Win7 very slow opening folders, documents, websites,etc

[cyberialman]

Hi All,

My Windows 7 (64bit) laptop has become very slow. Typing has a lag sometimes. Opening folders, documents, websites, etc is very slow. Sometimes I get "Not responding" when opening documents and spreadsheets. I've checked the CPU usage and it is slow even at 30-50%.

Can anyone please talk me through how to solve it? I paid a computer shop $95 to solve it and they just defragged, did a registry clean, etc. This worked for about two weeks and then reverted to slowness!

Thanks for you help. This is driving me nuts, especially the typing lag and slow opening of folders and websites.

Best regards
Andrew

 

[Golden]

Andrew, Please try this first:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

1. Click Start

2. In the search box, type cmd
3. In the list that appears, right-click on cmd.exe and choose Run as administrator
4. In the command window that opens, type sfc /scannow and hit enter.

Report the output once it finishes.

Can you also tell us what antivirus software you used, and the last time you did a full scan of your system?

Regards,
Golden

 

[cyberialman]

am doing scan now. Looks like it will take a couple of hours. Re AV: ESET Smart Security 6
. I thought ESET does incremental scanning so it did a full scan on installation, and then regularly scans. But, cant see anything in the log file. So I'm doing a virus scan now too.

 

[cyberialman]

No virus threats and no violations. What now?

Here are the results of the scan:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow
Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.
Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
C:\Windows\system32>

 

[Berkey]

Hello,

how many processes are you running at any given time? I have an old laptop with only 1 GB RAM, Intel Duo Core and 55GB HDD. I am currently using chrome (in sandboxie)with a few extensions, downloading a PDF file and using soulseek and my process total is only at 52 and my CPU at 3-5%.

I generally find that many people tend to have a lot of processes open without knowing it and it will bog down their system. I could be wrong, but in addtion to the tips here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html?filter[2]=Performance%20Maintenance I would say thats a great place to start, by cleaning/stopping unnecessary programs and features, you may get things up to speed. Of course scanning for malware could also by another route to explore. I always perform scans when my system seems to be slow (it's usually not, but I'm paranoid)

 

[Golden]

Thats a good suggestion by bberkely - in addition, what items are shown in the startup tab under MSCONFIG?

 

[gregrocker]

If this is still the HP preinstalled Win7 that has the worst load of bloatware in the industry, which throttles and smothers Win7 native performance. That's why most tech enthusiasts will Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to get the best performance and elminate the bugs. Follow the steps closely and you'll get and keep a perfect install better than 90% of users have.

At the minimum I'd Clean Up Factory Bloatware.

If you've done this already then go over your Win7 with Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

 

[britny]

Cyberialman

Right click on the Computer icon, and select Properties.Click Advanced System Settings. In the Performance area, click the Settings and after that click the Adjust For Best Performance button, and click OK.
These steps take your system to previous Windows versions.

After return to Windows 7 normal look repeat the steps, but in that step where you click" Adjust For Best Performance button" but this time click the button called "Let Windows Choose What’s Best For My Computer".When the final panel asks you to sign up for a Windows Live ID, ignore what it says and click Close.


This may help you to increase the efficiency of your window.....
http://www.sevenforums.com/members/cyberialman.html

 

[cyberialman]

Hi All, sorry for the slow reply. Have been renovating my first home Also, my computer sped up again for two weeks, but has slowed to a crawl today. Couldn't Skype properly - no audio and video was very jerky. Windows notification sounds are crackly.



Re bberkely's question I've been monitoring the task manager and noticed the following about my processes:

• ekrn.exe *32 (ESET Service) grabs 60-80% cpu at least once a week and right on start up and usually when I need to Skype someone quickly. More frequently it will use 20-50% cpu.
• I counted sixteen svchost.exe processes! All of them are 0-2% cpu, and they consume 204552K (204.552 MB) of memory. I have 4GB of RAM. Is this an issue? And, what are all these processes?
• I have a total of 73 processes running.

Re Golden's question about Startup, there are 23 startup items, but only two are enabled: ESET Smart Security and Synaptics Pointing Device Driver. The rest are disabled.

At this stage all the HP bloatware has been disabled in the startup, but there are 8 HP processes enabled (I don't know what the processes do though).

Thoughts?

Thanks all

 

[cyberialman]

BTW, have scanned for malware - none

 

[Golden]

You might be better off doing the clean install as suggested by Greg a few posts previously - it will get rid of the bloat

 

[gregrocker]

The HP preinstall bloatware cannot just be turned off as it's riddled the registry with keys that corrupt Win7's perfect performance. That's why it's the worst possible install one can have and also one which no tech enthusiast would run.

 

[fezbombmatt]

Do a fresh and clean installation of Windows. Ive had your symptoms before on an old laptop (think it was HP)

Think this was due to letting kids play on it and download all sorts but in the end i had to reinstall to cure all problems.

 

[fezbombmatt]

Also hope you havent dropped your laptop in frustration.. Lol damage your HDD and you'll know about it