My sons windows 7 64 PC has some strange behavior. Q9450 2.66 stock 6 gigs ram win 7 pro 64 Xonar DX sound Nvidia 560 Ti 449 core (stock) Large corsair heatsink A70 New Corsair 650 watt PS 1. USB ports would enable disable at times making the windows sound. I fix this by unplugging a USB to Monitor external port. Not sure why as it was not being used. 2. Certain windows actions will slow a game or 3D map editor etc to a crawl. Even exiting the game will leave windows very sluggish. Looking at the task manager reveals no application eating the cycles. 3. Rebooting helps for about 15 min then slow down again. 4. Unplugging PC for 5 minutes seems to have fixed it for 2 hours so far. I'm wondering if this is not from static build up. His PC sits on top of a plastic utility table (sold at Officemax) After using his mouse for sometime he would get up and if he touched the mouse the computer would restart. I fixed this by spraying anti static spray on his mouse mat. So could a slow static build up cause this erratic behavior? Also PC is not running hot nor is video card. My guess is its video card or static. It seems to be hardware related. Any ideas? Would it be better to put the computer on the floor so it could discharge any static to carpet? I'm a bit stumped on this one.
First, I would never put a computer directly on the floor, always put on some sort of platform...I keep mine on top of my desk... Next, I would try changing the video card and then the power supply to see if that helps.. A slow computer, Usually.. comes from the Video card or and the Ram/memory...
Video card done, PS is new. Could be ram. Its taken many static shocks which caused reboots. Static electricity may not seem like much to you but it is VERY high voltage (low amp) that can ruin computer chips. Will run memtest86 see if it finds a ram issue. Could also be video drivers or software conflicts. Alt tabbing seems to start the cycle of slowness. And while it was fixed yesterday after unplugging. Its back to slowness again after a alt tab.
Yes all on a HT surge protector. The static is from the carpet, son walks on carpet which causes static charge in his body. He then will touch the mouse and shocks the mouse which sends the static from mouse to PC and causes a reboot. Its happened to many people. The fix was just to spray the carpet and mouse pad with anti static spray. That was during winter (dry) now its high humidity so static should not be an issue. But he might be creating some static moving plastic mouse over plastic mesh mouse pad. Rubbing any type of plastic creates a charge. Thats why plastic lenses on eye glasses get dirty so much faster than glass. People rub lenses with dry cloth (should use spray) creates a charge on lense surface which then attacts charged dust particles. Glass does not do that. Anyway I think I may have solved it but need more time to test. The only thing that was changed was the system has a fresh OS install and I used the latest Nvidia drivers 301.42. I read some posts of other users having massive slow downs with those. I uninstalled and put in the previous drivers 296.10. So far the 296.10 seem better but have not been running it long enough to say its fixed. Fingers crossed, I'll know in a few hours.
Yes the video card drivers seem to have fixed it. This is not good for Nvidia gtx 670/680 owners. I have read many threads of people returning the card or reinstalling entire OS to fix. Alt Tabbling in a game or even a pop up ad while in game (ie. steam, avast etc) seems to start the endless slowdown cycle. Drivers 296.10 and below seem fine but the 300 series I think are meant for the newer 600 series cards. Those people either have not not alt tab ever or wait it out.
