Windows boots very slow and runs slow after booting

ICIT2LOL · 02 Dec 2012

Hum what I might suggest abyssal is to get that drive out and if you have access to another machine install it using a USB gadget or into the machine it self, and try Patition Magic to see what is on the drive.

Another thing before that tough may be to run a Seatools Hard drive test on the drive and you could also try a disk surface test with Partition Wizard. You can also see what is on the disk with it too.

SeaTools | Seagate

Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

The boot time is very wrong and mate I personally would not wait for more than ten minutes as there is something terribly wrong with some hardware somewhere and I would be very suspicious of the CPU - especially the thermal paste. If the machine is more than say four years old then like my best laptop I have - the thermal could be well and truly hardened and is not doing the the job it was meant to. In fact I would go so far as to say it may be insulating or keeping the CPU from contact with the heatsink (and heat pipes)and hence the constant shut down and extreme boot time.

Sorry my friend but time to have a very close look at the internals but try the tests first.

abyssal · 02 Dec 2012

Okay so I opened it and I noticed there was a lot of dust near the cooler or how it's called. I cleaned it up and powered the laptop again. Booting was still pretty slow but a little faster than before. PC works kinda better (although it still seems to have the problem - CPU refuses to do something from time to time).

I was finally able to run a malware scan on the whole HDD but it didn't found anything. Also after I cleaned it up the CPU temperature dropped to around 40 degrees Celsius.

Thanks again for advices, will look more into it.

gregrocker · 02 Dec 2012

What were the results of the hardware tests?

Have you established a Clean boot yet?

How close do you have to a perfect Clean Reinstall, which spells out the Best Practices for Win7 install?

ICIT2LOL · 02 Dec 2012

Sorry late reply abyssal - work and all that good the CPU has cooled as it was definitely sounding like it was a lot of the problem, and in the future at some stage when things are going it might be an idea to have a loom at the thermal compound too.:)

Now that is sorted I think it would be good to do what Greg has said mate, and let us know what the go is.

abyssal · 03 Dec 2012

All right, I guess I fixed it. I just ran a /chkdsk /r /f in CMD and restarted the PC. It found some `bad clusters` on the hard drive and it fixed it automatically.

Works fine now and hopefully it will work fine in the future. Thanks both of you for support.

gregrocker · 03 Dec 2012

If it was the HD causing slowness then I'd want to also confirm the HD condition with HD Diagnostics for your brand HD.

ICIT2LOL · 03 Dec 2012

Good stuff mate and go with what Greg has just posted - I think that Seatools will do most brands bt have a look.

One last thing try this - magic

Optimize Windows 7[2]=Performance Maintenance

abyssal · 07 Dec 2012

Okay I'm back here. The PC kept having the problem even after I checked the disc and repaired it. I installed Windows 7 once again. It still has a very slow boot and now a new problem showed up. At the first boot after installing Windows it was working pretty good. I got some updates for Windows and when I restarted the PC, it won't boot anymore.

Before booting Windows I get this error:

Error code: 0xc00000e9

Something related to I/O (error)

Any hints on this ? I guess it's the HDD causing it.

petko131 · 07 Dec 2012

Could you, maybe, try safe boot or boot from last know configuration, and then run the HDD tests. I bet the hard drive is causing this.

gregrocker · 07 Dec 2012

Install CrystalDiskInfo - Software now to read HD SMART condition.

What did the HD Diagnostics and Disk Check find? Run both again to be sure.

Sometimes HD's cannot fully repair, and if they do repair cannot be trusted.