New to x64

[silentflow]

Hi guys,

I just installed x64 to my system which was previously running Vista x86. I have a few concerns which I'd like to ask about. I installed x64 because, one, I was curious and two, because I had 4gb of ram and wanted to utilize all of it. I had little trouble installing drivers etc.

There were a couple little things that kind of bothered me though as I started using it. One was that the little green circle, when next to the pointer, was not animating, it was just staying static as if frozen. The other was that the minimizing and maximizing of taskbar entries were not doing just that. I remember that I had problems with that in XP, but not in the 32 bit of Vista.

It may just be my imagination as well, but overall, it also feels a bit sluggish just navigating around, like opening up the control panel. I realize most software is still 32 bit and I should expect slowdowns, such as with Firefox, which does not open as quickly as before. Does anyone have any ideas, experiences or advice? I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, so I apologize if I do, but am just hoping someone has had similar experiences, or has some advice/ideas. Thanks for reading this.

Ben

 

[Dzomlija]

Hi guys,

I just installed x64 to my system which was previously running Vista x86. I have a few concerns which I'd like to ask about. I installed x64 because, one, I was curious and two, because I had 4gb of ram and wanted to utilize all of it. I had little trouble installing drivers etc.

There were a couple little things that kind of bothered me though as I started using it. One was that the little green circle, when next to the pointer, was not animating, it was just staying static as if frozen. The other was that the minimizing and maximizing of taskbar entries were not doing just that. I remember that I had problems with that in XP, but not in the 32 bit of Vista.

It may just be my imagination as well, but overall, it also feels a bit sluggish just navigating around, like opening up the control panel. I realize most software is still 32 bit and I should expect slowdowns, such as with Firefox, which does not open as quickly as before. Does anyone have any ideas, experiences or advice? I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, so I apologize if I do, but am just hoping someone has had similar experiences, or has some advice/ideas. Thanks for reading this.

Ben

The sluggishnes you're experiencing could be related to drivers. Have you checked your computer/component manufacturers website for updates?

Apparent slowdowns may also be a result of the Indexing Service. Give it time to complete, and this should no longer be a factor.

A complete Windows Update could also help, as x64 support has been greatly improved over the past year.

 

[silentflow]

Thanks for the reply, dzomlija.

I'm pretty sure I installed all the drivers, up to date. I have the P35 drivers from intel's site, the 169.25 forcewares, and the X-Fi drivers. I have the indexing service off, but I had that off as well for the 32 bit version. I keep up to date with Windows Update, but maybe I'll double check that. The thing that bothers me is the green circle animation when it's next to the pointer. Does that animate for you?

Thanks

 

[Technogeek]

I had a lot of the same issues, and after all my drivers were updated, and I updated Vista ( with only X64 updates) things started working much better for me. My apps open much quicker, and run great!

 

[Dzomlija]

Thanks for the reply, dzomlija.

I'm pretty sure I installed all the drivers, up to date. I have the P35 drivers from intel's site, the 169.25 forcewares, and the X-Fi drivers. I have the indexing service off, but I had that off as well for the 32 bit version. I keep up to date with Windows Update, but maybe I'll double check that. The thing that bothers me is the green circle animation when it's next to the pointer. Does that animate for you?

Thanks

Yes, I get the animation. It's nothing special, just a regular animated cursor. You can make sure Windows is using the right one by checking the mouse pointers:

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click "Hardware and Sound"
3. Under "Mouse", click "Change pointer appearance"
4. Make sure the Scheme is set to "Windows Aero (system scheme)
5. Double click "Working in Background"
6. In "Browse", change "Files of Type" to "Animated Cursors (*.ani)".
7. Select "aero_working". You should see the animated cursor in the Preview box in the lower left corner of the Browse Window.
8. Click "Open"
9. Click "OK"

The above will at least verify that the animated cursors are installed and working (as shown in the Browse preview).

If you still get a static cursor even after selcting an animated one, then something has gone wrong. I'm looking into it now to find a solution for you.

 

[silentflow]

So I installed the P35 drivers again. I sort of remember having a little trouble when i first installed them, I may have used the wrong inf utility. The cursor thing, I believe is ok after a restart, but becomes static after a while. I just restarted so hopefully it'll just stay normal. I am fully updated according to windows update and it does feel a bit more responsive, so hopefully it's taken care of. I'm hoping it was just a little chipset driver trouble. Thanks for your input guys.

 

[fdisker]

I still think something may be wrong. Nothing should be slow if you're running at 3.2Ghz with 4gigs of RAM. The cursor should always be animated. I'd do a little more digging if I were you. Check the event logs first. Also have a look at the device manager to make sure all your devices have drivers. Was this a clean install or an upgrade?

My system spends about a minute after it boots loading up the prefetch cache. After that the disks go silent and my system is ready to rock. Things should be happening instantly on your setup.

 

[silentflow]

Well things seem much better now. The cursor thing seems to have gone away and is animating. This was a clean install. I previously had 32 bit Vista Ultimate installed. With your setup how long does it take right after boot to get firefox to open? I assume that the little wait I get is because of the 32 bit version of FF.

I see you have an Intel board. Is there anyway to uninstall the chipset drivers? I don't have much experience with intel chipsets.

Also to note, I have Superfetch, Indexing and Auto-Defrag disabled because of the disk-thrashing I was getting.

 

[Scotteq]

I recommend re-enabling Superfetch and Indexing, though I agree that the auto defrag is best replaced with an aftermarket product.

Regarding running 32 bit software in V64, my understanding is as follows: In and of itself, Vista 64 runs in 64 bits. If you found and installed 64 bit Windows applications, they'd run natively. 32 bit applications run using a set of DLL's (libraries) to do the work of translating between the two. There is obviously going to be some performance overhead, since you're running your 32 bit apps inside what amounts to a container/translation layer. But many of the common commands which are less than 32 bits in total instruction length can be grouped to run in pairs as a single instruction. The rule being that there has to be enough space within a 64 bit command for both 32 bit instructions plus the necessary tags needed to differentiate the two. Actual performance will obviously vary depending on exactly what you are doing, but to a great extent the added efficiency of grouping instructions offsets the performance penalty of having to run a translation layer.

In practice, I haven't noticed any difference.



I'm curious tho - Why would you uninstall your chipset drivers?

 

[silentflow]

I may enable Superfetch again as that may be what is causing my perceived slowdowns. I rarely use the search function, so I think I can leave indexing off. I don't remember if I had Superfetch off in the 32 bit version.

I wouldn't remove the drivers permanently, but would like to do a "clean install" of them, rather than installing over them. Do you know of anyway to do this? I figure I could remove them through the Device Manager, but I'm not sure which ones exactly.

 

[fdisker]

>> With your setup how long does it take right after boot to get firefox to open?

As much as I hate to admit it I've been using IE7 ever since moving to Vista. Previously I was a diehard FF user on XP but IE7 on Vista is good enough that I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

Here's the thing with Vista. Once the machine boots to the desktop I need to give it a minute or two before jumping into my applications. It takes time to load up Superfetch but it's worth the wait for me. My kid's machine with 1 gig of RAM doesn't behave this way because there isn't so much free memory. My machine has 8 gigs and Vista loads it up as best it can. Once Superfetch does its thing my apps load instantly. IE7, Media Center, Mail, Virtual PC, Nero, Movie Maker .... it doesn't matter, they all load instantly. My drives rarely crank up and that's just the way I like it.

 

[Brink]

SilentFlow,

You might try some of these to help improve the performance of Vista to.

How to Speed Up the Performance of Vista

Shawn

 

[silentflow]

Thanks for the replies.

fdisker, IE7 x64 definitely opens faster, but the layout is just not for me. I tried prefetch on, but didn't like the disk activity I was getting. I've also heard that it degrades gaming performance. I probably sound like I'm complaining about something of my own doing, so I apologize if i come off that way. I do appreciate all the ideas.

brink, thanks for the link, I went through all the stuff I thought would help. Definitely a good link to have.

Things feel a lot better since I first posted this thread, so hopefully it'll stay like this.

Thanks again

 

[Brink]

Your welcome Silentflow.

Glad Vista is working better for you. Thank you for the feedback.

Shawn

 

[sahitanand]

i got my system recently well....yesterday actually. i installed the 64 bit OS and at first i was dissappointed because of all the sluggishness then i installed all the right frivers and man! is awesome. its way more responsive than the 32 bit OS and really awesome.
i have one question though is it possible in the 64 bit OS to assign different applications for different cores??


Hey and asky thanx for helping me choose a good system

 

[silentflow]

Well I had a crash this evening and turns out I had the memory timings set too tightly. I booted back up and the system seems like it's back to normal (pre 64 bit). I think the memory timings would explain all the weird happenings I was having before. I'm glad to have figured it out and hopefully my system is stable now.

 

[Brink]

Silentflow,

LOL, that could do it. Glad you got kinked out again.

Shawn

 

[silentflow]

Thanks, I feel kinda like an idiot. Oh well...

 

[Brink]

Silentflow,

LOL. Na, you have to test it to see what it can do. It's hard to tell when the problem is a suttle like that.

Shawn