I have finally installed Windows 7 (64-bit) on a partition I had reserved for it when I first built the PC.  I took me a year to get round to this, as XP has been working so well that there was no real motivation for me to change.  I spent a couple of days getting all of the programs installed/registered/configured/etc., and they all work fine (aside from one particular plugin: 2c-Aether).  I have stuck with the 32-bit versions of Sonar and plugins so far.

But there is a serious problem with performance.  Any operations that involve HDD access are noticeably slow compared to the same operations running on XP.  This applies to all 3 HDDs.  Any clues?

Hints? Maybe. Answers No
 
Power settings. Are your drives turning off and taking time to spin up again? You mignt be able to hear the answer to this unless your drives are very quiet.
 
Problems with drivers and mode. XP did not directly access SATA drives (required translation) Did you install the OS with the drives in legacy or AHCI  or raid mode? Do you have the latest drivers for your motherboard disk controller?

slartabartfast

Do you have the latest drivers for your motherboard disk controller?

I installed all the Windows7 64-bit drivers downloaded from this page:
http://www.gigabyte.com/p...-page.aspx?pid=3527#dl

I seem to remember that there was an error message after installing one of the drivers, but I didn't pay much attention at the time.  Maybe I should try installing them all again.

Did you install the Intel motherboard chipset drivers BEFORE installing device drivers?  If not, some of the devices may not work or some drivers will not even install if the chipset drivers were not installed.

Win 7 will install many drivers, however some are old version drivers or just generic drivers and they may not work correctly.  For example, Windows will usually install the "HD Audio Codec" for the Integrated (on the motherboard) sound chips and in many cases that either does not work or does not work correctly. 

In many cases the install sequence is (1) Install Windows (2) Install motherboard chipset drivers (3) Install Device drivers such as Video, sound, ethernet, etc. (and installing applicable PC or motherboard vendor device drivers is preferred).

slartabartfast

Did you install the OS with the drives in legacy or AHCI  or raid mode?

I've no idea.

fireberd

Did you install the Intel motherboard chipset drivers BEFORE installing device drivers?

Yes.

fireberd

In many cases the install sequence is (1) Install Windows (2) Install motherboard chipset drivers (3) Install Device drivers such as Video, sound, ethernet, etc. (and installing applicable PC or motherboard vendor device drivers is preferred).

That was pretty much the sequence that I followed, although I omitted the onboard audio.

what are your drives set to in the bios?
IDE mode or raid or what. it should not be IDE mode
also did you do AHCI?

if not thats the issue

Kev999

slartabartfast

Did you install the OS with the drives in legacy or AHCI  or raid mode?

I've no idea.

I now realize that you were referring to a BIOS setting, so I have just checked.  ICH Sata Control Mode is set to IDE.

[I missed Scott's post above]

jcschild

what are your drives set to in the bios?
IDE mode or raid or what. it should not be IDE mode
also did you do AHCI?

if not thats the issue

It's set to IDE mode.  If I change this setting, will it cause any problems with XP?