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Acidicheartburn
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Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 2:11 pm

I'm at a complete loss on this one. Both Steam and one other specific game take at least a minute to start. I've checked with other people and both programs typically launch immediately for them. Both are on separate SSD's (Steam is installed to my PNY CS2211 and the game is on my Crucial BX100). I just reformatted my C: drive (the PNY), even going as far as to take the drive out, plug it into another computer, and run the clean command in diskpart. I did this because the PNY does not have a Secure Erase function in any software offered by PNY. I'm even on Windows 10 vs Windows 7 where the problem first arose.

What could possibly be causing this? How could this issue persist across two entirely separate reinstalls?

System Details:

Win 10 x64
Intel 4770k
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H
Radeon 7950

I don't have any antivirus (at the moment) that could be causing a slowdown. Windows 10 is up to date, and the only active running programs are Steam, Dropbox, Creative volume panel (for my sound card) Gigabyte APP center, and Logitech Gaming Software.
 
synthtel2
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 2:26 pm

What's the game that has the issue? Does it launch through Steam, or something else?
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 2:46 pm

synthtel2 wrote:
What's the game that has the issue? Does it launch through Steam, or something else?

The game is Fistful of Frags, a Source Engine game that launches through steam. It's the only Source Engine game that I have this issue with. I would assume it's a fluke and just deal with it if I didn't already know other people who don't have this issue with either program launching incredibly slow.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 4:18 pm

Acidicheartburn wrote:
synthtel2 wrote:
What's the game that has the issue? Does it launch through Steam, or something else?

The game is Fistful of Frags, a Source Engine game that launches through steam. It's the only Source Engine game that I have this issue with. I would assume it's a fluke and just deal with it if I didn't already know other people who don't have this issue with either program launching incredibly slow.

Any chance it is trying to phone home to a badly overloaded server?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 4:32 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Acidicheartburn wrote:
synthtel2 wrote:
What's the game that has the issue? Does it launch through Steam, or something else?

The game is Fistful of Frags, a Source Engine game that launches through steam. It's the only Source Engine game that I have this issue with. I would assume it's a fluke and just deal with it if I didn't already know other people who don't have this issue with either program launching incredibly slow.

Any chance it is trying to phone home to a badly overloaded server?

Unlikely, old Source Engine games don't need to login to a server during startup. I also know of a number of other people who play the same game who don't have an issue with it taking ages to launch. The only Source-based games I can think of which might need to are Titanfalls 1 & 2 and I haven't played either.
 
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 5:07 pm

Have Task Manager Resource Monitor and a monitor window on your Router when you launch it. Look for any weird network traffic or high usage of one resource or another.
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Kougar
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 6:30 pm

This was a clean install of steam, right? No copying various user or game files around?
 
qmacpoint
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 7:37 pm

if you wanna see the activity of that particular process, you can use Process Monitor (ProcMon) from Sysinternals (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon) and check what it's doing - mind you, it is a bit daunting to see absolutely everything within ProcMon...
 
DragonDaddyBear
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 03, 2018 7:56 pm

+1 for procmon. Also, try an AV exclusion.
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:05 pm

Well I fixed the problem, but the cause is still rather perplexing to me.

After going down a rabbit hole, I finally managed to secure erase my PNY CS2211 (you can see how that went down here: https://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=121478&p=1394374#p1394374) which seems to have fixed Steam launching slow. I caved and used the Crucial software to secure erase my BX100 (didn't want to have to redownload everything that's on that drive) and that seems to have fixed Fistful of Frags launching slow. I can't say 100% for sure if the secure erase fixed it, as the issue could have still been coming from the Steam client itself (I didn't try installing FoF to the same drive as Steam this time around) but both programs are launching quickly and normally now.

I don't really understand why FoF was the only game installed to my BX100 that would launch slowly if a secure erase was really what the drive needed to fix the issue. Similarly, on my PNY, I did notice Windows was starting slower than normal (Steam being installed to the OS drive) but really Steam was the only other program I had issues with having long starts. Web browsers, Discord, Spotify, etc. all started without issue even though they shared the drive with Steam.

I guess a TL;DR here is if you have even one program launching slowly on your SSD for no other explainable reason, then a secure erase may be needed to fix it.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:12 pm

Maybe the game just has a weird pattern of disk accesses (writes) during startup that gets tripped up by a SSD that hasn't been properly TRIMmed. I still think there's a problem with TRIM not working correctly on your system. Everything you've posted so far hints at that being the case.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:21 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Maybe the game just has a weird pattern of disk accesses (writes) during startup that gets tripped up by a SSD that hasn't been properly TRIMmed. I still think there's a problem with TRIM not working correctly on your system. Everything you've posted so far hints at that being the case.

Everything I've seen points to TRIM working. I've checked if TRIM was enabled using this guide (yep, even before I reinstalled) https://www.howtogeek.com/257196/how-to-check-if-trim-is-enabled-for-your-ssd-and-enable-it-if-it-isnt/ and another program.

The PNY (OS and a few games) and BX100 (games only) both have had times where they've been filled to max capacity by accident and as we know, SSD's don't respond well to being overfilled. This, I think, is what caused my degrading performance.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sun Nov 04, 2018 4:06 pm

Are you running the latest firmware for your drive?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sun Nov 04, 2018 4:21 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Are you running the latest firmware for your drive?

Yup, both. There's only one firmware version for the PNY drive and the Crucial Storage Executive Tool says the BX100 is up to date.
 
MOSFET
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:22 pm

Absolutely positively in AHCI mode for all drives in the UEFI ?
Be careful on inserting this (or any G34 chip) into the socket. Once you pull that restraining lever, it is either a good install or a piece of silicon jewelry.
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:59 pm

Bereven wrote:
Acidicheartburn wrote:
I don't have any antivirus (at the moment) that could be causing a slowdown.

What's the problem? Choose an antivirus that has a good rating, reviews and use it. The main thing the base was actual, to monitor, update.

The lack of antivirus was due to it being a brand new install of Win 10. I wanted to avoid installing anything extra to make sure the issue was solved.

And yes, I'm really really sure everything has ALWAYS been on AHCI.
 
DragonDaddyBear
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Fri Nov 16, 2018 9:37 pm

Are you are you don't have AV? I would be shocked if you don't have at least Windows Defender. Check to see if you do and out in an exception for it if you do
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Nov 17, 2018 8:30 pm

DragonDaddyBear wrote:
Are you are you don't have AV? I would be shocked if you don't have at least Windows Defender. Check to see if you do and out in an exception for it if you do

I think people are misunderstanding me. I always have antivirus. However, for the sake of narrowing down the problem I did not install an antivirus program after I reformatted. I would never trust just Windows Defender as my sole AV.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:37 am

Acidicheartburn wrote:
I would never trust just Windows Defender as my sole AV.


We have Eset NOD32 in our workplace but on the PC's I work, I have Windows Defender/Security Essentials running side-by-side and just a few days ago, it was MSE that caught the virus on a USB flash disk and not Eset even though I scanned the USB with Eset first. If anyone's using Eset, beware the big security gap in your defenses.
 
whatsryancookin2002
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:33 am

Acidicheartburn wrote:
I'm at a complete loss on this one. Both Steam and one other specific game take at least a minute to start. .


I have the same problem with Steam but only on my laptop (runs fine on the desktop).

My laptop is an i7 with 8GB RAM and Nvidia 940MX graphics card. The desktop is an i7 9700k with 16BG RAM and GTX950. Both run Windows 10 Professional.

Crucially, my laptop only has a HDD while the desktop has a SSD. Could this be the culprit?
 
Acidicheartburn
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Dec 15, 2018 3:35 pm

whatsryancookin2002 wrote:
Acidicheartburn wrote:
I'm at a complete loss on this one. Both Steam and one other specific game take at least a minute to start. .


I have the same problem with Steam but only on my laptop (runs fine on the desktop).

My laptop is an i7 with 8GB RAM and Nvidia 940MX graphics card. The desktop is an i7 9700k with 16BG RAM and GTX950. Both run Windows 10 Professional.

Crucially, my laptop only has a HDD while the desktop has a SSD. Could this be the culprit?

The HDD is absolutely going to make Steam launch slower than from an SSD. Programs simply launch much faster when running from an SSD. However, there probably shouldn't be a full minute of difference between the startup times.
 
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Dec 15, 2018 4:29 pm

Do not underestimate the effect of latency. While STR is typically off by only a single-digit factor between SSD and HDD, seek latency can be a killer. Unless you are dealing with pure sequential workloads you are potentially looking at orders of magnitude performance differences.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
whatsryancookin2002
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Feb 02, 2019 3:04 am

just brew it! wrote:
Do not underestimate the effect of latency. While STR is typically off by only a single-digit factor between SSD and HDD, seek latency can be a killer. Unless you are dealing with pure sequential workloads you are potentially looking at orders of magnitude performance differences.

I flipped over my laptop yesterday and realized that I can change the HDD and switch to a SSD.
Would it be worth the time and investment? I would still need to keep a HDD connected at all times. I produce music occassionally and the samples alone are about 300GB+
 
just brew it!
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Feb 02, 2019 7:54 am

whatsryancookin2002 wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
Do not underestimate the effect of latency. While STR is typically off by only a single-digit factor between SSD and HDD, seek latency can be a killer. Unless you are dealing with pure sequential workloads you are potentially looking at orders of magnitude performance differences.

I flipped over my laptop yesterday and realized that I can change the HDD and switch to a SSD.
Would it be worth the time and investment? I would still need to keep a HDD connected at all times. I produce music occassionally and the samples alone are about 300GB+

It should provide a noticeable performance improvement, but it is really up to you whether the hassle of needing to keep an external HDD connected to do music production is worth it. Cost of a small HDD plus external drive or drive dock/enclosure is probably gonna put you most of the way to the cost of a larger SSD, so maybe just go for a larger SSD?

I still favor smaller SSD + large HDD for desktop systems due to the cost/capacity issue; but for laptops it's SSD all the way.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Aether
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:23 am

just brew it! wrote:
whatsryancookin2002 wrote:
I flipped over my laptop yesterday and realized that I can change the HDD and switch to a SSD.
Would it be worth the time and investment? I would still need to keep a HDD connected at all times. I produce music occassionally and the samples alone are about 300GB+

It should provide a noticeable performance improvement, but it is really up to you whether the hassle of needing to keep an external HDD connected to do music production is worth it. Cost of a small HDD plus external drive or drive dock/enclosure is probably gonna put you most of the way to the cost of a larger SSD, so maybe just go for a larger SSD?

I still favor smaller SSD + large HDD for desktop systems due to the cost/capacity issue; but for laptops it's SSD all the way.


You should also check your laptop's manual to see if you can install an m.2 SSD.
 
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Re: Two specific programs take ages to launch, even after reformat

Wed Feb 13, 2019 9:11 am

Acidicheartburn wrote:
I don't have any antivirus (at the moment) that could be causing a slowdown.

What's the problem? Choose an antivirus that has a good rating, reviews and use it.

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