Inexplicable application start-up lag

Pear · 17 Sep 2014

A mysterious problem has cropped up in the last few days. At random times my OS hangs when trying to start up applications or browse. I have to wait up to 20 to 30 seconds to even open up a Notepad file. It feels like the hard disk slows to a crawl, but when I check the resource monitor nothing is being used or stressed. There is hardly any read/write activity on my SSD (I also can't hear any for obvious reasons), the CPU is used less than 4% and there is plenty of RAM left. Temperatures for all components are all on or below normal acceptable levels.

See my profile for system specs.

The other day I ran my computer for 8 hours straight without a problem, but now it started doing it again after just 25 minutes.

- I have plenty of free space on my SSD.
- I ran Memtest86+ with no problems (1 pass)
- Ran the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool 64 bit with no problems
- Ran two full scans of my hard drive with both Comodo and MalwareBytes. They found a couple of issues and quarantined them, but it has not fixed the problem.
- According to the Samsung Magician the SSD drive is in good health, but I haven't yet run a more thorough test. Not sure which one I should use. However, the SSD is relatively new (about a year and a half) and should not be close to failing.

I have no slow booting problems, and the lag seems to go away after restarting and then just randomly start again at some point. The issues did noticeably started happening after installing about 14 Windows Updates, but they were just your usual .NET Framework and security updates. So that could just be a coincidence.

I've seen some similar issues posted on this forum, but they remain unresolved. Any ideas?

Tookeri · 17 Sep 2014

You could try this: Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

And/or booting to Safe Mode

Pear · 20 Sep 2014

Thank you.
It seems to no longer create issues after turning off all the start-up services, and I have possibly narrowed it down to the Comodo anti-virus/defender software. However, I will run some more tests before I mark this as solved.

Pear · 13 Oct 2014

Can confirm now that the Comodo Antivirus is causing this for some reason. The minute I turn it off everything is back to normal. I'm so glad this was a software glitch, because it feels like your HDD/CPU is dying.
Time to get a new antivirus. Any suggestions?

Tookeri · 13 Oct 2014

Great, and always nice to confirm nothing's wrong with the hardware.

Anti-virus or Internet Security? Free or paid? I know many here recommends Microsoft Security Essentials(MSE) along with Malwarebytes Anti-malware Premium. Can't understand why though cause MSE scores bad in tests.
I've tried many products but always return to F-Secure Internet Security(Finland). A paid product.

I would not recommend only an anti-virus product. Internet Security suits have additional features like browsing protection, banking protection etc depending on what product it is. What's important to know is that no anti-virus product can protect you to 100% so a layered protection is the best way and/or having system image backups that you can use with a rescue/boot CD for a worst case scenario.

Pear · 13 Oct 2014

Yes, COMODO also has a Defense and Internet Security component that I still have running. They do not seem to cause any issues for now.
I of course prefer to use a decent freeware product. Perhaps MSE's anti-virus and COMODO's firewall/defense will both be enough to keep threats at a minimum. To be honest, none of these have ever caused any serious harm to my computer. I'm pretty careful when it comes to this.