PC Extremely Slow After Installing New 970 GPU

[poee]

Last week I finally got my new Asus STRIX GTX 970. After creating a new restore point, I installed the latest Nvidia driver (344.60), shut down my PC, and replaced my Gigabyte GTX 770 with the new 970.

Windows 7 is installed on an SSD so I am used to booting up in less than a minute. Upon starting up I got the Windows logo like it was booting up, but it never went anywhere. After waiting for several minutes, I hit the reset button and -- same thing. After a few of these I decided to wait longer. Eventually, after about 40 minutes, the login screen appeared. I entered my password and waited another 5-6 minutes then I finally saw my desktop.

The mouse movement was unusably laggy. When I finally got a window open, explorer just seemed to freeze, my HDDs spinning and the disk access light on solid. I clicked the Shutdown button and waited for about 30 minutes before holding in the power button for a hard shutdown.

So I boot into Safe Mode. It goes through the regular boot, but stalls on "aswRvrt.sys" (or whatever comes immediately after that in the boot sequence) for about 15 minutes before the logon screen appears. Then I can get into the desktop in Safe Mode. I can open My Computer and see my drives, though it will not let me into My Documents as I do not have permission. The Security Tab will not allow permission to be set and I can see I am on "Account Unknown(S-1-5-21-2639382340-1704227813-3852748570-1001)". I figure this is why I cannot get permissions set?

So I shut down and remove the new GPU, replacing the 770, making certain everything is plugged in correctly. No change. After waiting for 40 minutes to finish booting, I can't really do anything in normal mode anyway. Folders take forever to open, the start menu freezes for several minutes each time I open it, the disk access light is always on solid, yet in Resource Monitor, nothing shows up. It says there is no disk access (though the light is on and I can hear my HDDs) and shows no processes or services using disk, or memory, or cpu. Resource Monitor only lasts for a couple of minutes before locking up in either normal or safe mode.

I tried booting from my Windows Installation Disc, selecting Repair, and going back to the restore point I made before doing any of this, but even after letting it run overnight, it never progresses beyond 60% in the process. I tried unplugging all my USB devices and using my old PS2 keyboard, and unplugging all my SATA drives except the SSD and booting, but no change. The disk access light does not work with the SSD since it is attached to a PCIe-to-SATAIII adapter card.

I tried clearing the CMOS and booting with factory default BIOS settings, but that doesn't change anything. I tried setting msconfig to a clean boot while in safe mode (not accessible in normal mode), but this also did not change the extremely slow disk access or whatever is causing the slowdown and eventual freeze in normal mode.

I tried booting with my Acronis TI2015 rescue disc based on WinPE, and it takes over 30 minutes to get to its desktop whereupon it throws an error (cannot find localhost) and freezes. I tried booting with the Linux-based version of the Acronis rescue disc and this works as expected. Since I have a recent backup for my boot drive I restored that backup (a full image of the SSD from two days before any of this). This process completes and my boot drive is now as it was before I installed the new GPU or new drivers or anything. Yet nothing changes. My PC is still barely usable, and only in Safe Mode. I am typing this out in Safe Mode with Networking. (Firefox and IE will not finish starting in Safe Mode, but Chrome works.)

Using Hiren's Boot CD I tested my 6GB of RAM with MemTest86+ for almost 4 hours (6 passes). No errors. I try removing RAM modules one at a time and booting, and I try putting them into different slots, but there is no difference regardless of RAM config. I try unplugging everything from the PSU but what is needed to boot (mobo 24-pin + 8-pinEPS, SSD, GPU, and CPU fan) and nothing else. It is a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W. I try underclocking the CPU and RAM in BIOS to put as little stress on the PSU as possible, but this doesn't change the symptoms either.

So I try a clean install of Windows 7. First I delete the SSD partition and format, then select that new partition to install into. It gives an error that it cannot access the partition or see any available partitions (though it does allow me to format it over and over, I cannot progress beyond this point). I try the same thing except plug the SSD into one of the standard SATA-II ports first -- still no help. Back to restoring the backup image to the SSD so I can do more searching for a solution on the web in Safe Mode w/ Networking.

At this point I am thinking that my PC may be borked beyond repair. A Linux-based boot disc allows me to see all my data on all my drives, but Windows does not, even in Safe Mode (where I can't get permission for many important folders). Even after replacing my GTX 770 and restoring the C: drive with a full image taken days prior to any of these symptoms, my PC is still essentially unusable. This seems to indicate a hardware problem, though a Linux boot CD still works, so how does that happen?

If anyone has any ideas of what else I could try to get my PC back to normal, please share! Thanks for any assistance!

SPECS:
Intel i7-920
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
Gigabyte Windforce3 GTX 770 4GB -or- Asus STRIX GTX 970
6GB (3x2GB) OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 CAS7
OCZ Vertex4 256GB SSD via PCIe-SATA6Gbps adapter
3x WD1001FALS; 2x WD30EZRX; 1x Hitachi 5K3000
1x LG WH14NS40 BD-RE; 1x Samsung SH-224BE DVD-RW
External eSATA: 1x Seagate 4TB; various =< 750GB
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W (4x 6+2 pin PCIe)
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1, updated as of 2-Nov-2014

 

[MrC4]

Strip your PC to the absolute bare minimum and try a clean install. Something borked your PC during your 970 install, so now it is just the process of elimination.

 

[BigJayDogg3]

My mind immediately jumps to the SSD. Have you tried performing any file operations while in Linux? Do you have a SATA to USB bridge? Have you tried using it with another computer?

The easiest way to isolate it would be to install on a spare drive you have (assuming you have one) and seeing how that runs. I'd initially use the on board SATA and if that works reinstalling using the PCIe card.

Other folks may have better suggestions, but that's where I would start.

 

[infinity9]

My mind immediately jumps to the SSD. Have you tried performing any file operations while in Linux? Do you have a SATA to USB bridge? Have you tried using it with another computer?

The easiest way to isolate it would be to install on a spare drive you have (assuming you have one) and seeing how that runs. I'd initially use the on board SATA and if that works reinstalling using the PCIe card.

Other folks may have better suggestions, but that's where I would start.

Yeah it does sound like it.


You have to remember turning off the pc, anything can happen when you turn it on again. It may have happened even if you had not changed the video card and just turned it on again. Things can run correctly as long as they have power or the initial power on could have gone wrong (spike etc). Who knows. It still sounds like the SSD.

 

[KazeoHin]

Halfway through reading that, I was thinking to myself, "must be a Gigabyte Mainboard"... And what do you know?

Gigabyte during the p55/h55/x58 generation was terrible. I think they've worked a few kinks out now, but I would not be surprised if you replaced the Mainboard and found the problem fixed, however, let's hope that does not have to happen, as you are only ever going to find second-hand boards. Perhaps the PCI-E shorted and caused damage to the other board components?

Edit: when you boot to a PE or try to install windows on a different drive, is it still slow?

 

[cyclone3d]

Do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard?

Have you tried unplugging the power from the power supply and letting it sit for at least 30 minutes?

Have you tried installing Windows on a different drive?

I am doubtful that it is the motherboard. I haven't seen a motherboard cause that type of issue except on a few Dell machines back in the P4 days.

 

[Lord_Exodia]

Sounds like some kind of UEFI bios issue or limit is being exceeded.

Contact your GTX 970 manufacturer to see if there is a small footprint bios for your card.

Also if you haven't done so already upgrade your motherboard bios to the newest version. Finally see if there is updated firmware for your SSD or the pcie 6GB adapter(if even applicable) Also can you provide a link to your pcie adapter for your SSD so we can see what it is? After updating all of those things you may regain stability, but it currently sounds like it may be a hardware issue as others have mentioned. Test another power supply in your system if possible.

 

[poee]

Thanks for all the advice in helping me track down this problem. I've tried everything I can think of plus the suggestions here. The motherboard has the latest BIOS, the SSD has the latest firmware, the PCIe-SATAIII adapter (SiliconImage 3132) has the latest driver, the mobo doesn't have UEFI, just plain BIOS (purchased in Jan 2009).

I tried the PSU in a friend's PC and it worked fine on that one. I tried the SSD on that PC and I was able to install Windows on it without issue. I tried doing the same thing with the SSD when I got home using the chipset's native SATA port, and the problem returned. I tired using a brand new SATA cable but it didn't help. I tried updating the Intel chipset drivers but it never let me get beyond unzipping the file (which took over an hour), then promptly froze.

My PC has been down since shortly after I opened this thread. After tearing most of my hair out, I decided to dig into my savings and put together a new PC, mainly out of sheer exasperation. Here I thought I was being clever holding off on upgrading for several generations since that i7-920 just kept chugging along. I would have much preferred to take my time and research everything and carefully plan out my purchases for a new rig. But after a week without my PC I lost all self-control.

Yesterday I finished putting it all together and booting it up. I used my old SSD in the new rig as my boot drive and it is working perfectly (new installation of Win7). The only existing hardware I brought into my new PC was my SSD, HDDs, optical drive, and my new GTX 970. I am happy to report that my STRIX 970 is operating flawlessly in the new system and none of the issues I had on my old rig have appeared in the new one.

So I still have my old case, PSU, motherboard, CPU, and RAM. I may try to fix it and use it as a secondary PC, but at the moment I am just sick of dealing with it. I have no clue, really, but I suspect the motherboard. Or the CPU. Who knows? And golly gee, I didn't expect such a jump in performance between the old (and expensive) Nehalem build and this new modestly priced mainstream LGA1150! The 4790K simply blows away the 920, regardless of losing a memory channel. And this GTX 970 is far and away the fastest video card I've ever owned. And only $350!

 

[waxbytes]

That's one advantage of waiting to upgrade until you absolutely have to, the cost always feels worth the performance gain. Following the "bleeding edge" of technology usually means relying on benchmarks to see any difference. Not nearly as satisfying.
As for your original problem I would suspect the power supply or the motherboard. If it turns out to be the CPU I would still suspect the power supply as the original cause.