Aero theme is freezing my computer?

[vitoco]

I received a brand new Core i7, 4GB RAM and SSD with Win7 Enterprise (32-bit, spanish).

After some time of use, I noticed short freezes that became longer (more than three seconds) as more apps were running at the same time, or more tabs are open in one app like IExplore.

As the mouse pointer usually stops over the task bar, I guessed that it could be related to the nice little windows that pops up in Aero that ables us to select the next window to focus. So, I change my theme to Windows Classic, and voilá, no more freezes.

My guess is that the system freezes while it is taking the snapshots to display as thumbs when the mouse is over the taskbar.

Can someone confirm this behavior? Is there a solution for it or I should stay on Classic theme?

Thanks... ++Vitoco

 

[Fire cat]

Um... With an i7, 4GB RAM, why don't you use Windows 64bit?
You'll be able to enjoy the full power of your computer!

I suggest you try updating your graphic divers, as that is the likely cause.
It isn't normal at all, and it really does seem graphic related...

 

[vitoco]

I think it has 32-bit Win 7 because it's an enterprise standard, probably decided after testing the software used here. It's a big company, slowly moving from XP as old boxes are being replaced.

And back to the topic, are different graphics drivers used by different themes? I think not.

 

[Fire cat]

Not at all. But your graphics might be having some problem with aero. The basic theme doesn't freese because it doesn't use aero.

 

[clifford_cooley]

are different graphics drivers used by different themes? I think not.

No themes don't use different graphic drivers. However when you choose a non aero theme certain elements of your drivers are not used. Windows Aero will take advantange of drivers that will support it. And turning off Windows Aero will for lack of better words, turn off parts of your drivers when not needed.

So yes updating your graphic drivers can make a difference when changing to an aero based theme.

 

[TrainableMan]

Make sure your video drivers for your graphics card are up-to-date.

Go to Control Panel \ Performance Information and Tools. Re-run the assessment. Now what are your scores? The Graphics one is the biggest factor for Aero ... my graphics is 7.4.

 

[vitoco]

Make sure your video drivers for your graphics card are up-to-date.

The whizard says that "Intel(R) Graphics media Accelerator HD" is up to date.

Go to Control Panel \ Performance Information and Tools. Re-run the assessment. Now what are your scores? The Graphics one is the biggest factor for Aero ... my graphics is 7.4.

My graphics score is only 4.3. Argh!

 

[TorrentG]

That sounds about right for the onboard video. Sure, it's rather decent for that.

If you want the real deal, get an NVIDIA Fermi card or ATI 5xxx.

Both options will have DirectX 11 support and are the only two solutions that exist for that.

------

Eh - just read the entire thread - noticed it's for a company. Don't think they want or need DX11 lol.

 

[Fire cat]

Uh. With 4.7 you can easily run aero. I can...

Still seems like a graphic card problem to me though...

@Torrent I think we should help the member, not tell him to buy new hardware No offence though

 

[TorrentG]

Ya FC, I can handle what I'd like to post and so can you with yours. (We both have active membership accounts.)

 

[clifford_cooley]

In TorrentG defense, he did start the sentence with if they wanted the real deal. That is in no way telling them to get new hardware. Or at least I never would take it that way.

 

[vitoco]

I cannot change the graphics card. This is a Dell Latitude E6410 notebook with integrated video. Googling a bit, it seems that this is a bad graphics card for games... Could be Aero clasified as a game because of it's requirements?

BTW, this is the second time dealing with Win7. I had a previous bad experience with my personal notebook at home: I downgraded an HP TX1000 Tablet-PC from Vista to XP and lived happy until I decided to upgrade to Win7. It overheated from nothing and the fan worked more frequently than XP. In less than a month, the wireless card died, a signal that GPU would fail in short. So, I replaced the HD with my previous XP one... The tablet is working normally, but without integrated wifi.

 

[Fire cat]

In TorrentG defense, he did start the sentence with if they wanted the real deal. That is in no way telling them to get new hardware. Or at least I never would take it that way.

Ok Ok Ok! I don't want to start a row here.

I take back what I said. I missread Torrent's post.
Sorry

Vitoco, if your graphics weren't qualified to run aero, Windows wouldn't even have let you activate it.

 

[vitoco]

Is there a way to disable the feature of showing the windows' thumbs when rolling over the buttons of task bar? I'd like to have the same functionallity as when there are too many windows so only a list of them (without the image, just the icon) is displayed.

I think this could minimize the lag...

Thank you.

 

[TorrentG]

There shouldn't be any lag at all, not even slightly, on that system.

You can type msinfo32 in the start menu then press enter. FIle | save on the opened screen. Zip the saved file and attach.

Maybe we can see something that might be causing issues.

 

[Elmer BeFuddled]

Is there a way to disable the feature of showing the windows' thumbs when rolling over the buttons of task bar?

The only way I'm aware of is to delay the appearance of the thumbnails. The following registry script sets the delay to 60 seconds. If I remember correctly a re-boot is required to "activate".

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse]
"MouseHoverTime"="60000"

The default setting is "500" or 0.5 seconds.

Alternatively, this registry script limits the taskbar thumbnail to one per button, if you have more than one window open on a taskbar button the thumbnails change to list mode.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband]
"NumThumbnails"=dword:00000000