Several Problems. PLEASE HELP

[Remulate]

hey guys. couple of problems.

Pc was working fine when i first started it up and activated windows 8.1 ect.

Issue 1

First is the hard drive usage. constant 100% and things not responding all the time and really making things slow.
issue 2

on the monitor hundreds of tiny little white underscores keep flashing on and off followed by the screen going blank for a couple of seconds and then coming back on. not sure is this i related to the hard drive issue but it is extremely annoying and unusable.


issue 3

I noticed that my download speed is stupidly low. i have a 126mb connection and getting around 1 on this pc, all my other devices are getting the max what their wireless can hold and even plugging them into the router their getting the max speed so i know it has to be the pc thats the issue.

Ill be ringing pcs tomorrow either way but was hoping that someone could possibly help me now.

This is my spec
Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-4770k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ max 4.40GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE + **FREE GAME**
Free Item
FREE BATTLEFIELD 4 GAME with Z87-A MOTHERBOARD!
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ MODULAR TXM-650 V2-80 PLUS® (£79)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H80i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£69)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software

 

[keynes]

2- have you installed a graphics card?
3- you could try reinstalling drivers for the wireless card

 

[ubuysa]

You're hard drive usage is the big worry, that could well be causing all the other issues you see (because Windows has no space to write necessary data).

Firstly, backup all of your user data, what I am about to suggest might render some of your data unusable (though that's unlikely).

Then run a disk check to verify the filesystem integrity. The easiest way to do that is to open a command prompt and enter the command "chkdsk /f" (but without the quotes). You will probably get a message telling you the disk is locked and asking whether you want the disk check to run on the next boot, answer YES. Then reboot and the disk check will run (it may take some time). At the end you (briefly) see a message indicating whether any errors were found. It may tell you that errors were found and corrected (check all your user data for integrity if you see this). It may tell you that errors were found but could not be fixed, in this case reformat the drive and reinstall Windows (there is no alternative).

Assuming the disk check runs ok, run the Disk Cleanup tool next (it's in Administrative Tools) and check all the boxes you see. This should clean out a lot of uneeded files and free up considerable disk space.

Then get a copy of WindDirStat (it's free) from http://windirstat.info/, and install it. This very handy tool shows you graphically what is consuming space on your disk, so you can start with the very big files and decide whether you actually need them on the disk, whether they could be archived to an external disk, or whether you can just delete them.

Finally, once you have removed all those files you don't need defragment the disk to make all your files contiguous again. (Disk Defrag is also under Administrative Tools).

You may find that sorting out the hard disk solves your other problems too. In general you should start archiving data off your disk when there is less than about 10% of free space remaining. Hard disks perform best when they are no more than about 80% full.

 

[SlimCini]

1Mb/s does sound low but even then some wireless cards can't actually get speeds that high so you'll unlikely ever get 120Mb/s wirelessly unless you've a got a good wireless card. You say you've wired other devices in and got max speed but h ave you wired the actual PC in with an ethernet and tested it? It could just be a duff and/or cheap wireless card.

As you have 120Mb broadband I assume that it's Virgin which means your router is emitting both 5G and 2G networks. So is your PC wirelessly connected to the 5G network and not 2G? The 5G wireless doesn't travel far so you're PC, if far enough way, could be reverting to the 2G if it can't get a strong enough 5G signal.

 

[mantadog]

As you did not order a GPU im presuming you fitted your own one? If so try removing it and re seating it, I recently got a very similar screen problem to your because the dog rammed into the chassis. GPU came unseated ever so slightly and just needed putting back in place, but it could also be caused by just not properly seating when you installed it.

I would fire up the task manager, go to the processes tab, and then go to the menu at the top and select view, and turn on I/o reads I/o writes and I/o other see what application is causing all the writes.

As your using wireless, might sound stupid but worth checking you have done it, have you installed the antenna that came in your welcome pack?

 

[Remulate]

sorry for the slow replies guys. hands down the worst day of my entire life.
but anyway..

2- have you installed a graphics card?
3- you could try reinstalling drivers for the wireless card

nope havent recieved my graphics card yet so havent put it in.
where will i find the drivers? thanks

You're hard drive usage is the big worry, that could well be causing all the other issues you see (because Windows has no space to write necessary data).

Firstly, backup all of your user data, what I am about to suggest might render some of your data unusable (though that's unlikely).

Then run a disk check to verify the filesystem integrity. The easiest way to do that is to open a command prompt and enter the command "chkdsk /f" (but without the quotes). You will probably get a message telling you the disk is locked and asking whether you want the disk check to run on the next boot, answer YES. Then reboot and the disk check will run (it may take some time). At the end you (briefly) see a message indicating whether any errors were found. It may tell you that errors were found and corrected (check all your user data for integrity if you see this). It may tell you that errors were found but could not be fixed, in this case reformat the drive and reinstall Windows (there is no alternative).

Assuming the disk check runs ok, run the Disk Cleanup tool next (it's in Administrative Tools) and check all the boxes you see. This should clean out a lot of uneeded files and free up considerable disk space.

Then get a copy of WindDirStat (it's free) from http://windirstat.info/, and install it. This very handy tool shows you graphically what is consuming space on your disk, so you can start with the very big files and decide whether you actually need them on the disk, whether they could be archived to an external disk, or whether you can just delete them.

Finally, once you have removed all those files you don't need defragment the disk to make all your files contiguous again. (Disk Defrag is also under Administrative Tools).

You may find that sorting out the hard disk solves your other problems too. In general you should start archiving data off your disk when there is less than about 10% of free space remaining. Hard disks perform best when they are no more than about 80% full.

Ive just done chkdsk /f and it went through but nothing even flashed up afterwards i was super checking it aswell just incase anything flashed up on the screen. nothing. ill do all the rest now. the disk is still 99% empty have barely installed anything on it so far. thank you.

1Mb/s does sound low but even then some wireless cards can't actually get speeds that high so you'll unlikely ever get 120Mb/s wirelessly unless you've a got a good wireless card. You say you've wired other devices in and got max speed but h ave you wired the actual PC in with an ethernet and tested it? It could just be a duff and/or cheap wireless card.

As you have 120Mb broadband I assume that it's Virgin which means your router is emitting both 5G and 2G networks. So is your PC wirelessly connected to the 5G network and not 2G? The 5G wireless doesn't travel far so you're PC, if far enough way, could be reverting to the 2G if it can't get a strong enough 5G signal.

nope i havent tried plugging it in wia eithernet as the pc is in the dining room and router is in the living room. but its litterally only about 12-15 feet away. and the superhub 1 i have doesnt broadcast 5g and 2.4 at the same time so its always on 2.4 for the other laptops. thanks.

As you did not order a GPU im presuming you fitted your own one? If so try removing it and re seating it, I recently got a very similar screen problem to your because the dog rammed into the chassis. GPU came unseated ever so slightly and just needed putting back in place, but it could also be caused by just not properly seating when you installed it.

I would fire up the task manager, go to the processes tab, and then go to the menu at the top and select view, and turn on I/o reads I/o writes and I/o other see what application is causing all the writes.

As your using wireless, might sound stupid but worth checking you have done it, have you installed the antenna that came in your welcome pack?

yeah ive bought my own but it hasnt arrived yet so it hasnt been fitted looking for the task manager option for i/o but cant find anything like that :s and yep fitted them straight away
thanks

QUICK UPDATE: took the panels off to check inside. hdd cablle was a little bit out. dont know if this was what was causing most of the issues. pushed it back in and everything seems ok atm.. fingers crossed. wifi has somehow just decided to go up to 119mb but then has settled at around 29-30 thinking about hounding virgin media to do a free upgrade to the superhub 2. apparently it has much better range,

ANOTHER EDIT: put the back panel back onti the case and straight away internet back down to 1-4meg. WHY CASE WHY!

 

[mantadog]

To enable the thing in task manager.
Open task manager
go to the process tab
Now in the menu at the very top of the page the one with file, option, view and help. Click view then click select columns
Navigate to the to the I/O read and write at the bottom of that menu somewhere and click the boxes.

Though if you fixed it by plugging in the HDD cable then you might be able to forget about that.

To me it looks like your PC had a rough delivery, because of the HDD being unplugged and the underscores on the screen. If you examine the wireless card, does it look like anything is broken that attaches to the antennae that stick out the back of the case? Seems like your getting a much better signal with the case panel off. When you put it back on it may be shielding the receiver like a faraday cage if the antennae are not connected properly... If you attach the PC via a cable is the speed ok?