Windows 8 - renders new PC unusable!

[Sheridan]

I suppose its my own fault, but I've bought a brand new all-in-one PC that came with Windows 8 for someone here. An i3 with 4gb of ram and nothing much installed, but thanks to buggy old Windows 8 its effectively unusable for 15-20 minutes or so after logging in. This is offline, not joined to a domain! The task manager shows 100% disk activity - when this finally calms down the system is responsive.

 

With this sort of crappy performance on a brand new out of the box pc, I wonder if this os was ever tested before release!

 

I've checked and is only seems to be the 'system' process that is hammering the system. I could delve deeper, but you know what - I shouldn't have to, this should be making me think differently about W8 but all its done is manage to convince me even more that it wasn't release ready.

[synaesthesia]

Or, more likely there is a problem with your particular system, whether it's hardware or drivers? That's the sort of rash decision I normally jump to. 8 is a far superior OS as far as the underlying system is concerned; hence if there's a problem with performance it's more than likely not directly OS related.

[jinnantonnixx]

Sounds like pre-installed crapware doing something stupid. Check the logs. Then send it back to the shop.

[Arthur]

thanks to buggy old Windows 8 its effectively unusable for 15-20 minutes or so after logging in.

Have you re-installed Windows 8 from scratch? That's the first thing I would do to get rid of all of the manufacturer bloatware.

[Sheridan]

Logs checked, nothing installed - virgin system with no bloatware! Its Windows own processes that are dragging it down. Google 100% disk activity and see how common this actually is

[Sheridan]

Face facts, Sherian. Windows 8 hates you.

 

It must be personal!

[Arthur]

Logs checked, nothing installed

Have you tried any of the things listed here?

[jamesfed]

Tried putting 8.1 on it just for the fun of it?

[Sheridan]

I've searched and seen hundreds of solutions, but they all smack of desperation - Disabling ipv6, changing power plans etc. Its obviously fairly common, has no single solution and doesn't occur with Windows 7 on the same hardware.

[teejay]

Sounds more like some borked hardware in it tbh, or some flakey drivers. Me personally it would be going straight back to where it came from and get a replacement machine or swapped for something different. I've been testing W8 on various bits of ageing and new hardware and haven't really hit an issue, not saying there isn't but it does sound like a problem with particular hardware or drivers.

[Sheridan]

I did wonder about hardware or drivers, but its fine once it calms down. Plus many other people have complained of similar issues on vastly differing hardware.

[chrisg]

I found Win 8 unstable for 1st couple of hours, combination of windows updates and time fixed it, when I looked at resource Monitor it was doing a scan/cache of everything on the HDD and running updates. Left it overnight and its been fine now for weeks. same with Win7 once updated and cached all was OK

[CAM]

Is fast boot on? Win 8 is somewhat slow to start unless that is enabled.

[chazzy2501]

Windows 8 is alien and annoying. but it's really optimised and runs better than Windows 7 on the same system.

[Sheridan]

I haven't checked fast boot - but I assume its on as its still the default settings. I would like to keep 8 on this PC to familiarise myself (and others) with it, but when it is as unusable as this its difficult to justify.

[jallsop]

Welcome to the world of Win 8. We switched to SDDs and fast boot to make the damn thing run in anything approximating decent speeds. it does get faster after about 10 or 12 days, until the various updates get applied, and then it drops back again. also had some issues with it using a huge amount of data over internet on first use. a friend of min bought a new pc for parents, and it chewed through their paltry 5gb per month limit in a little over four hours. this was the system supposedly doing nothing.

[Sheridan]

Well, after months of testing/experimenting/reinstalling I've come to the conclusion Windows 8.1 on my home pc is a backwards step from 7.

 

With the 100% disk activity now being a very widespread complaint, that is unresolved by MS and the fact the same PC runs perfectly on Windows 7 (and Ubuntu, and Mint) I can only assume its the buggy mess that 8.1 is!

 

Sad to say though, that after all these months of trying various fixes and trying the many various solutions offered on forums I'm no further forward! If I want to use my PC with 8.1 on it, I have to boot it up and leave it for 10-15 minutes until the 100% disk activity settles down to normal. What an utter POS.

 

I don't like admitting defeat, but Windows 7 and dual boot with Mint is my next step.

[Arthur]

With the 100% disk activity now being a very widespread complaint

Do you have Intel's PROSet Monitoring Service installed? That is known to cause high CPU usage in Windows 8.1.

 

As is usually the case, Microsoft gets the blame for poor third-party drivers.

[MMPS]

Hi Sheridan.

 

high disk use from the system process on bootup would usually be caused by the page file. Try manually configuring your virtual memory settings rather than allowing it to automatically manage the page file. I've not come across this problem on Win 8 yet, but it was a common fault on Win 7.

Failing that, have you tried a full clean boot just to rule out 3rd party drivers and startup processes. How to perform a clean boot in Windows

[Sheridan]

To be honest - I've never had to persist in trying to get an OS to be stable and usable. This is an OEM installed version of 8.1 on brand new hardware. Its been an exercise in futility trying to get around the problem!

 

With Windows update now hanging (same old bug) and the IE address bar not responding (same old bug) I'm just going to put 8.1 with Vista and wait for MS to produce a working OS like XP or 7. Until then its back to dual boot linux and 7 for me.

[Arthur]

doesn't occur with Windows 7 on the same hardware.

This sounds very much like a driver issue (as @teejay and @synaesthesia mentioned above).

 

Have you tried installing the latest drivers for your hardware? i.e. not the ones from PC manufacturers website since they are always out-of-date, but from the individual component manufacturers websites (like Intel for the chipset, Realtek for the NIC, etc.)?

 

Programs like Ma-Config will tell you which drivers are out-of-date.

 

With Windows update now hanging (same old bug) and the IE address bar not responding (same old bug) I'm just going to put 8.1 with Vista and wait for MS to produce a working OS like XP or 7.

I have never seen that happen on any of the Windows 8/8.1 PCs I've used.

[Sheridan]

Thats the problem - I've spent months trying various drivers (newer, older, and non-official!) and also disabling so many services etc that nothing is running! I've had various AV on and off, god know how many registry 'fixes' I've found on my internet searches. Do a search of this and its very common, with so many people reporting things that have worked for them, and many still looking!

 

Windows update has failed with the same hanging issue on several of the 8/8.1 installes I've tried on various hardware. Same goes for the IE bug, where you type an address in the bar, hit return and nothing happens!

[speckytecky]

I gained the similar opinion, most probably based on the OS when test driving a brand new Toshiba Encore to compare and contrast with an iPad - the whole experience reminded me of the Volkswagen Advertisement on TV! I'm now wondering what use to put the Toshiba to?

[Sheridan]

I'm by no means a mac fanboy (see my other threads!) but my experiences with a mac running 10.9.2 are by far a happier experience - this is in a home environment so no complications with domain issues etc, just a plain standalone PC doing the basic tasks I require!