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Firefox graphics slow unless VirtualRouter is running

  • 2 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by RBCosta

RBCosta
RBCosta
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I have an old computer with VIA K8M800 video driver, just moved to Windows 7, there are only video drivers for XP though.

There are some pages (like the topics in this forum) where PageDown scrolling takes almost a second. Mouse over objects blocked by NoScript is very slow. Both Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 4 are affected, -safe-mode has no effect, setting hardware acceleration either on/off has no effect.

When either of these conditions is true Firefox runs smoothly on this system:

  • starting the system in safe mode to use standard VGA graphics driver
  • starting Virtual Router Manager, the client module, no matter if the service module is running or not.
I have an old computer with VIA K8M800 video driver, just moved to Windows 7, there are only video drivers for XP though. There are some pages (like the topics in this forum) where PageDown scrolling takes almost a second. Mouse over objects blocked by NoScript is very slow. Both Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 4 are affected, -safe-mode has no effect, setting hardware acceleration either on/off has no effect. When either of these conditions is true Firefox runs smoothly on this system: * starting the system in safe mode to use standard VGA graphics driver * starting Virtual Router Manager, the client module, no matter if the service module is running or not.

All Replies (2)

Xircal
Xircal
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That chipset was released in 2003: http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/pressroom/2003_archive/pr031215k8m800.jsp

It's probably working overtime just trying to run Windows 7.

It might be a good idea to run the Microsoft upgrade advisor to see whether the machine is capable of running Windows 7 before you try and troubleshoot Firefox. See http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor

RBCosta
RBCosta Question owner
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I guess I was not clear enough in the last sentence. As long as Virtual Router Manager is running, those slowdowns in Firefox wont happen anymore.

Wihtout VRM I can see that slowdown rarely in IE or in explorer but it is short-lived and almost unnoticeable. In Firefox it happens much more often, it seems to trigger when a large piece of screen is redrawn with transparency.

It's unlikely to be a problem in Firefox itself, but VRM is not supposed to make my system or Firefox more responsive. How could it manage to do that?

EDIT: solved, it is because VRM uses DirectX. I tried other applications using DirectX and they cause this same effect. Since it's an old video card without updated drivers it's not worth a bug report.

EDIT2: I had given up any hope until I found this: Control panel > Video > screen resolution > Advanced Settings > Troubleshooting > change settings, then move the slider one step right. That's it, I no longer need to keep a DirectX app open while using Firefox.

Modified by RBCosta