Windows 7 Sudden and extreme slowdown Shutdown, boot and hibernate

alternatorone

New Member
I was regularly using Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit with no problems what so ever from the OS until 2 days back. Since then, suddenly my laptop is taking a lot of time to boot, shutdown or hibernate- surprisingly no noticeable slow down while turning on from hibernation. Entering and exiting sleep mode is also non-issue. Another strange thing was that on hitting shutdown/hibernate my HDD activity indicator would blink a little and then show no activity for a long time. Then it will come back on, blink randomly, sometimes extended and then shuts down/hibernate.

While powering on from shut down, it also takes a longer than usual time.

My usual hibernate takes around 25secs with the HDD activity remaining on through out. Now it's almost 2mins! I always hibernate my laptop- shut downs are only when required.

I had updated windows that day earlier, but I did hibernate/turn on without any issues after that restart once without problems. To be sure i did a sytem restore- no solution. So i ran windows update again.

I am almost certain my hardware is not a problem- I've made no recent changes, including drivers. It is an ASUS K43-SV notebook with following specs-
Intel Core i5 2410M 2.3Ghz
4GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GT 540M 1GB

I use ESET Smart Security 5.0. I keep only my essential applications like DAP, Audio Manager etc. running in the back ground with minimal startup applications.

While using, the notebook is zippy as it has been since day 1. Only the said problems arose out of the blue.

Could anyone please tell me what's going on or where i need to be looking? Please do help and if any more info is required please do ask.

Thanks in Advance Link Removed - Invalid URL
 
Well, now it is hard to tell if some upgrade was done you may not know about, so you can't really rule that possibility out.

Do you ever allow you laptop to sleep? Mine goes to sleep when I shut the lid and hibernates several hours later.

There is quite a difference between shutdown and hibernate. Since Hibernate writes everything in memory to the drive, maybe something is not behaving well. A shutdown does not do this step so should shut down a little quicker. But if it is delaying during startup or shutdown, it is probably waiting for some scan, or being required to check something, or some utility is not allowing a quick shutdown.

So the first thing I would recommend is to check your system files. Open an administrative command prompt and type

SFC /scannow


and allow it to finish. Let us know if states it cannot repair some files.

Also, the Powercfg utility is used to check for power configurations. In the Admin command prompt, type

powercfg -energy

and let it finish. Prior to doing this, shutdown all non-essential programs. When it is finished, copy the html report to the desktop and open. There are usually USB error messages, but let us know if any devices or utilities are indicated as being suspicious.
 
Well, now it is hard to tell if some upgrade was done you may not know about, so you can't really rule that possibility out.

Do you ever allow you laptop to sleep? Mine goes to sleep when I shut the lid and hibernates several hours later.

There is quite a difference between shutdown and hibernate. Since Hibernate writes everything in memory to the drive, maybe something is not behaving well. A shutdown does not do this step so should shut down a little quicker. But if it is delaying during startup or shutdown, it is probably waiting for some scan, or being required to check something, or some utility is not allowing a quick shutdown.

So the first thing I would recommend is to check your system files. Open an administrative command prompt and type

SFC /scannow


and allow it to finish. Let us know if states it cannot repair some files.

Also, the Powercfg utility is used to check for power configurations. In the Admin command prompt, type

powercfg -energy

and let it finish. Prior to doing this, shutdown all non-essential programs. When it is finished, copy the html report to the desktop and open. There are usually USB error messages, but let us know if any devices or utilities are indicated as being suspicious.

Thanks for the advice. Sleep? Occasionally. I normally just shut the lid and it hibernates.

And yea the scan showed no errors - I've attached screenshot scan now.jpg

as for the powercfg - energy i got 8 errors, 4 warnings and 24 Informational.
Since I've no idea what you mean by 'suspicions' the following are the errors and warnings -

Analysis Results


Errors

Power Policy:power Plan Personality is High Performance (On Battery)
The current power plan personality is High Performance when the system is on battery power.



Power Policy:802.11 Radio Power Policy is Maximum Performance (On Battery)
The current power policy for 802.11-compatible wireless network adapters is not configured to use low-power modes.



Power Policy:pCI Express ASPM is disabled (On Battery)
The current power policy for PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM) is configured to Off.



Power Policy:power Plan Personality is High Performance (Plugged In)
The current power plan personality is High Performance when the system is plugged in.



Power Policy:Sleep timeout is disabled (Plugged In)
The computer is not configured to automatically sleep after a period of inactivity.



Power Policy:Minimum processor performance state is 100% (Plugged In)
The processor is not configured to automatically reduce power consumption based on activity.



Power Policy:pCI Express ASPM is disabled (Plugged In)
The current power policy for PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM) is configured to Off.



Platform Power Management Capabilities:pCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) Disabled
PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) has been disabled due to a known incompatibility with the hardware in this computer.



Warnings

Platform Timer Resolution:platform Timer Resolution
The default platform timer resolution is 15.6ms (15625000ns) and should be used whenever the system is idle. If the timer resolution is increased, processor power management technologies may not be effective. The timer resolution may be increased due to multimedia playback or graphical animations.
Current Timer Resolution (100ns units)10000
Maximum Timer Period (100ns units)156001



Platform Timer Resolution:Outstanding Timer Request
A program or service has requested a timer resolution smaller than the platform maximum timer resolution.
Requested Period10000
Requesting Process ID1616
Requesting Process Path\Device\HarddiskVolume2\Users\Akku\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe



Power Policy:Display timeout is long (Plugged In)
The display is configured to turn off after longer than 10 minutes.
Timeout (seconds)2700



Power Policy:802.11 Radio Power Policy is Maximum Performance (Plugged In)
The current power policy for 802.11-compatible wireless network adapters is not configured to use low-power modes.


UM, what next?????

 
I don't really see anything in the Report that might be involved. I have seen the ASPM message before but I do not know what causes that. Chrome is also mentioned in the report. Were you running that when the report was done? Does it make a difference in your system if you do not start chrome?

All I can suggest now is to watch your system whenever you can. See if you can find anything taking processor time. Check MSconfig.exe to see if any startup items can be disabled for testing.

There were some Windows Updates last week, which might be involved.

You might also try running a chkdsk just in case the hibernation situation is causing problems for your hard drive.
 
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I don't really see anything in the Report that might be involved. I have seen the ASPM message before but I do not know what causes that. Chrome is also mentioned in the report. Were you running that when the report was done? Does it make a difference in your system if you do not start chrome?

All I can suggest now is to watch your system whenever you can. See if you can find anything taking processor time. Check MSconfig.exe to see if any startup items can be disabled for testing.

There were some Windows Updates last week, which might be involved.

You might also try running a chkdsk just in case the hibernation situation is causing problems for your hard drive.
Thanks for the time!

To be sure i unistalled chrome using Revo unistaller and deleted everything including registry items. Problem still continues.

Only my essential applications load at start up. Been usuing them since the beginning no problems.

I got the said updates and although i noticed the problem after them- i restored to before them and still had issues.

Check disk ran and came clean.

Anything else i need to try?
 
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