Windows 7 extremely slow when starting/closing programs

Mister Lemons · Mar 30, 2014

Alright, let's start from the beginning. My laptop CPU fried and instead of having it fixed I bought a PC from Ebay. Pretty good tech for what I'm using it for. I never noticed from day one but I do now as the speed of this computer is rather slow all around. Programs take FOREVER to start up, i'm talking about 10 seconds for chrome to boot when NOTHING Is running.

Like I said, it has pretty descent hardware. 4 gigs of dual channel ram (Figured RAM was the problem, so I had switched out the 1 stick for two low timing sticks), the processor is a dual core at 3.2ghz, the hard drive is a 7,200rpm western digital with a 16mb cache.

I figured that it could be the power supply as this is a micro ATX mother board and power supply with only 300 watts of power. The processor receives 65 watts of this, as does the built in graphics unit. Maybe it was the ram, it came with some type I had never seen before, some gold X topower 4gb stick, but like I said I had upgraded to dual channel with faster timings. No good results despite 4gb working ov every computer I have ever owned. So I checked the BIOS and nothing is being overclocked/underclocked.

So now I bring the situation here. I have ample CPU and a good amount of RAM, windows for some reason though does dedicate 2gb of that ram to itself which is odd. It takes about 20-60 seconds for some programs to minimize, longer if I may be multitasking (I.E. minimize minecraft to check something on chrome) Any thoughts?

For the record, the boot time isn't bad at all. It takes about a minute and a half. BUT Every week or so I get a bluescreen for 0x00000076. I always assumed this was because of the wireless card driver I attempted to install. It was compatible with windows vista and I had to hunt down a driver for it. After failing that I simply went out and bought one.

ingtar33 · Mar 30, 2014

you're going to have to tell me a lot more.

what specifically is your cpu?
what is your psu?
what is your motherboard?
what is your monitor and what resolution is it set to?
what is your gpu?
what version of win7 is it? x86 or x64?

lets start with that first.

Mister Lemons · Mar 30, 2014

ingtar33 :

Sorry for the wait. Anyway, all the temps are running fine and the RAM appears to be functioning as it should.

CPU: AMD A4 5300 with raedon HD graphics
PSU: PS-300SFX
Motherboard: GA-F2A55M-HD2
Monitor: Widescreen LG set to 1600x900 (Model 20EN33)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 8000/7000 (Integrated on MB)
OpSys: Windows 7 home premium 64bit

I never bothered to check the PSU but it is a bit on the garbage side

ingtar33 · Mar 31, 2014

ok. first of all lets be 100% sure it's not temp related. Understand both the igpu and cpu are on the same chip... so there is some heat being generated there.

What i want you to do, is pop the side of your case off, and stick a room fan in the opening. see if the problem goes away. Lets start there, then we'll continue troubleshooting if that doesn't work.

Mister Lemons · Mar 31, 2014

ingtar33 :

No change in performance, I even have some software depicting a CPU core temp of 80 and main board temp of 85. It is quite cool in this room and I keep the humidity low. I clean the components regularly (Including the heatsink) and even put a makeshift filter on the case to prevent large dust bits from entering. The air inlets are literally directly above the CPU heatsink. None the less, temperatures are nominal.

ingtar33 · Mar 31, 2014

80F or 80C?

Mister Lemons · Mar 31, 2014

ingtar33 :

Definitely fahrenheit. I the laptop I mentioned that broke was the only thing that ever went past 80C and it's CPU fried after three years. Ever since I have ensured that everything I own either has proper circulation or a temperature warning.

ingtar33 · Mar 31, 2014

ok... so lets look at the next most likely problem. Your graphic card drivers.

Uninstall your graphic card drivers, all of them. restart your computer and install the latest catalyst drivers.

Mister Lemons · Mar 31, 2014

ingtar33 :

I let windows check before this and it claimed everything graphics related was up to date. None the less I set a restore point and even have a back up hard drive ready.

The deed is done, no change.

ingtar33 · Apr 1, 2014

ok. next up. we're going to update your bios and chipset drivers. Get the latest chipset drivers and bios from your motherboard maker; update the bios, and then update the chipset drivers.

Mister Lemons · Apr 1, 2014

ingtar33 :

Bios and chipset are already up to date, gigabyte indicates
2.7 is the latest for rev 1.

ingtar33 · Apr 2, 2014

alright, now it gets a little more complex.

See the issue you're describing sounds like it could be a virus/adware/spyware/spamware issue. Especially since the system used to be faster but now is much slower.

So you're going to need to do the following. first i want you to boot into safemode. next tell me if you have the same "slow" issues. (it doesn't really matter if you do or don't, i just want more info as we trouble shoot this). Next you're going to download a serious antivirus combo. We'll start with spybot search and destroy. Also get malwarebytes. both come with a free version. Run spybot first. it can take a few minutes. do a deep search (search for everything). fix everrything it finds (if anything). Then run malwarebytes. run a thurough search.

Next i want you to download an antivirus like AVAST! or AVG... both come with a 100% free version that's top of the line. Avast! is a little harder on the system resources, but it's a lot more user friendly, AVG is a bit easier on the system, but requires a bit more user interactions. I also want you to download ccleaner, run a sweep of everything, clean everything, run a sweep of your registry as well. Fix everything it finds. (use the regestry back up, when it prompts you). Download a free firewall called Comodo; do the advanced install, do not install geek buddy or dragon, just the free firewall. Uninstall Spybot and malwarebytes, Install the antivirus program (avg or avast!) and restart your computer, load into windows normally.

let me know if you still are having the slowdowns now.

Mister Lemons · Apr 2, 2014

ingtar33 :

The guy I bought the computer from had AVG and spybot on it. I ran both immediately and there was nothing. Next I went into the system files and went searching for folders I didn't recognize and found none. My second act of inaugurating the PC was installing avast as I have always preferred it. I ran AVG one last time and uninstalled it. I still have avast and spybot and just ran them both, nothing.

I may not be an expert with PCs but I know what to do when it comes to preventing a virus and locating one. I have looked into the matter further and found these so called 'rootkits' which I sincerely doubt it is but would be willing to reinstall windows to resolve.

As for safe mode I will have to wait until I get home to try

ingtar33 · Apr 3, 2014

i suggested doing it in safemode because a lot of virus/malware/spyware/spamware/adware have self perpetuating/reproducing and hiding features that only load when windows is in it's normal mode. many of those programs are much easier to find and remove when in safemode.

Mister Lemons · Apr 4, 2014

ingtar33 :

I ran a boottime scan of the entire hard drive. Found some crap called 'savingsbull' and deleted it. I deleted the crap I knew I don't need and quarantined the garbage I'm not sure about.

ingtar33 · Apr 4, 2014

ok. that's a start. did it speed anything up?

Mister Lemons · Apr 4, 2014

ingtar33 :

The browser speed SEEMS to be slightly quicker, probably because of that savingsbull crap is no longer interfering. But the main problem continues. For example, yesterday I was running 'kerbal space program' and a friend called on skype with it's "I own this computer" typical attitude and minimized everything I was doing. The following black screen lasted about a minute and the inability to close any windows or start anything else lasted for an additional 30 seconds. During that time I had the task manager up and had gathered data about the CPU and RAM. The computer BARELY ever pushes past 40% capacity when multitasking is kept to a minimum. The RAM was about 1.85/2.00 gigs (I have 4gigs on dual channel with 7-7-7-21 timings at 1333mhz). Windows reserved 2 gigs for itself.

So no, the problem has not improved.

ingtar33 · Apr 4, 2014

... how is the gpu functioning?

get yourself "msi afterburner" in addition to hwmonitor. I would like you to run msi afterburner to track your gpu and vram usage, use hwmonitor to monitor temps. Right now i have a suspicion of the problem (hard drive), but i want to make sure it's not something else before opening that can of worms.

Mister Lemons · Apr 5, 2014

ingtar33 :

The GPU core clocked at 1210mhz and memory clocked at 667mhz while the temperatures held at 21 celsius. The GPU itself went up to 99% usage but never to 100. Nothing bad from what I could see.

ingtar33 · Apr 5, 2014

Are you sure the vram isn't getting maxed out? well, 99% is basically max... at that point your gpu is bottlenecking you pretty hard... temps never go up though? So... if the gpu clock isn't changing, and it's spiking at 99% usage and your system is lagging, i'd say the problem is software, specifically the graphic drivers.

Mister Lemons · Apr 6, 2014

I ran checks through all my stuff and neglected to check windows update. 37 updates, mostly security along with a few windows 7 OS updates. I installed every one of em and the system is running laughably faster (In the good way). Multitasking is still a smidge slower than the laptop used to be but no longer a 30 second wait to minimize a window.

So yeah, software inefficiencies. Thank you so much for your time and help with this issue.

ingtar33 · Apr 6, 2014

Mister Lemons :

glad to help you through it.

this type of problem can be a nightmare to nail down, so i'm glad you were able to track it down.

Windows 7 extremely slow when starting/closing programs

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