Windows explorer lag driving me insane

[gunjin]

my start-up is bare-bones: Catalyst (latest), KAV (latest), Windows Mobile Device Centre. Nothing else.

 

[mrsdoyle]

Ah Ha. Still like to see processes tab in task manager, something you installed after installing rb:7 has got to be slowing it down.

"But each one of these things comes from an egg, right? So who's laying these eggs?"

 

[mrsdoyle]

Just looked again at your system specs and realised you have 32bit windows 7 and 4 GB of ram. Windows 7 can only use 3 GB of ram. Please try this, open the pc and remove one stick of ram and see if it improves. for 4GB you need win7 64 bit. Windows 7 seems to be a bit more picky about ram and overclock settings. Vista 32 bit posssibly might have tolerated 4GB for some reason but Win 7 will give you problems.

 

[logicearth]

...Vista 32 bit posssibly might have tolerated 4GB for some reason but Win 7 will give you problems.

Umm....No having 4 GB with Windows 7 x86 will not give it problems. Where in the world did you come up with that?

 

[MilesAhead]

@gunjin Just to clarify, after you did the complete reinstall did you enable auto-updates or put any Windows updates on?

I'm running build 7077 and the only thing "slow" was I got some HD run-on due to indexing. I turned indexing off and use Everything Search instead. So far everything runs pretty snappy. I have seen some talk about the retail release having some problems that weren't in some of the betas though.

 

[mrsdoyle]

...Vista 32 bit posssibly might have tolerated 4GB for some reason but Win 7 will give you problems.

Umm....No having 4 GB with Windows 7 x86 will not give it problems. Where in the world did you come up with that?

Make Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit (x86) Support More Than 4GB Memory Raymond.CC Blog

There must be a million web sites around like these i found at random that discuss the problem of 32 bit windows and 4 GB of ram. How can you say its not a problem?

http://en.kioskea.net/faq/sujet-1571-why-windows-is-not-detecting-the-4-gb-of-ram-installed


Make Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit (x86) Support More Than 4GB Memory Raymond.CC Blog

 

[logicearth]

@mrsdoyle, Having 4 GB of RAM in the computer and running x86 will not cause the problems you see here. It doesn't cause any problems except it does not use all 4 GBs. The rest of memory is given to hardware. There is no problem outside of not getting access to all 4 GB.

 

[mrsdoyle]

Wrong. there are a lot of people having all sorts of problems when trying to put 4 GB or more into a x86 win7, blue screens, reboot loops etc, etc, just google it. If you are happy to put 8GB of ram into 32bit system instead of using an x64 version good luck to you. I dont know why im wasting time having this debate when the main aim is to help the guy with the slow PC.

 

[gunjin]

Thank you all very much for your suggestions. I appreciate your time and effort.

I attach (i hope) a link to a screengrab of my processes tab:
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

I dont believe that my problems (primarily windows explorer lags but also MS Word and Outlook typing and editing lags) are hard-drive over-use based. The problems happen whether the HD is in use or not and the HD is not thrashing/indexing the whole time. Also as per my earlier post, these problems have got progressively worse over the last few weeks but are not evident in safe mode). Where opening a folder (and typing in Word and outlook) was instantaneous immediately after my last re-install, it now performs as if i was accessing the computer remotely from the other side of the planet. Even small folders take 1-2 seconds to open and give me that annoying blue swirl icon. Typing and editing in Word and Outlook has now also developed a major lag (as it did the first time) with actions appearing on screen up to a second after i initiate them and yet typing this, via a browser text exitor, is absolutely fine. I am using a genuine retail copy of Win 7 Home Premium 32bit.

I suspect i am going to have to do yet another re-installation (3rd time lucky) and will go for the 64bit version (which i dont want to have to do as my expensive but old colour laser printer has no 64bit drivers). Unless anyone else has any ideas...

 

[gunjin]

@gunjin Just to clarify, after you did the complete reinstall did you enable auto-updates or put any Windows updates on?

I have always made autoupdates manual so i dont have to download and install unnecessary stuff such as windows defender although this is something of a futile gesture as Microsoft keep spamming you with notifications whether you want them or not. In practice i have always accepted and downloaded all essential udpates.

 

[Buzzintx]

...Vista 32 bit posssibly might have tolerated 4GB for some reason but Win 7 will give you problems.

Umm....No having 4 GB with Windows 7 x86 will not give it problems. Where in the world did you come up with that?

I'm running Win 7 32 bit with 4GB memory......no problems!

 

[gunjin]

I dont know whether this is usual or not and if it is not how much help it might be in diagnosing the problem but according to task manager's performance monitor,
Opening a folder in windows explorer causes the CPU usage to go from 1% to up to 75%
Typing this line within a web based text editor causes the CPU usage to go from 1%-4%
However, typing the same line in Outlook 07 causes the CPU usage to go from 1% to up to 51% and introduces noticeable lag
Typing the quivalent in Word 07 causes the CPU usage to go from 1% to up to 50% and also introduces noticeable lag.

I have an e8500 dual core 3.2ghz processor, running at clock speed in a P35-based M/B (Asus P5Q-E). The CPU runs fine in genuining demanding apps such as games (Dragon age, X3) so would rule out CPU failure. The CPU/MB ran fine under Vista.

 

[MadMatt]

I'm having EXACTLY the same problem here.

 

[mrsdoyle]

...Vista 32 bit posssibly might have tolerated 4GB for some reason but Win 7 will give you problems.

Umm....No having 4 GB with Windows 7 x86 will not give it problems. Where in the world did you come up with that?

I'm running Win 7 32 bit with 4GB memory......no problems!

Well im happy for you Buzz, unfortunately some people are not so lucky, Ive even seen people with x64 systems that have had trouble with 4GB + . its never that simple.

 

[mrsdoyle]

Gunjin have you at least tried running with one stick of ram just to see if there is any improvement. Then we can stop banging on about ram blah blah blah. please.

 

[sama]

Explorer and system running slow as well

I am also experiencing a slowness in my new laptop. I have a new laptop running windows 7 Pro with 3gig of memory. I used the transfer files and settings from windows 7 to move my personal files over. After I did this the system starting running very sluggish. Especially when opening IE. If there are any fixes for this it would be great.

 

[cerveaupro]

Kaspersky fixed the issue for me...

Only safe mode could bring my windows explorer performance back, even disabling every programs and services didn't make it. Uninstalled Kaspersky and performance is back to normal. Eset NOD32 works great with W7.

 

[MadMatt]

Only safe mode could bring my windows explorer performance back, even disabling every programs and services didn't make it. Uninstalled Kaspersky and performance is back to normal. Eset NOD32 works great with W7.

REALLY???

 

[IgorNg]

Hi, Guys! I had the same problem on Windows 7 64bit... Whenever I open any folder, my processor usage jumps in peaks to 100%... Explorer.exe is using 100% of processor for second or two... Everything lag's and it's annoying. Problem is solved when i completely removed Kaspersky from my system... Disabling KAV didn't help... (Win 7 and KAV is licenced, not cracked).

 

[cerveaupro]

See MadMatt ?