New i7 system, sluggish performance

[aznxk3vi17]

Hey guys, wasn't sure where to ask this, since I still haven't found the underlying reason, but I figured since it was a video-related problem, it might be my video cards.

I just built a new system, with the following hardware:

Asus P6T Deluxe
i7 920
SLI Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked
G.SKILL 6GB 8-8-8-21 @ 1.6V
Zalman ZM850 Power supply (850 W)
WD Raptor 74GB as my Windows drive
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Everything is at stock right now (including the stock HSF on the i7 unfortunately). I was installing drivers as usual in a new system, when I noticed a peculiarity. After I installed the newest drivers for the video cards, when Windows booted, everything Aero-related was slow. Resizing windows, dragging icons and windows, all of it was slow. Tearing, areas of black before the video card can draw in the area, you name it.

When Aero is disabled, it actually runs better than enabled, which is silly, because that completely defeats the purpose of Aero. In my old box (680i chipset, one single 260), Windows ran fine, but I was using Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Does anybody know what is going on?

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: aznxk3vi17
Hey guys, wasn't sure where to ask this, since I still haven't found the underlying reason, but I figured since it was a video-related problem, it might be my video cards.

I just built a new system, with the following hardware:

Asus P6T Deluxe
i7 920
SLI Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked
G.SKILL 6GB 8-8-8-21 @ 1.6V
Zalman ZM850 Power supply (850 W)
WD Raptor 74GB as my Windows drive
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Everything is at stock right now (including the stock HSF on the i7 unfortunately). I was installing drivers as usual in a new system, when I noticed a peculiarity. After I installed the newest drivers for the video cards, when Windows booted, everything Aero-related was slow. Resizing windows, dragging icons and windows, all of it was slow. Tearing, areas of black before the video card can draw in the area, you name it.

When Aero is disabled, it actually runs better than enabled, which is silly, because that completely defeats the purpose of Aero. In my old box (680i chipset, one single 260), Windows ran fine, but I was using Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Does anybody know what is going on?

DId you have old Nvidia drivers before installing the new ones or are they fresh?

 

[aznxk3vi17]

I was working on a fresh format, there was absolutely nothing on the drive.

 

[cmdrdredd]

chipset drivers updated, latest updates for vista etc?

Also, have you tried disabling one GPU and trying it? See if it's SLI.

 

[aznxk3vi17]

Yeah, I got the latest chipset drivers from Asus, and did a full Windows Update.

I've tried disabling SLI, but that didn't fix it. Maybe I should go and take one card completely out?

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: aznxk3vi17
Yeah, I got the latest chipset drivers from Asus, and did a full Windows Update.

I've tried disabling SLI, but that didn't fix it. Maybe I should go and take one card completely out?

Yea try that. Reinstall the drivers then see if that works.

 

[aznxk3vi17]

Thing is, my in-game and benchmarking numbers are all great. Almost 19k in Futuremark (the 3D portion). The sluggish performance seems almost entirely isolated to Aero.

But if removing one card fixes it... what does that mean? The card obviously is working fine due to my in-game performance.

 

[wwswimming]

that's a driver problem. you have a very fast computer.

similar thing happened when i tried an ATI X800XT AIW, "All in Wonder". slower than
the old MSI nVidia 5600 i was upgrading from (which, incidentally, got Tom's Hardware
"best video card of the year award" in about 2002). way slower.

 

[Hauk]

Even if you didn't have nV drivers installed and Windows was using the default driver, you should see faster performance in Aero. I've ran for a day or so before installing nV drivers with 260's, Windows snaps quite well with the default driver.

Only thing I can think of.. on my Rampage II, Vista has an issue with the 2nd or 3rd card slots, as it puts an exclamation point on cards in device manager, but the primary slot is cool with the default driver. What card is your monitor plugged in to? Should be the top one.

Nothing like a fresh OS install. If you end up trying it, do it with one card only and install 2nd card only after nV drivers and all updates.

 

[Keysplayr]

It could also be that the Windows installation went askew. It happens sometimes. And doing all the Windows updates all at once leaves a big window of opportunity for something to write over a much more desired driver version for a particular component. For example, I installed Windows Vista 32 last night on my 790i SLI Ultra. All went perfectly well. After the base install, I then installed the latest motherboard drivers from eVGA. That went perfect. Installed latest Forceware 180.48's, and that went perfect. Finally, I wanted to run Vantage, so I installed that, but states it needs Service Pack 1 to run. So, I went to Windows update, and found over 70 updates needed. I let it run. Everything not so perfect after that. It never fully finished installing the updates, and the computer would never get passed the "Configuring Updates" message on the screen. Even leaving it overnight, the same message still persisted.

I couldn't even get it to run in safe mode. So, one or more of those updates borked my freshly installed OS. So, this morning, I reinstalled Vista, and went through the motions again. Mobo drivers, Video, all good. Then went to Windows update again. This time, I went through each available update and disabled anything to do with an updated driver version (Nvidia SATA, Ethernet, etc.)
and only did the non driver indicative updates. That worked. Everything is working well. I am now in the process of installing SP1, which is really the only thing I wanted in the first place. Should be done in a bit (crosses fingers) and I'll report back on how that goes.

I would try starting again, reinstall Vista after a drive format and go through all the updates individually and disable any update pertaining to a driver. My 12 cents.

Good Luck.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Have you tried Nvidia's beta driver v180.84?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/w...a_x64_180.84_beta.html

 

[chizow]

Is this just Aero? Or DreamScene also? There's been some driver notes with DreamScene so you may want to pursue that. It can make your desktop sluggish however from my experience with it, but nothing to the extent you described. Aero by itself shouldn't be a problem so if you have DreamScene enabled try disabling it.

 

[aznxk3vi17]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Have you tried Nvidia's beta driver v180.84?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/w...a_x64_180.84_beta.html

These did the trick. Being the OCD freak that I am, I'm not satisfied with simply having the problem fixed. Before I upgraded to i7, the drivers were running just fine. Did i7 have some compatibility issues, or something?

Either way, thanks a bunch, everybody - I can now enjoy this screamer to the full (even moreso when my TRUE 1366 backplate arrives).

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: aznxk3vi17

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Have you tried Nvidia's beta driver v180.84?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/w...a_x64_180.84_beta.html

These did the trick. Being the OCD freak that I am, I'm not satisfied with simply having the problem fixed. Before I upgraded to i7, the drivers were running just fine. Did i7 have some compatibility issues, or something?

Either way, thanks a bunch, everybody - I can now enjoy this screamer to the full (even moreso when my TRUE 1366 backplate arrives).

The x58 mobos did introduce a set of issues with SLI configurations. Since Nvidia didn't design the x58 and couldn't directly verify that it worked seemlessly, well they had to work around the x58 after release.

 

[Hauk]

cmdrdredd, you get the of the day for starting simple.

OP, maybe you should reinstall OS and upgrade psu just to be safe though.

 

[mmike70]

I was having the same issue with my new 260GTX 216. I noticed right off working on photos that panning was very slow with tearing all over the place, sluggish window resizing and scrolling and the 180.84 drivers did help but I'm still not seeing any upgraded performance in this very important area. I also tried the latest 185 driver but I just got a black login screen.

Still, an "old" 8800GTS 320MB on the same p6t motherboard w/ i7 920 @ 3.9Ghz is faster with either the 180.84 or 180.48 drivers so I don't think it's exclusively an x58 issue. Since my primary use for the box is photo processing (also with some gaming) I was ready to put the 8800 back in until I tried the new driver even though it's not perfect.

If you can, could you try an experiment? Turn off aero (switch to basic or classic)...Open task manager to the performance tab...and resize that window. On my system, with either driver, the whole screen flickers badly so I think that there is still something broken. The 2D passmark score I got on my old amd x2 4800+ w/ 7800gt is higher than what I'm still getting with the i7 @ 3.9GHz and 260GTX 216 with aero on or off.

EDIT: Just checked in passmark for other systems to baseline off of and a core2duo @ 3.1Ghz running an ultra 6800 gets 1700 in the same 2D test where I'm getting getting 700 w/ v180.84 drivers. Turning off aero futher degrades performance to the 500 range and I wouldn't let anyone prone to siezures watch it while running, it's that bad. Also, my macbook, running vista64 in a fusion VM, displayed on the same 1920x1200 monitor scrolls perfectly smooth....so frustrating.