i7 PC problems

petersmart

petersmart

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After the problems I've had with the Microsoft site I also have another problem.

Last year I bought an i7 bundle with the Asrock B75 Pro-3 M m/b, 16Gb of RAM and a Samsung 250 Mb 840 SSD.

I've been using XP PRO on it via separate partitions for my photo editing and film rendering along with a super fast 12Gb Ramdrive - no problems.

Last year I tried out WIN 7 64 bit to see if using the extra memory would do anything to speed up the video rendering.

But it didn't do much and I much prefer XP so I didn't bother .

But I then decided to follow the advice of Arad and Neil G on here (and yes, I do listen to all advice and sometimes even take it :D ) and go the VM route, since I was already using VMs on my surfing PCs for privacy etc.

When I had XP PRO fitted everything was perfect but this time when I installed WIN 7 64 bit all the text looked terrible as though ClearType wasn't working - and the graphics also look pretty bad - rather like super over-sharpening.

And this happens at all resolutions and at both IDE and AHCI.

I've tried everything - using all the latest drivers etc from Asrock and Intel etc but to no avail.

The only thing which works is installing a 1Gb video card from my other PC then everything is fine again, apart from a loss of speed on some graphics etc which takes my Windows rating down to 4.6 from 6.6 - not really important since I don't do gaming etc and the SSD speed is the same with or without the card installed.

Any solutions or suggestions anyone - is the M/b packing up etc?
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Sound like the wrong gpu driver or wrong resolution set to me.

If you go into device manager what does the display adapter name show as and does it have an ! over it?
 
Can you post a screen shot? What resolution does Win 7 think your monitor is?
 
Well at the moment it says Radeon 5400 series which is the Video card I have installed but previously the problem showed at all resolutions from 800x600 to 1920x1080.

I'll reset the BIOS to onboard graphics and see what it says but there were no indications before of a problem in the device manager.

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Also, are you running Win7 native or through a VM?
 
Running Win7 native but it still looks crap through a VM except when using the Video cards.

Now the Device Manager says "standard VGA adapter" (no yellow ! etc) - I'm connecting through an HDMI lead to my TV BTW on both PCs, but this problem is only showing on my i7 PC when running Win 7, either 32 or 64 bit.

I've run the Installation disc but to no avail and downloaded the latest drivers but all I get is that I already have the latest drivers installed - tried uninstalling the drivers etc but to no avail.
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petersmart said:
Running Win7 native but it still looks crap through a VM except when using the Video cards.

Now the Device Manager says "standard VGA adapter" (no yellow ! etc) - I'm connecting through an HDMI lead to my TV BTW on both PCs, but this problem is only showing on my i7 PC when running Win 7, either 32 or 64 bit.

I've run the Installation disc but to no avail and downloaded the latest drivers but all I get is that I already have the latest drivers installed - tried uninstalling the drivers etc but to no avail.
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Goto: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect in IE and see what it says. From memory, the onboard should show up as Intel HD xx00 and not stanbdard VGA.

Just to check, you have enabled onboard video in the BIOS haven't you (Primary Graphics Adapter->Onboard, IGPU Multi-Monitor-> Enabled.
 
arad85 said:
Goto: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect in IE and see what it says. From memory, the onboard should show up as Intel HD xx00 and not stanbdard VGA.

Just to check, you have enabled onboard video in the BIOS haven't you (Primary Graphics Adapter->Onboard, IGPU Multi-Monitor-> Enabled.
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No, I missed out enabling IGPU, thought multi monitor meant more than 1 monitor.

So I did all that and restarted the PC.

And everything looked perfect - for all of about 20 secs then it all reverted back to what it had been.

Tried uninstalling the drivers and re-installed the correct ones, and removed the video card but no good.

After a lot more fiddling still nothing worked so now doing a clean install of Win 7 64bit on AHCI and everything enabled properly - I hope.

And if that doesn't work then it's back to good old XP for me!
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NOPE!!!

Still crap on the graphics so I guess it's go on using the video card or run in IDE with XP.

Seems the AsRock M/b doesn't want to know about WIN 7 or AHCI.

Guess I'll go on using the video card for the extra speed of AHCI.

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petersmart said:
NOPE!!!

Still crap on the graphics so I guess it's go on using the video card or run in IDE with XP.

Seems the AsRock M/b doesn't want to know about WIN 7 or AHCI.

Guess I'll go on using the video card for the extra speed of AHCI.

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Get a driver driver cleaner. The little *****s never uninstall proper.
 
Vettahead said:
Get a driver driver cleaner. The little *****s never uninstall proper.
Click to expand...

Well I did a complete scrub of the SSD and a clean re-install so nothing should have been left.
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In Device Manager, what does it say for graphics adapter?

Did you also run the Intel utility AFTER you enabled multi-monitor?
 
arad85 said:
In Device Manager, what does it say for graphics adapter?

Did you also run the Intel utility AFTER you enabled multi-monitor?
Click to expand...
It says "Intel HD Graphics 4000"

and yes.
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OK... You have the right hardware and drivers... It will be something simple, but I'm not sure where to look now :shrug:
 
arad85 said:
OK... You have the right hardware and drivers... It will be something simple, but I'm not sure where to look now :shrug:
Click to expand...

Me neither - but it does seem that enabling AHCI has caused the problem because as far as I remember the last time I used Win 7 64bit I used IDE and everything was fine.

This time I decided I might as well use AHCI with the SSD and Win 7 64 bit for the extra speed.

And it really is much faster than running IDE, with Sequential read and write times of 550 and 260Mb/sec and Random read/write times of just under 93,000 and 64,000 IOPS when set for maximum performance and almost the same when set for maximum reliability except for random read times of 76,000 IOPS.

Obviously that doesn't matter when editing photos but when rendering 8-10 DVDs into X-Vid it can make a difference.

So I guess I'll be using the video card.

But thanks anyway for all your expertise(s) and help. :thumbs:
 
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