Recent Slowness

Computer: Toshiba Satellite L455
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel Celeron 2.2ghz
Memory: 3gb
System Type: 64bit
Harddrive: 12gb free of 222gb
Graphics: Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family (1340mb total)


I just spent time cleaning the computer of malware with the malware team (nothing serious found) - http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?sh…mp;#entry807296

Jeff recommended I post over here b/c I'm still seeing a slowness in my computer. I don't notice it too much during normal operation, but when I use Window Live Movie Maker to edit videos, it's almost unusable b/c of the severe video lag. Historically I was able to edit videos on this laptop and it's only been the last few weeks it has not been possible.

Please let me know what additional information I can provide.

Thanks

12gb free of 222gb

That's probably your problem - along with only 3Gb of RAM. Windows needs lots of free space to temporarily store opened files and chunks of data. This is especially true when the CPU has a limited amount of RAM to stuff data in. That forces the OS/CPU to use the Page File on the hard disk much more often and if squeezed by a small amount of free disk space, that will greatly impact performance.

I generally want at least 30Gb of free disk space on the boot drive and allow Windows to manage the PF.

You need to clean out the clutter with Windows Disk Cleanup. Uninstall programs you installed but no longer use. Move any large data files (like songs and videos) off to another drive. But those are likely temporary solutions. What you really need to do buy a larger, or another drive and move stuff to it.

After cleaning out the clutter of potentially 1000s of tiny temporary files, I would defrag the drive too.

Do not disable System Restore. Sadly that is often suggested to free up disk space, but SR will step out of the way, free up space, and even disable itself if free space becomes critical. And yours is critical, or pretty close to it.

I did the cleanup, defragged and freed up a massive amount of space - 80gigs+ As an aside, my computer auto defrags once a week. I was hopeful when I ran Window Movie Maker but its just as slow as when I had ~10gigs of open space. Any ideas?

Historically I was able to edit videos on this laptop and it's only been the last few weeks it has not been possible.

I wonder if a bad driver update was installed over a perfectly good driver?

Any errors in device manager?

Historically I was able to edit videos on this laptop and it's only been the last few weeks it has not been possible.

I wonder if a bad driver update was installed over a perfectly good driver?

Any errors in device manager?

I found the Device Manager, but how would I be able to check if there were errors? (sorry if the answer is obvious)

but how would I be able to check if there were errors?

You would see yellow and/or red error symbols.

but how would I be able to check if there were errors?

You would see yellow and/or red error symbols.

No symbols…when I click on the devices it says "this device is operating properly"