Windows 7 That slow windows 7 performance issue AGAIN!

[merlincorp]

I have a REAL problem with slowness on my laptop, every program takes seconds to load and I am very tired of seeing the "not responding" message when trying to save docs, images - or even launch a program. Online it's the same thing, editing a Wordpress site and hitting Publish - can result in me having to wait for 30-40 secs for the page to reappear. I have checked with my ISP and also hosting support - no problems detected at their end, it's definitely a problem with my laptop.

I went through the horrendous process of doing a factory reinstall of my OS and apps about a week ago, taking images of the C: partition at various stages. I keep ONLY programs and OS on C: so I can restore an image of that at any time without affecting data. I cannot detect any direct conflict with programs, but it has progressively become slower as I added progs, to the point where I am back where I started!

My laptop is an Acer 7750, core i5 with 6.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz with a 700GB TOSHIBA MK7559GSXP (SATA), partitioned into 4 volumes, and is 9 months old. I am running Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit with SP1 Intel Core i5 2410M @ 2.30GHz Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology and all updates are installed. By the way I couldn't figure out how to add this info to my profile, despite trying to follow the instructions.

I do run with 10-12 programs open at once, but believe the core i5 can deal with that OK - indeed I can view the processor and memory use in Norton Internet Security 2013 and the processor rarely goes above 25% and RAM rarely above 75%. I do quite often get a warning "High Disk Usage by xyz program" from Norton, it's usually Firefox, my email client or Photoshop, but also svchost.exe, whatever that is. I can see multiple instances of that program are running simultaneously when I look in Task Manager.

My partitions are:
C: Programs 88Gb - 29Gb free
D: Data 146Gb - 103Gb free
E: Backup data 250Gb - 90Gb free
F: Downloads and partition images 197Gb - 34Gb free

I thought it might be a virtual memory issue and have set it up as follows:
C: System managed
D: System managed
E: System managed
F: System managed
Almost ALL interaction is between C: Progs and D: Data

I use Iobit Smart Defrag to keep C: and D: under 1% defrag, and defrag boot-up once a week. I also run Advanced System Care to keep everything neat and tidy.

I spent some time reading posts on this forum before posting this message and did do a few of the things suggested here. For example I ran Resource and Performance Monitor and it reported "The average disk queue length is 6. The disk may be at its maximum transfer capacity due to throughput and disk seeks". However I don't know what to do about that! There are NO other problems reported, I checked every tab down the page.

I also ran "perfmon /report" to produce an Event Viewer/Administrative Events report and got 901 error messages! The bulk of them seem to be from Service Control Manager - see most of the long list here Link Removed.

I have to confess to running Firefox with 30-40 tabs open - but the system should be able to cope with that, surely? I have attached a screengrab showing processing running right now, typical of an average day. Link Removed

I used to have 6 progs run at startup, but have dropped that to just Skype and Norton I.S. at the moment, though there are quite a few that load that seem to be system apps (I left them as I don't know what they do). I don't know if loading many progs automatically at startup is any different really from launching them individually after boot-up has completed?

I am at a loss to know what to do. Any help gratefully received!

Adrian

 

[Saltgrass]

Could you re-attach a picture of your Task Manger, since you do not seem to the the CPU usage as the primary column.

I have 2 tabs open in Firefox and it is showing 0. Do any of the tabs you have open show a marked difference in CPU usage if you close them?

Have you given any though to Norton causing the problem. If it is trying to scan everything, it may take quite a bit of processor power. Also i5 processors do not Hyper thread, which might be relevant in a situation of multitasking.

 

[merlincorp]

Could you re-attach a picture of your Task Manger, since you do not seem to the the CPU usage as the primary column.

I have 2 tabs open in Firefox and it is showing 0. Do any of the tabs you have open show a marked difference in CPU usage if you close them?

Have you given any though to Norton causing the problem. If it is trying to scan everything, it may take quite a bit of processor power. Also i5 processors do not Hyper thread, which might be relevant in a situation of multitasking.

I don't think Norton is the cause of the problem. It has a feature that shows CPU and Memory loads - see attached, memory first.Link RemovedLink Removed

This machine should easily cope - but is almost unusable! The period you see in the reports is over the past 90 mins. Looks fine - but it isn't.

 

[Jimbo22]

As an experiment I would get rid of Norton, as it's a big system resource hog, and try MSE and then check your issue. I've seen time after time people complaining of a slow system and swear it's got nothing to do with Norton, But, the proverbial BUT, once removed users find a significant system increase. Then again there are those users that are loyal to Norton and say they've never had a problem with it. I'm with Saltgrass on this one as Norton being the culprit in this particular case.

 

[Jimbo22]

Also I see no mention of any system bug checks being run for spyware or malware, which can slow a system down to a crawl. Nor no mention of hard drive and partitions being defragged which can also led to system sluggishness. Just something to check.

 

[merlincorp]

Also I see no mention of any system bug checks being run for spyware or malware, which can slow a system down to a crawl. Nor no mention of hard drive and partitions being defragged which can also led to system sluggishness. Just something to check.

To answer both of your posts above:

a) I was running Bitdefender before I did the OS reinstall, in fact I thought THAT may well have been the problem! I cannot believe that 2 top-rated internet security systems BOTH cause this kind of problem.

b) I mentioned in my original post "I use Iobit Smart Defrag to keep C: and D: under 1% defrag, and defrag boot-up once a week. I also run Advanced System Care to keep everything neat and tidy. There are no malware or defrag problems.

Ït remains a puzzle!

 

[Jimbo22]

With those two mentioned software programs, Iobit and Advanced system Care, do you by chance use the registry cleaners they offer? There is a lot of talk about those two, using those so called registry cleaners or any registry cleaner for that matter, that can and do cause such type of issues you are experiencing. Most advanced PC users tend to stay away from such software. The only registry cleaning I do is manually but it's not for the faint of heart as it can brick your system if you don't know what you're doing in the registry.

Also, those two programs are known for system drag, a system resource hog.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I vote for getting rid of Norton too.
It's a known drag on computer performance, as is McAfee.

I can run Norton for Free, because it comes with my ISP but I don't do it.
And I can testify that I have tried it and it did slow my computer down a lot!

The native Windows anti virus works, and doesn't have a high impact on system performance.

I use Defraggler, CCleaner, and run SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes almost every day.

Also run the Registry checker in CCleaner to make sure you don't have errors there.
You can also use it to turn off things that load at start-up that you don't need.

Check out the Black Viper web site for information about how to configure your computer.

Black Viper's Website

Mike

 

[Joe S]

I'm with Mike on going to Black Viper you've got a lot of processes running 95. I have 51 running. I'm a bit leary of registry cleaners because of past problems they made. I do use Ccleaner free at the default settings and save the items it deletes. I also make fresh system images after MS monthly updates or other major changes.
Joe

 

[merlincorp]

With those two mentioned software programs, Iobit and Advanced system Care, do you by chance use the registry cleaners they offer? There is a lot of talk about those two, using those so called registry cleaners or any registry cleaner for that matter, that can and do cause such type of issues you are experiencing. Most advanced PC users tend to stay away from such software. The only registry cleaning I do is manually but it's not for the faint of heart as it can brick your system if you don't know what you're doing in the registry.

Also, those two programs are known for system drag, a system resource hog.

a) I used Ccleaner to tidy up my site and do the registry too. That was several days before I installed Advanced System Care which does a better job of that (IMHO). I am a website designer, not a windows technician, so I need to rely on this type of program to keep things in order. HOWEVER your comments have prompted me to do a little research on ASC - and what a horror story emerges! What looks like the perfect Swiss Army Knife may have a really nasty impact on the registry and maybe is the culprit. I think I will uninstall and use Ccleaner without using the registry module.

2) As to Norton IS 2013 - I am much less convinced that that is a problem. The slowness was there when I was running Bitdefender 2013, before I did a full reinstall. Also it is clear that from the Performance Monitor view that Norton is taking up an irrelevant amount of CPU and momery resources.

I think it has got to the point where a $99 remote diagnosis session with a Microsoft technician is my next move - I have neither the time nor expertise to fix this by myself!

Thanks to all ...
Adrian