[Woomera]

ok this problem been making me crazy for more than 3 month now, i have laggs. in all applications and some games. no matter if im browsing websites, going through folders or playing games.
audio stuttering, video games dropping fps constantly and explorer.exe freezing for a second or 2 often.

• tried re-installing windows several times. both 7 x64 and 8 RP x64
  
• tried several versions of the drivers
  
• tried to see which driver might be causing this using performance monitor and saw tcpip.sys cause some spikes which i resolved by uninstalling wireless driver
  
• tried disbaling powermizer through registry to see if the nvidia card us causing this but no change
  
• on fresh install didnt install any software and just drivers and checked the dpc latency after each driver installation to pinpoint the faulty driver if any
  
• same story in safe mode

this is the screenshot from DPC Latency Checker:


This is Latencymon:


funny thing about latencymon is that i disabled virtual memory completely since i got 6gb of ram i didnt need the pagefault anyway but the result were the same O.o
anyone have more idea's on what could be the cause? im going crazy here guys.
all drivers are up-to-date downloaded from acer product page (5750G laptop)

thanks

This post has been edited by Woomera: 16 August 2012 - 07:25 AM

[MagicAndre1981]

Installxperfand run this command from a CMD with admin rights:

xperf -on latency+ ALL_FAULTS -stackwalk profile -buffersize 1024 -MaxFile 256 -FileMode Circular && timeout -1 && xperf -d Hardfaulttraceetl

wait until you get the issue, go to the cmd and press a key to stop logging. Zip the file and upload it.

[Woomera]

i dont think i can do that anymore, deleted my windows 7 and installed 8 RTM. SDK 7 doesnt work properly on 8.

BTW i have also tried these steps before:

• Monitoring the temperatures looking for high numbers but wasnt it
  
• try running the games with both nvidia and integrated intel graphic both same result
  
• i have scanned my HDD with windows built-in scanner but no problems were found
  
• low-level HDD scanners finds couple of bad blocks but as far as i know a couple of them are alright as long as the number doesnt increase, right?
  
• both windows 8 built-in and 3rd party RAM scanners including memtest didnt find anything wrong with my RAM

EDIT: found the windows 8 SDK, downloading right now. will get back to you with the file. thank you

This post has been edited by Woomera: 16 August 2012 - 12:20 PM

[Woomera]

k i installed the SDK but cant run the command, getting this error: "xperf: error: -on: does not expect 2 argument(s)"

[Woomera]

i ran "xperf -on latency -stackwalk profile" from your guide HERE
result: Dropbox

[MagicAndre1981]

please use the Windows 8 version of the WPT which is part of the Windows 8 ADK

http://msdn.microsof...rdware/gg454513

and make a new trace.

From what I can see it maybe Windows Defender, but the old xperf version was not avle to capture proper process names.

[Woomera]

actually i was, using the WPT from SDK 8 which is for windows 8 when i created the trace file but even though i didnt get the error this time but i think there's a registry key that should be altered before creating WPT logs on X64 machines to get the full data.
the tracing process usually used to show me the alert on windows 7 but didnt get any here in win 8.

This post has been edited by Woomera: 16 August 2012 - 03:21 PM

[MagicAndre1981]

ah, ok, I've used the Win7 xperfview t open it

I looked at the hardfault graph and looked at the summary table of the spikes and looks lie Defender is the cause.

I'm always disabling Defender, it is the worst crap. Also Google Chrome and the DWM services uses the disk extremely (it takes over 2s to load the C:\Windows\System32\d3d11.dll) which is a few kB. Is your TOSHIBA MK6465GSX ok? Have you checked the SMART values?

[Woomera]

i have already disabled Defender and installed MBAM and EAM but with both of them disabled i still get the spikes on hard pagefault.
as for chrome is this general? do you recommend i switch to another browser or is it just happening to me?
should i always disable DWM? i dont care about the fancy UI stuff anyway?

ok this is the detail information from a program called GSmartControl and the result was the reason why i did HDD tests:




and this is the log from error log tab:
https://dl.dropbox.c..._2012-08-17.txt

[MagicAndre1981]

chrome doesn't cause hardfaults, but like DWM it use 100% of the DISk for some time:

 disk_IO_100.png (17.87K)
Number of downloads: 5

The SMART values should be fine. Do you use the Intel or MSFT AHCI drivers?

[Woomera]

Acer hasnt released Drivers for windows 8 yet, at least not for 5750g but in 7 were i had the same issue it was Intel ACHI 10.1.5.1001 driver.
i tried installing the ACHI driver for 7 in 8 and it seems to be working but i got those logs and numbers before that.

[TheWalrus]

No sh** you are getting weird lags, your hard disk is pretty much dead already. Immediatelly backup and get new one, and don't look for problems where there are none

[Woomera]

lol may i ask the reason for that conclusion?
not that i doubt but just so i can learn.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Quote

No sh** you are getting weird lags, your hard disk is pretty much dead already. Immediatelly backup and get new one, and don't look for problems where there are none

You were referring to the SMART summary? Well he cannot rule out a HDD problem but it is not certain that it is failing. I wish SMART was reliable but I personally don't it trust fully.

The only thing I remember seeing that resembles the symptoms (intermittent lags in a variety of unrelated software) was in fact a failing HDD, but on a Win9x system and with FAT32 (a blue screen "Missing Disk" was the main clue, but the disk returned after reboot). SMART did not help in that case either.

Fundamentals first. I assume it is a SATA drive, so ...

(1) Swap out the SATA data cable for another and test.

(2) Then I would try a different SATA power connector and test.

(3) Then I would try connecting the SATA data cable to a different motherboard SATA port. Try them all. I can imagine tangled registry settings tying a HDD to a certain port but failing on others but I can't explain why.

(for noobs that might be reading this later, swapping connectors in those three tests are down with the power off )

(4) Doublecheck BIOS for failing battery by looking for changed settings, also make sure IDE/AHCI isn't reversed.

I believe after that you can rule out hardware (except for the actual HDD) as the culprit. Next step would be to fire up the manufacturer native HDD diags and see what they say.

None of this supercedes what MagicAndre1981 is getting at. It is only to rule out the easy problems, and it is easy to do, so why not.

Quote

i have already disabled Defender and installed MBAM and EAM but with both of them disabled

I do not believe disabling is sufficient because both of them load drivers in \Drivers or \IoSubsys (can't remember, maybe both?) and such files are loaded at bootup and should still be visible in Autoruns and with several Nirsoft programs. Whether they can affect the system this way I am not sure, but in my opinion they are not completely innocent until completely removed.

[Woomera]

i could not find any official Toshiba diag tool that supports SATA drives.

since this is a laptop doing the swapping stuff would be hard unless i ask a friend to lend me his/her laptop ....

Nothing suspicious in Bios. and it is set to ACHI/SATA

as for other hardwares except HDD then RAM im sure is ok since i have tested with memtest and windows own memory test and it looks fine. checked both graphic cards and both same issue so its none of them so we're left with Motherboard and CPU but honestly dunno how to effectively scan those 2.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Quote

since this is a laptop doing the swapping stuff would be hard unless i ask a friend to lend me his/her laptop ....

Oh, a Laptop. My bad. Sorry for all the previous SATA ideas. Well a laptop makes data/power cable swapping impossible, but you should still have a spare HDD connector in there for a 2nd drive and this would still be a worthwhile test (swapping connectors). After moving the HDD to the other connector you should doublecheck in the BIOS that it is recognized and can boot from that connector, etc. If after testing the HDD on the alternate connector the lags disappear then you can just leave it there and be done with it and chalk it up to that connector or the controller failing. But if they still occur ...

Look for a heat problem. What I always do with slow or flakey laptops is take off all the removable covers on the bottom, blow out any dust with compressed air (side vents too) and then place the laptop on a really good super fan/cooler to greatly increase the airflow and then test (I mean a good laptop cooler, there should be a lot of air moving or else it is a waste of time). This is the number one problem with laptops - heat. If the lags do not return then you got your problem nailed and you must work on a permanent airflow solution. If the lags do return even with the greatly increased airflow ...

Next idea would be to get another HDD and clone the existing disk and its working OS (two connectors necessary obviously), pull the old drive, leave in the new (cloned) drive and boot and test. If the lags are gone, it is certain that the old HDD is unreliable (in fact, you may discover this during cloning process) and you can just shelve it and keep using the new cloned disk. But if the lags do return you can safely rule out the original HDD as the problem (plus you get a spare HDD which is not a bad thing) and have most likely narrowed it down to the OS (or other software and drivers) which carried forth to the new HDD when the OS was cloned. So ...

As a proof, I would simply clean install Windows on the new HDD (wipe out the cloned OS). If this new installation is lag-free, then you know for a fact it is the OS (or other software) generated. You could now run the old one (by itself, swap it back in, pull the new one) with the original Windows install to try to nail down the definite OS or software glitch at your leisure. Recap: new drive has working new OS, old drive has old problem OS. I would make a point of exporting the registry on the old one and backing up all shortcuts, apps, data and copying it to the new one (but do not import this complete exported registry, ever!). You could even try the Windows Easy Transfer thingie (which I have never used so I cannot speak about it) or some other migration tool.

I would then finally place the new drive as C: add the old drive as a D: (check that BIOS boots from new HDD!) and copy whatever needs to copied to the working new drive. You can leave D: as a spare in there, format it, etc, but it is better to just yank it out and leave it on the shelf as a fallback, because even brand new drives can die suddenly.

[Woomera]

i checked and there's no extra connector and getting a new HDD for testing is almost impossible since the guy im getting the HDD from shouldnt be needing any of the data on the drive (ill check though).

as for Heat as i mentioned in the first post (if i have ) i have checked and there's no issue.

so at this point i think i have to just buy a new HDD and see IF it was the problem!?

but is there anyway to test cpu and mainboard and see if any of them is the problem?

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Please post the link to manufacturer page for the exact Acer laptop (no time to search right now).

Oh, presumably you have a PDF of the exact manual, are you certain there are no built-in diagnostics? They are usually on a small hidden FAT partition accessible through F-keys at bootup similar to BIOS access.

[Woomera]

here is the link for manual/bios/drivers...: http://support.acer....px?modelId=3475

the bios only has a few options and no diagnostic tools and it only prompt for F2 key for bios menu.

[MagicAndre1981]

run this command:

http://blogs.msdn.co...i-o-issues.aspx

and give me the new trace.