, 2gb, 1800 ATI 512mb...etc

 

[Chrono]

ok, currenty got a amd 5600+ x2, only upgraded this a few days ago from the 3500+. also runnin 1gb ram, 7900gt 256mb, asus m2n-sli deluxe, 320 WD hard disk, and running vista home premium. cant think of anything else to add. still happeneing after upgrade too.

it also seems to not shutdown correctly 70% of the time, and it just stays on the screen where it says 'shutting down', but even after waiting 30 mins, it never does, but it hasnt frozen, as the little O is still moving. very frustrating, and not sure if the two are linked.

also, one last thing, how much should vista hamper game frame rates, as ive been running world of warcraft with xp, and could crank the gfx on full, and have no trouble anywhere, but now with vista, ive had to lower most of the gfx to about 25%, and its still unplayable in some cities... i did know it would hurt my frame rates, but had no idea it would hurt them this much.


is this due to my comp being not fast enuf? or something wrong with my setup anything?

 

[atomic tofu]

with computers and the pc world where we all build our own and put random junk on it...the answers COULD be limitless...as are the questions

You have all your hardware at stock right? Nothing OC'd? Factory defaults in bios? What else do you have installed, software wise?

Your setup should be fairly fine for performance. If anything, the Vista performance hit might be something as a negligible 10% and I am stressing MAYBE. Currently I am stuck using ATI with my Vista ...but I am sure nvidia drivers are still better than ATI. You are at latest drivers for gpu? Also, I am not sure, but I think people have had problems with the latest one? But, again, only guessing....casual glancing at posts not related to my gpu, etc.

I am not sure how asus handles their mobo's, but I always look for bios updates for mine, intel975xbx. Fortunately intel seems to provide constant and stead bios updates...and I flash about every 2 months or whenever they have it.

I'm going to make a guess that you have some other software app on your system that is bottlenecking you.

 

[KSoD]

Also another thing i have to add is this. If you are using a not so legit copy of Vista there are known leaks out there that are very bad. As in they hacked and slashed Vista to the point that no matter what machine you install it on it wont work. Ever.

So my 2nd thing will be this. Did you upgrade or fresh install? If you upgraded any issue, big or small, that you had on XP whether known or not is affecting Vista.

Myself i have no issues running Vista. Shuts down fine. Games run at 99% what they do on XP if not 110%. Depends on the game. To me it sounds like a bad install and should be formatted and reinstalled.

 

[Chrono]

all my hardware is stock... i dont oc or anything.
my bios is abit old, and i have the latest nvidia driver, althou ill check em all, and update again tomorrow.

also, this is a genuine copy, its OEM if that makes a diff, althou i doubt it would. was a fresh install, formatted my disk and everything, althou i did notice that it was a quick format, which i didnt want, but happened anywayz... hopefully no biggie, but seems like it might be.

anywayz, cheers guys, anymore info would be great, but in the mean time, i guess ill look into updating more drivers, and bios... if i still get it, ill try another format... hopefully all goes well

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

Did you do a Vista upgrade or a clean install of Windows Vista?

 

[atomic tofu]

i am thinking it's the quick format thing....

MAYBE there were bad sectors or something and you should have full formatted. If you ever do a quick format like this again...say from 2-4 years of no reinstalls from an XP machine...go back and check and that drive will actually have a huge amount of fragmentation. I did this with 2 hps...only reinstalling xp though, quick formats on both....lots of fragmentation still

 

[Chrono]

Hello,

Did you do a Vista upgrade or a clean install of Windows Vista?

it was a clean install

 

[reubix]

Run some memory diagnostics and test the hard disk. Doesn't matter how new your hardware is. I've had memory come bad direct from the vendor. I've had bad drives too. It's just how it goes sometimes there is a bad apple.

I'd say if all the hardware passed maybe some of the applications you're running aren't fully compatiable with Vista or something.

I'd lean towards the hardware personally.

Could get a copy of Memtest and Drive Fitness Test to test the hardware.

Good luck.