So fed up... Windows alternative?

[deezdrama]

In 2015 I built my cab with a hyperspin drive on win 7... Took months to compile hyperspin the way i wanted.
It ran fine for about a year, then things started running terrible and the cab sat for a few years unused untill last year when I decided to completely gut it and start over.

I rewired the entire cab, spent over a grand on ultimarc rgb micro goldleafs, im running a ipac4 and 2 led64's, built a better system with spare pc parts I had. An older i5 , 16gb ddr3, and an extra gtx 1060 6gb video card. Bought a new lg monitor for it.
Running a fresh install of win10, i installed windows, bigbox, and media on a ssd, all game files on a 8tb hdd.
Had to write custom ledblinky led button scripts.

All ran fine for about a year untill it started running like crap out of the blue.

Windows takes 5 min to boot, bigbox takes another 5min. Everything is laggy.
If i click on start menu or anything it takes 30sec to a minute for a response.

I thought it was a drive going bad, ran several hardrive tests.... All is good

Ran memtest... Good

Ran a cpu stress test.... Good.

Tried updating windows....drivers... Nothing changes.


This is like the 3rd windows based emulation specific system ive built that ends up running like crap and im so sick of it.

I have an ancient linux machine in the basement that still runs as good as the day I installed it.
Id be tempted to just start over once again and forget the giant 8tb drive and just run linux ,mame, and a linux based frontend on a ssd but then id lose my ledblinky button animations.

Im tempted to just stick a damn pi or pandoras box in it at this point. I just need my cab to be reliable.

Any alternative suggesstions?

[Zebidee]

Check out GroovyArcade. ArcadeOnAStick.

I use Win7 but backup drives to separate images/SSDs, so if I fubar can reset.  You can also use restore points.

Use separate, smaller SSDs for OS drives (go better quality SSDs with DRAM), keep game data on another larger SSD (can go cheaper SSD brand here, if you want).

I prefer to keep all windows installs airgapped (no network connection) and turn off all autoupdates/windows updates. That way the only thing that can screw things up is myself.

If all else fails, reset.

[deezdrama]

Yeah, I either shelled windows or debloated it, never had it connected to the internet except one time when I updated bigbox.
Which seems like was shortly before the system started having problems. I never created a restore point 😖
I barely ever used the cab and planned to make a restore and backup once I added a few more modern games but never got to it before it started having issues.

I just reseatted cpu, gpu,ram, and sata cable connections.

Mobo started beeping and power cylcing.

Swapped ram around and it boot back up but still slower than paint drying.
Not sure if a windows update slipped through when i last updated bigbox and that its a win update issue or if i have a sudden hardware failure out of nowhere for no reason on a system barely ran.

I just want a simple reliable setup at this point but if i run pi or similar then my expensive rgb buttons were bought for nothing

[Phreakwars]

I advocate shelled Windows 7 all the way. See topic: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=148050.0 I have machines that are still running shelled 7 back when 7 was the latest. I all but gave up on 10 and just forget 11. Otherwise, Linux is where it's at. The nice thing about 7, is you can disable updates, customize startup and shutdown, and even animate boot. I like it because I can keep wi-fi connected on my cabs and network into them to perform changes if needed.

EDIT:
Here is an example of shelled 7. Old video, keep meaning to switch THAT ONE to Attract Mode one of these days.

[deezdrama]

I advocate shelled Windows 7 all the way. See topic: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=148050.0 I have machines that are still running shelled 7 back when 7 was the latest. I all but gave up on 10 and just forget 11. Otherwise, Linux is where it's at. The nice thing about 7, is you can disable updates, customize startup and shutdown, and even animate boot. I like it because I can keep wi-fi connected on my cabs and network into them to perform changes if needed.

EDIT:
Here is an example of shelled 7. Old video, keep meaning to switch THAT ONE to Attract Mode one of these days.

Yeah i miss win7, i dont know why i went with 10. I kinda wanted to add some steam games but anymore im tired of overcomplicated setups. I have my main pc in the game room, a mister fpga, every original console-most on rgb modded crt's and pvms.... I really dont need much on the cab but mame. I think im going to take the 8tb hdd out and just go simple.
I just wish there was a good option to control my rgb buttons in linux because linux boxes have always been rock solid for me

[Fursphere]

have you looked at task manager / performance to see where the bottleneck is?  Whatever is hitting (and staying at) 100% is most likely what's slowing you down.

Do you have all drivers updated in Windows 10?  Or are you running "OTB" drivers?  (out of the box / included with Windows 10).  Firmware up to date on the motherboard? 

Did you check Windows startup to see what's loading on startup that might be slowing things down?   (task manager - startup tab)

Is there a Windows swapfile / pagefile on the 8tb HDD?  Read more about that here: https://www.techtarget.com/searchwindowsserver/definition/swap-file-swap-space-or-pagefile 
(swap file / pagefile on a slow spindle HDD will kill system performance if windows starts using it.  And Windows can be dumb and use it even when there is system RAM available)

[deezdrama]

have you looked at task manager / performance to see where the bottleneck is?  Whatever is hitting (and staying at) 100% is most likely what's slowing you down.

Do you have all drivers updated in Windows 10?  Or are you running "OTB" drivers?  (out of the box / included with Windows 10).  Firmware up to date on the motherboard? 

Did you check Windows startup to see what's loading on startup that might be slowing things down?   (task manager - startup tab)

Is there a Windows swapfile / pagefile on the 8tb HDD?  Read more about that here: https://www.techtarget.com/searchwindowsserver/definition/swap-file-swap-space-or-pagefile 
(swap file / pagefile on a slow spindle HDD will kill system performance if windows starts using it.  And Windows can be dumb and use it even when there is system RAM available)

I did check task manager when it was lagging bad but nothing was over 60% during startup.
Ill have to look again shortly, currently running another round of memtest86.

Sofar cpu stress tests, disk info, memtest has all been fine.

When I put the pc together in 2021 i installed fresh win10, updated it, installed bigbox,drivers, etc and never had it connected to the net untill a year or so later when I updated bigbox and shortly after had issues ever since.

Yesterday and today i fully updated win10, installed latest nvidia drivers, made sure mobo drivers up to date, the only extra thing running in startup is bigbox which i have disabled while troubleshooting.

Interesting about the swapfiles. I read the linked article but it just states how to set a size for them but not how to edit,delete them

Edit#####

Memtest was fine, rebooted and took forever to become reponsive. Task manager took forever to open, cpu use was at 100% but nothing in the process list showed it was using cpu.

Just trying to open a folder took 30 seconds and would trigger a "system interrupt" process in task manager at 100% cpu useage

Seems like after 5 min after startup things clear up.

Bigbox takes 3 min or more to launch, the menu and previews are laggy, games take forever to launch, but if i close and reopen bigbox it runs better 🤦🏻‍♂️


Edit#2#####

Found a backup of the file/folder structure of bigbox on the 8tb hdd i must of copied over right after I redid my cab a few years ago, i ran bigbox and its running great from the hdd.

The way i have the cab setup is windows, launchbox/bigbox is on the ssd along with all the artwork and preview video files and all the roms are on the 8tb hdd.

I dont know that the ssd is the issue because even after i initially run the normal cabs bigbox (not the backup i just found) it runs laggy and like crap but if i exit bigbox and immediately launch it again it runs fine.

I updated bigbox a year or so ago, the backup was an older version, not sure if the issue is a bigbox version bug, a windows bug or what at this point.

Contemplating just deleting my bigbox/launchbox folder off the ssd and copying this older build back over to it.

Right now i have my usb hub, ipac4, and 2 led64's unplugged just to rule out those as an issue.

I think i remember updating the k-lite codec pack at some point as well, that made me remember all the runtimea and direct x9 needed for some of theae emulators and wonder if a windows update broke one of those or something as well.

Uggg, these damn builds get so complex its almost needed to just start over 😔

[Fursphere]

Just for fun, are you running a 4k monitor and / or is your monitor refresh rate set to 30 hz?

Sometimes Windows 10 (and 11) will set the refresh rate to 30 hz (like when you plug in a 4k screen, and sometimes even on smaller screens), and this will make everything feel slow.  Probably not the problem you're having, but its something to check for.

For reference, my two cabinets are running i5 2500k and 3750k CPUs.   Ancient tech by todays standards.  Windows 10 on the SSDs, and LaunchBox/BigBox on 14tb HDDs.  Initial boot up of LB/BB is a little slow, but not terrible.  I usually just turn the cabinet(s) on, walk away, then come back in a few minutes and everything is ready to go. 

Have you checked your drives with something like CrystalDiskInfo?  See if they're healthy?   A bad SATA cable can cause high error rates, and slow everything down too.

[deezdrama]

Just for fun, are you running a 4k monitor and / or is your monitor refresh rate set to 30 hz?

Sometimes Windows 10 (and 11) will set the refresh rate to 30 hz (like when you plug in a 4k screen, and sometimes even on smaller screens), and this will make everything feel slow.  Probably not the problem you're having, but its something to check for.

For reference, my two cabinets are running i5 2500k and 3750k CPUs.   Ancient tech by todays standards.  Windows 10 on the SSDs, and LaunchBox/BigBox on 14tb HDDs.  Initial boot up of LB/BB is a little slow, but not terrible.  I usually just turn the cabinet(s) on, walk away, then come back in a few minutes and everything is ready to go. 

Have you checked your drives with something like CrystalDiskInfo?  See if they're healthy?   A bad SATA cable can cause high error rates, and slow everything down too.

No 4k or 30hz issue, i did run crystaldisk info several times along with memtest and cpu stress test, all was good.

I had the bigbox build backed up so went ahead and erased the ssd and installed win10 enterprise and immediately disabled updates. The system runs super fast again. It had to of been a software/driver issue but the build was fresh a couple years ago and hardly ever used it so i dont know how things got so corrupted.

Anyway, now that im back on a fresh slate i have a choice to make.....

Thinking bigbox was the culprit i downloaded a coinops build and ill be damned its sleek and runs so smooth compared to what im used to. I didnt install it on the cab i just tested it out on my main desktop but i definitely enjoyed it. The problem is there is like next to no info on this frontend besides asking on the discord and waiting a day for an answer.
I dont know if the menu keys can be configured to my ipac4s layout or if i would have to rewire my encoder to match coinops menu inputs.... That and having to figure out how to use my ledblinky scripts with it is the only things keeping me from running coinops.

I do see bigbox is able to shell windows now which is cool, that option should keep any extra window processes from ever running i would think. It would probably be easier to recompile a smaller bigbox build on the ssd with just mame and teknoparrot games , copy my ipac config over and my ledblinky files, shell the build and be done but damn that coinops ran smooooooth

[Robbbert]

The biggest slowdowns I get on Windows 10 are caused by the inbuilt virus scanner going a bit crazy. When it happens I turn off the scanner and things usually come back to normal. Of course, being windows 10 it turns itself back on after a while, so you need to keep turning it off again.

I wish there was a way to keep it off for good.