Windows 8.1 RTM; Anyone With These Issues?


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So, who decided to test the RTM waters? Wondering if anyone has ran in to a similar issue as mine. 

 

I installed 8.1 RTM on a Desktop and it ran perfectly for a few hours. All of a sudden, it started slowing down, badly. It too a long time for windows to switch and key presses to resolve. I thought something funky was going on so I forced it off and on.

 

When it boot it took a long time and eventually BSOD with a "CRITICAL_ERROR". 

 

I had to re-install the RTM which went well until boot, but everything was still slow. When I finally logged in again it wiped all my Windows.OLD folders (ie. all other folders besides personal docs where gone now). 

 

Everything was still taking a long time to resolve. When I got to the Event Viewer, it had a bunch of warnings of things taking longer than expected. Between 20-130 seconds for some events.

 

Even know, things are moving sluggishly. Like there's some heavy process always working. I'm not sure if it's a driver issue or if my HDD has started to fail independent (I have a Linux dual boot and it runs fine). 

 

So has anyone who's ventured to test RTM seen similar issues?

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I haven't encountered anything like that here and I upgraded from the 8.1 Preview. If it's potentially a HDD issue then you might want to install CrystalDisk Info and see if it gives you any warning indicators, though if Linux works fine that seems unlikely.

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sounds like it might be a hardware related issue to me

have you tried a clean install? formatting completely and reinstalling?

what are the errors and warnings you're getting in event viewer?

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sounds like it might be a hardware related issue to me

have you tried a clean install? formatting completely and reinstalling?

what are the errors and warnings you're getting in event viewer?

 

Well, I did an install maintaining only personal files and shooting everything else over to a Windows.OLD folder. Then after the first weird slowdown I did a Refresh, as neither a system restore and safe-mode boot did not work. So I'm not sure what else it could be. 

As far as Jimmy James's comment, I've installed the same image on several systems. And if there are any such items they haven't shown up on the other systems. They've been smooth as butter for the most part. I'll definitely try that disk utility.... if the machine can manage to go to the site, download it, install it, and run it, seems all of that should be a good 2 hours or so the way it's been moving.

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I thought maybe it was SATA controller driver issues, but I notice you're on the same board as my via your sig. So I guess it should all be good. Unless I'm using the "wrong" SATA port. I'm hoping it's not the drive, but will run the utility after work. I already ran the Linux memory check and my RAM seems healthy. 

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Well as an update. I ran the disk utility, all seemed good (from what I could understand of it) except for a yellow on high access/spinning. I decided to do a de-fragmentation and it ran for a good 8~10 hours. Woke up, it seemed smoother. Rebooted, and it was back to booting quickly again. However it went right back to sputtering after log in. I really have no clue what the cause could be.

Any further help would be appreciated, I'll keep trying my hand at it and re-post of I find a solution or cause... 

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You could try going into power options and selecting the 'High Performance' mode and then under advanced settings set the hard disk to never power down. It's possible that power saving features are interfering, though it's a bit of a long shot.

 

Have you installed the motherboard drivers for the chipset? If you're experiencing I/O related issues then that might be a contender. If that doesn't help then I'd suspect your HDD is failing and yellow warnings in CrystalDisk Info would support that.

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First thing first. Is your display driver WHQL? Install any WHQL driver. The one for Windows 8.0 will do as well. Do not install preview/beta drivers.

 

Your's is 90% driver related issue and 10% incompatible software.

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I have the weird, faded text views on IE and folders. I'm assuming it's driver-related since I saw the same thing in the Preview version.

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You could try going into power options and selecting the 'High Performance' mode and then under advanced settings set the hard disk to never power down. It's possible that power saving features are interfering, though it's a bit of a long shot.

 

Have you installed the motherboard drivers for the chipset? If you're experiencing I/O related issues then that might be a contender. If that doesn't help then I'd suspect your HDD is failing and yellow warnings in CrystalDisk Info would support that.

 

Thing is, It's my desktop. I'm not sure these settings would be of use, as they are set by default this way, no? Could a few bad sectors really cause these massive slow down issues? I ran Crystal software had a warning of 00000005 under C5. I ran a CheckDisk and now it's a value of 000000CD. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it probably is my drive. 

 

I did update my chip set drivers, the most recent being from Dec. 2012. I'm really wondering if it's a HW situation. I'm going to contact Newegg about an RMA, but I dunno.

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Sometimes one of my screens won't come on. I have two DVI screens, one VGA and one USB screen. When the USB screen is connected, one of the DVI screens won't come on. I have to turn it off and on again (golden tip any time).

I think that's a NVidia driver issue though...

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Thing is, It's my desktop. I'm not sure these settings would be of use, as they are set by default this way, no? Could a few bad sectors really cause these massive slow down issues?

Hardware failures are unpredictable, especially when related to HDDs. Currently I have three drives showing up as yellow with CrystalDisk Info - two of them are performing fine but one I'm certain is failing given the symptoms. In my case the error is located in C5, which is the 'Current Pending Sector Count'.

 

To eliminate hardware issues you should rollback to Windows 8 and see if the same issues are present. While there aren't many significant changes between 8.0 and 8.1 it's still a good idea to rule out 8.1 being the issue here.

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Hardware failures are unpredictable, especially when related to HDDs. Currently I have three drives showing up as yellow with CrystalDisk Info - two of them are performing fine but one I'm certain is failing given the symptoms. In my case the error is located in C5, which is the 'Current Pending Sector Count'.

 

To eliminate hardware issues you should rollback to Windows 8 and see if the same issues are present. While there aren't many significant changes between 8.0 and 8.1 it's still a good idea to rule out 8.1 being the issue here.

 

Yea, this is what I wanted to avoid checking. But I think it's the best idea. I'm afraid to install stuff on the offchance things are indeed messed up, and not a simple driver error. I'll try that over the weekend and report back. If it's an 8.1 issue, people'd like to know, if it's my issue, it'll clear up the post. 

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Yea, this is what I wanted to avoid checking. But I think it's the best idea. I'm afraid to install stuff on the offchance things are indeed messed up, and not a simple driver error. I'll try that over the weekend and report back. If it's an 8.1 issue, people'd like to know, if it's my issue, it'll clear up the post. 

Yeah, either way it's good to let people know. I've been in similar situations and it can be incredibly frustrating, especially having to reinstall Windows.

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Yeah, either way it's good to let people know. I've been in similar situations and it can be incredibly frustrating, especially having to reinstall Windows.

 

Quite, and as an update; I went ahead and tried to re-instlal 8.1, then tried launching Ubuntu (randomly could get in, when it did it was smooth...ish). And then tried to re-install W8. Didn't go so well anywhere. And after trying to wipe the partition just wasn't going well. Haven't done a full wipe, but I feel it's safe to say it's not a  W8.1 fault. 

 

Bought a new HDD and it's all smooth for now. As when I first installed it, it's all smooth and back to normal, but hopefully it stays this way.

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Thing is, It's my desktop. I'm not sure these settings would be of use, as they are set by default this way, no? Could a few bad sectors really cause these massive slow down issues? I ran Crystal software had a warning of 00000005 under C5. I ran a CheckDisk and now it's a value of 000000CD. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it probably is my drive. 

 

I did update my chip set drivers, the most recent being from Dec. 2012. I'm really wondering if it's a HW situation. I'm going to contact Newegg about an RMA, but I dunno.

To answer your question: Yes, yes it can. I had a drive that was massively slow...ran a spinrite, reported more than windows did as far a cluster/sector wise went...I'm sorry, but it seems like your drive should be immediately backed up and replaced. That's been my experience, however. Your mileage may vary. It only takes a couple of bad clusters/sectors to ruin the whole dang bunch. I'm not trying to wish the worst on you or anything, just stating my experience, and trust me, I've seen a few bad drives in my day. Good luck, man! Hope you get it figured out! Much love to you my Neowinian brother!

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may not be related, are you running an antivirus program other than MSE? we're seeing trend's business product doesn't play well with 8.1RTM and Outlook 2013. Given their record, I'd guess they'll have this covered before mid-October public release...

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Quite, and as an update; I went ahead and tried to re-instlal 8.1, then tried launching Ubuntu (randomly could get in, when it did it was smooth...ish). And then tried to re-install W8. Didn't go so well anywhere. And after trying to wipe the partition just wasn't going well. Haven't done a full wipe, but I feel it's safe to say it's not a  W8.1 fault. 

 

Bought a new HDD and it's all smooth for now. As when I first installed it, it's all smooth and back to normal, but hopefully it stays this way.

It should. Dying sectors usually means dying clusters as well. The two go hand in hand. Glad you got it sorted! Good job, man!

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may not be related, are you running an antivirus program other than MSE? we're seeing trend's business product doesn't play well with 8.1RTM and Outlook 2013. Given their record, I'd guess they'll have this covered before mid-October public release...

Good call too, Islehopper! However, it seems like a hardware failure more than a software failure at this point. I doubt running an antivirus other than MSE would cause that sort of a catastrophic failure, but then again, I could be wrong...WAY wrong. At least it's something to look at! I'd rather it be that than a hardware failure any day of the week!

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Have you tried SpinRite yet? @OP? I'd try that first. Maybe your sector to cylinder got misaligned somehow, and perhaps SpinRite could help. I haven't read the whole thread, so forgive me if that has already been mentioned. Still, it's worth a shot, right? (Y)

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may not be related, are you running an antivirus program other than MSE? we're seeing trend's business product doesn't play well with 8.1RTM and Outlook 2013. Given their record, I'd guess they'll have this covered before mid-October public release...

 

No I was using only MSE (I've found it to suit my needs best tbh). And most of the issues occured easily during install and first runs (before I had time to install anything personal).

 

Also, I noticed slow down when I was doing anything that had to do with read/write, like searching opening a file, shortcuts etc. But movig a window, or going to the start menu was all fine.

 

Have you tried SpinRite yet? @OP? I'd try that first. Maybe your sector to cylinder got misaligned somehow, and perhaps SpinRite could help. I haven't read the whole thread, so forgive me if that has already been mentioned. Still, it's worth a shot, right? (Y)

 

I haven't tried it, but I still have the drive. So I definitely will give it a try. Thanks.

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