Windows 7 Windows 7 dreadfully slow

[itman]

I have a Gateway laptop, running Windows 7 Professional, and it is a 64-bit system type. The laptop uses Pentium Duel Core CPU. The processors are T4200, and run at 2.00 GHz each. The RAM is 3.00, and the Hard Drive has 175 Gb free space. I also run Microsoft Security Essentials.
The problem is very slow start-up, and initial opening of everything from a Word file to my Favorites and web sites is painfully slow considering what this machine has. Once an application has been opened, it is very quick after that. This machine came factory with Vista, and I upgraded to 7. The upgrade was from Vista to 7 Pro. However, the upgrade was just that, an upgrade. I never had even 7 home. I did do a custom install on my C drive; formatting it. I also eliminated non-necessary start-up items in Sys Config.
Could someone help me with this problem? Is it normal, and tweaking is necessary?

 

[Mitchell_A]

Hello and welcome to the Windows 7 Forums

I had a VERY similar problem on my Gateway notebook with Microsoft Security Essentials, but way more powerful hardware.

After MONTHS of trying to figure out what the problem was, I uninstalled Microsoft Security Essentials.. BAM! Problem solved.

It's great on resources but on some systems it seems to slow things down immensly at start-up.
I suggest you try that, and if it works, you'll have to make a switch to a different anti-virus just as I did, which is unfortunate because I loved Microsoft Security Essentials.

 

[itman]

Hello Mitchell_A,

Thank you for the welcome and the response, it is good to be here. I just installed the Essentials the other day, and it has not made my notebook any slower than it has been after about a month after the fresh install. This has been slow far before I installed Essentials. That is the reason I downloaded the application, to sniff out a problem. I am up to date, and all scans came back good.

Thanks.

 

[Mitchell_A]

So the problem occurs after login, correct?

Does you hard drive access light stay lit? How long does it take for applications etc to load?
What programs do you have running at start-up? Did you defragment after the reinstall?
Sorry for so many questions

 

[itman]

Yes, it is painfully slow at start-up. Explorer is the slowest at start-up, taking a good minute to load the first time. Even when I initially go to my Favorites and Control Panel for first time, dreadfully slow. It gets fast once you are finally logged in and used an application. I have bare minimum running at start-up. I have performed Disc Cleanup and Defrag. Before that I purged the Temp folder and the Prefetch folder. But it is still just as slow at start-up.

 

[Mitchell_A]

Have you checked for the latest driver updates? That's also a common culprit - if you've installed updated onces recently, and then noticed the problem started, try rolling back the drivers.