Poor overall performance-advice for troubleshooting?

simrick · 09 Jul 2015

Hi there,
My friend has a W7Pro SP1 64-bit Inspiron 620 Intel i3-2100 3.1Ghz 6Gig RAM. He's having quite a bit of problems with this thing, and has asked me to try and fix it. I should mention that he is a photographer, and uses external HDDs which he moves back and forth from his MAC to his W7 machine, and I suspect this is a big part of the problem.

I ran sfc /scannow, and all it found was the GWX telemetry error and this other one:

2015-07-09 09:15:49, Info CSI 0000037f [SR] This component was referenced by [l:162{81}]"Package_250_for_KB3068708~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.1.0.3068708-814_neutral_GDR"

The two external HDDs are formatted, one as FAT32 and one as exFAT32. One of the issues he is having is that, when he plugs the HDD back into the W7 machine, the photo thumbnails are duplicated, but in B&W. He is not able to cut a disk using the OS copy/burn function, or the installed Roxio Creator Starter, but IMGBurn does work. I also was unable to burn a Macrium recovery disk for him through the Reflect program (it just hung at 14% forever) - I had to make an ISO on the desktop and then burn it using IMGBurn.

The system is pretty slow, in my opinion it should be much faster than it is. I would like some guidance as to what I should do first, and if anyone has any experience with swapping HDDs from MACs to W7 and back - I really think this has something to do with it, but I just don't know for sure - I am not a MAC person.

I would be able to post a list of installed programs if that would help,and any other info that might be needed.

I really don't want to restore to factory condition - it would be way too much work to reinstall all his photography, printers & scanner software (as well as everything else), and I would be in big trouble if he was not able to find all his keycodes and I did that to him. I'm not able to do an in-place repair, as this is an OEM install.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

EDIT: I have also found that, setting default applications is a problem. For instance, I installed LibreOffice, and was having difficulty setting it as default for docs and spreadsheets - it wouldn't take - so I ended up just making it default for everything it could handle, and that worked.

Wynona · 09 Jul 2015

First, I would find his product key for Windows 7 so if something untoward happens, at least you have that! Download Belarc Advisor from here: Belarc - System Management For The Internet Age. Software license management, IT asset management, IT security audits and more. and run it on his system. It will tell you a lot of stuff, but best of all, it will give you a large number of his product keys; not all of them, but it will definitely show Windows 7's key and any MS Office keys.

If you're not familiar with Belarc, you will be amazed at the information the free program will give you; there's also a paid version that will give you even more info.

Secondly, if he has room on his externals, I would create a folder on one of the hard drives and move everything from the other one into that. Then, I would format the now empty hard drive to pristine condition, using NTFS unless he has a valid reason for using Fat 32. Now, I would move the folder containing the original files back to the newly formatted hard drive.

Repeat the process with the other external drive.

Once you have that done, I would suggest using one for his Mac and one for his PC. Yes, that will mean a duplication of photos, but I would think that's better than what he's contending with now.

You didn't say if the PC is a desktop or laptop, but from the problems described, his DVD drive could be partially on the blink. If it's a desktop, a new DVD drive can be had from Newegg for around $20.00.

Hope this helps.

simrick · 09 Jul 2015

Wynona said:

First, I would find his product key for Windows 7 so if something untoward happens, at least you have that! Download Belarc Advisor from here: Belarc - System Management For The Internet Age. Software license management, IT asset management, IT security audits and more. and run it on his system. It will tell you a lot of stuff, but best of all, it will give you a large number of his product keys; not all of them, but it will definitely show Windows 7's key and any MS Office keys.

If you're not familiar with Belarc, you will be amazed at the information the free program will give you; there's also a paid version that will give you even more info.

Hi Wynona! Yes, I am very familiar with Belarc. I use it on all the systems I work on. I've actually just completed a complete HDD system image with Macrium, so I have a starting point in case things go downhill......

Wynona said:

Secondly, if he has room on his externals, I would create a folder on one of the hard drives and move everything from the other one into that. Then, I would format the now empty hard drive to pristine condition, using NTFS unless he has a valid reason for using Fat 32. Now, I would move the folder containing the original files back to the newly formatted hard drive.

Repeat the process with the other external drive.

Yes...but the problem here is, using a format which is readable on both machines. MACs can't write to NTFS and Windows can't read whatever-the-heck-format-MAC-use (HFS?). The common denominator is FAT32 or exFAT32. I did some poking around and found that Paragon make a program that will enable him to read NTFS drives on a MAC called NTSF for Mac OS X, (on the same LAN, I think?), but I'm not sure if it can do it without physically switching them back and forth? I have to read up more on that. I'm also wondering if maybe an NAS would be a better solution for him.

Wynona said:

Once you have that done, I would suggest using one for his Mac and one for his PC. Yes, that will mean a duplication of photos, but I would think that's better than what he's contending with now.

That scenario isn't possible in his case. He has one external HDD for the raw photos by date, and the other external HDD for the same photos, but indexed with locations and modified as well. Each HDD is 3TB, and nearing full....

Wynona said:

You didn't say if the PC is a desktop or laptop, but from the problems described, his DVD drive could be partially on the blink. If it's a desktop, a new DVD drive can be had from Newegg for around $20.00.

It's a desktop. I just don't know what to think about this optical drive. If it works fine with IMGBurn, perhaps it's something to do with the Roxio "starter" software. I am inclined to remove that and see what happens. I am also inclined to remove Office "starter" and all the Dell crapware. Any thoughts on that?

Wynona said:

Hope this helps.

Thanks! :)

GokAy · 09 Jul 2015

Telemetry corruption is a pseudo one, no real corruption but reported to be so. Either disregard those 2 files or uninstall KB3022345 and KB3068708. Hide next time if they are offered.

simrick · 09 Jul 2015

GokAy said:

Telemetry corruption is a pseudo one, no real corruption but reported to be so. Either disregard those 2 files or uninstall KB3022345 and KB3068708. Hide next time if they are offered.

Yes, thank you, I will do that. Any ideas on the external HDD issue or the optical drive?

Wynona · 09 Jul 2015

simrick said:

<Snip>

Wynona said:

You didn't say if the PC is a desktop or laptop, but from the problems described, his DVD drive could be partially on the blink. If it's a desktop, a new DVD drive can be had from Newegg for around $20.00.

It's a desktop. I just don't know what to think about this optical drive. If it works fine with IMGBurn, perhaps it's something to do with the Roxio "starter" software. I am inclined to remove that and see what happens. I am also inclined to remove Office "starter" and all the Dell crapware. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks! :)

Yes, I'd remove Roxio software and Office starter plus all the crapware. Have you seen Decrapifier? The PC Decrapifier Wipes Unwanted Junk | The PC Decrapifier.

There should be some free DVD burners out there but I'm not familiar enough with Windows 7 anymore to recommend one.

simrick · 10 Jul 2015

Wynona said:

simrick said:

<Snip>

Wynona said:

You didn't say if the PC is a desktop or laptop, but from the problems described, his DVD drive could be partially on the blink. If it's a desktop, a new DVD drive can be had from Newegg for around $20.00.

It's a desktop. I just don't know what to think about this optical drive. If it works fine with IMGBurn, perhaps it's something to do with the Roxio "starter" software. I am inclined to remove that and see what happens. I am also inclined to remove Office "starter" and all the Dell crapware. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks! :)

Yes, I'd remove Roxio software and Office starter plus all the crapware. Have you seen Decrapifier? The PC Decrapifier Wipes Unwanted Junk | The PC Decrapifier.

There should be some free DVD burners out there but I'm not familiar enough with Windows 7 anymore to recommend one.

Okay so I removed Roxio Starter, and updated some other software. Then I looked at his external HDDs. Evidently, I had it a bit wrong - He has a couple smaller 1TB HDDs that he swaps back and forth from the Mac to the W7 machine; the 2 larger ones I mentioned in the first post stay on the W7 machine at all times. I took the the 2 smaller drives, got rid of the GPT partitions, changed all to NTFS, merged all the partitions, formatted to exFAT32-256KB, and told him to try one out.

After he copied 50 files from the Mac and he put it back on the W7, he had all these thumbnail icons that were "light", (not full-color thumbnail icons), as if unavailable. They would not open in the W7 machine. HOWEVER, looking at filenames and sizes, I found that the Mac makes separate 4KB files for thumbnail icons of each photo. So, for instance, we originally transferred 50 files, and there were 104 items - 50 photos, 50 thumbnails, and 4 additional files/folders that the Mac makes, which W7 can not open! Crazy...........So, I informed him that this is how it works, and he should ignore the extra garbage from the Mac, and everything is fine.

No wonder I don't own Apple products!

Meanwhile, we cut 3 disks of those 50 photos, using Windows "Send to DVD", and everything seems to be fine now! I just knew that Roxio Starter was a big problem!

EDIT: After some time, we started having problems with the DVD/CD burner again, so I replaced the cable. That solved the problem for good this time.