General PC Help Thread - OP updated with useful links - READ

[Death's Head]

Uninstalled driver but I guess there is still gooseberry fool on the PC that is causing issues.

Ok. Can you remember a specific date when all was good? I would recommend you do a Windows restore from a previous point. This is a lot less hassle than a reinstall. It may be that something in a Windows update has screwed things up for you.

[SandyCoin]

Uninstalled driver but I guess there is still gooseberry fool on the PC that is causing issues.

Ok. Can you remember a specific date when all was good? I would recommend you do a Windows restore from a previous point. This is a lot less hassle than a reinstall. It may be that something in a Windows update has screwed things up for you.

I did actually do a restore but perhaps it needed to be earlier.

It was fine until there was a new BF1 update. I think 14th March. I installed that, then couldn't play it as NVIDIA said the driver wasn't good enough. Got the latest driver and that then said it wasn't compatible with my version of Windows, did a restart and there was a Win 10 update. Since then it's been a mess.

[Tragic Magic]

The sort of problems you are complaining about (stuttering, long loading times) might not be the CPU or GPU but maybe the RAM or HDD.

You would get problems from the start if it was CPU or GPU (unless perhaps one of them is overheating).

Right okay, I do wonder if it is the HDD then as it has been making a bit of noise for a while now. You know, the kind of loud clicking noises you get with old drives. I guess I could move all my files over to an external hard drive to save downloading everything again if I do have to get a new HDD. What hard drive makes are recommended also, still Western Digital? It's been so long I forget what the average price for an HDD usually is but if it's going to be a damn sight cheaper than a GPU upgrade and help with me issues, then I'm willing to try it. Just considering all options at the minute so I thank you for helping.

Thinking about it some more, I used to be able to download and game at the same time but nowadays that seems to increase the stuttering during gameplay. Another clue that it's the hard drive at fault? I've never owned an SSD either so I wonder if that could be a potential solution if it is indeed the HDD.

[Death's Head]

Uninstalled driver but I guess there is still gooseberry fool on the PC that is causing issues.

Ok. Can you remember a specific date when all was good? I would recommend you do a Windows restore from a previous point. This is a lot less hassle than a reinstall. It may be that something in a Windows update has screwed things up for you.

I did actually do a restore but perhaps it needed to be earlier.

It was fine until there was a new BF1 update. I think 14th March. I installed that, then couldn't play it as NVIDIA said the driver wasn't good enough. Got the latest driver and that then said it wasn't compatible with my version of Windows, did a restart and there was a Win 10 update. Since then it's been a mess.

Seems like you have nothing to lose, so go back...

[Death's Head]

Thinking about it some more, I used to be able to download and game at the same time but nowadays that seems to increase the stuttering during gameplay. Another clue that it's the hard drive at fault? I've never owned an SSD either so I wonder if that could be a potential solution if it is indeed the HDD.

How old is your drive? If it is getting on a bit it could be having problems. Go into explorer, right click the drive, choose "properties", the "tools" tab and select "error checking". I assume this is something like checkdisc of olden days and will tell you if there are any bad sectors. If this passes OK, it may be simply that you've used the drive for sometime, done loads of moving files on it (including deleting) and it has become very un-optimised. Once you've done the error checking, go through properties-> tools again but this time choose "optimise and defragment" drive. Depending on the size of the drive and how long since the last defrag, this could take a while. But if it does take ages, that is probably a good sign and more likely to give you an improvement.

[Tragic Magic]

Thanks I'll do just that. I do defragment it every couple of months but I never time how long it lasts. But yeah, I'll give this a go and see what I find. I think it's probably about 3 years old. Thank you

[SandyCoin]

Uninstalled driver but I guess there is still gooseberry fool on the PC that is causing issues.

Ok. Can you remember a specific date when all was good? I would recommend you do a Windows restore from a previous point. This is a lot less hassle than a reinstall. It may be that something in a Windows update has screwed things up for you.

I did actually do a restore but perhaps it needed to be earlier.

It was fine until there was a new BF1 update. I think 14th March. I installed that, then couldn't play it as NVIDIA said the driver wasn't good enough. Got the latest driver and that then said it wasn't compatible with my version of Windows, did a restart and there was a Win 10 update. Since then it's been a mess.

Seems like you have nothing to lose, so go back...

Couldn't go further back than 14th. Sigh.

Know of a good way to remove all traces of nvidia stuff?

[Death's Head]

Know of a good way to remove all traces of nvidia stuff?

Yes, DDU -> https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/di ... nload.html

I'm not convinced your problem isn't Windows update related, but good luck!

[SandyCoin]

Know of a good way to remove all traces of nvidia stuff?

Yes, DDU -> https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/di ... nload.html

I'm not convinced your problem isn't Windows update related, but good luck!

I can only go back to the day of the windows critical update though sadly. So not sure I can back track to the previous version. I can't remember if the nvidia problem was before or after the update either. I think it was before.

[Tragic Magic]

Thinking about it some more, I used to be able to download and game at the same time but nowadays that seems to increase the stuttering during gameplay. Another clue that it's the hard drive at fault? I've never owned an SSD either so I wonder if that could be a potential solution if it is indeed the HDD.

How old is your drive? If it is getting on a bit it could be having problems. Go into explorer, right click the drive, choose "properties", the "tools" tab and select "error checking". I assume this is something like checkdisc of olden days and will tell you if there are any bad sectors. If this passes OK, it may be simply that you've used the drive for sometime, done loads of moving files on it (including deleting) and it has become very un-optimised. Once you've done the error checking, go through properties-> tools again but this time choose "optimise and defragment" drive. Depending on the size of the drive and how long since the last defrag, this could take a while. But if it does take ages, that is probably a good sign and more likely to give you an improvement.

Started the error check this morning but had to leave my PC on as it was still going by the time I had to leave for work.

This was it's current progress after an hour and a half. It's 1TB in size with about 150GB free. No idea how long this would normally take as I didn't even know this kind of scan existed.

[Death's Head]

This was it's current progress after an hour and a half. It's 1TB in size with about 150GB free. No idea how long this would normally take as I didn't even know this kind of scan existed.

I thought checkdisk was fairly quick compared to a defrag, but then again I've not run it for years so probably last time was on a drive that was just a few hundred MBs. What speed is your drive, 7200rpm or 5400rpm? Obviously faster is better as is the bigger the cache it has. If you do decide to change your HDD, you need to decide how much storage you need and how much you want to spend - SSD is the best option for speed but you will be looking at around £100 for a 512GB drive. Alternatively, a 3TB mechanical drive can be yours for around £80. In my setup I have a 128GB SSD for OS and Office and a 3TB drive for everything else (including Steam).

[Tragic Magic]

Looking it up, I think it took so long because I set it to do a full check and repair any problems it found, rather than just a quick check to see if there were any errors. No errors were found though so I'm giving it another defrag, although I do this regularly anyway. I'll keep researching for the time being for other tests I can do to try and pinpoint the cause of the problems I'm having. I guess it still could be just that the hard drive is getting on but I'll start testing other components for issues.

[Death's Head]

Are you using any anti virus software other than Windows Defender?

[Tragic Magic]

Malware Bytes, I've always used that though.

[SandyCoin]

Hooray, managed to sort the NVIDIA driver issue. There was an update the other day for a newer driver and version of Geforce Experience. So I downloaded the latter and did the clean driver install through that. Works fine now. Stupid thing.

[KjGarly]

Malware Bytes, I've always used that though.

Try turning that off, gave me problems during the last week playing Gears 4 online. Was actually blocking the connection to Live and I'd keep getting kicked from games. I defrag my drive every night and set it to shutdown the PC after its finished.

Problem I'm having at the moment is a weird one.
I'm suffering from a BSOD each time I manually turn the PC on, doesn't happen right away always after Windows has loaded but once it auto restarts after its BSOD it's fine until the next time I turn it off. Ran sfc scannow and ChkDsk both fine, last Nvidia update was done clean with DDU in safe mode and left out GeForce Experience. Windows is on latest stable preview build and up to date.

[KjGarly]

So no one else ever suffered anything similar to my BSOD problem then?

[That's not a growth]

Memtest?

[Tragic Magic]

So no one else ever suffered anything similar to my BSOD problem then?

I think I did actually. It was a very long time ago but I think it turned out to be a fault with my RAM.

[HSH28]

So no one else ever suffered anything similar to my BSOD problem then?

You really need to get a look at the BSOD message in order to run down what its telling you, it may be a memory problem or it could be something else.