This is pertaining to a half tower gateway computer running windows 7 64bit Home premium. 6 GB of Ram, Intel® Core™ i3 CPU 530 @ 2.93GHz 2.93GHz. Model Number: SX2840
Currently the desktop is running at speed that would rival my old pentium 2 desktop in slowness. This starts from the very moment it boots up. Through a standard boot it gets to the flashing windows logo load screen then gets stuck there for a vast period of time usually a minimum of 5 minutes maximum of several hours. After it gets past that it proceeds to a pitch black screen for a similar amount of time. Then it proceeds to the user login screen, where the actual password bar doesnt appear for like 5 minutes. When it finally does appear typing the password even gets hit with a delay. You hit the keys, but the text doesnt show up for a minute or two. Though it doesn't skip or miss keys, just severly delays them. After the password, it loads up for another 10 minutes before the desktop is visible. Once it is, opening anything takes several minutes for the action to complete. This includes Computer, internet explorer, calculator, free cell, start menu, right clicking anything, properties, task manager, resource manager etc. However, some things are not impaired at all or stop being slow momentarily. For instance, mouse movement remains fluid at all times that it is normally visible, once open calculator functions normally and quickly, switching tabs in task manager or resource manager holds little to no delay once open and loaded fully, after initial opening or right clicking most applications seem to run normally for awhile. But doing anything for the first time since boot up causes a delay. This is even the case in safe mode with networking. Yet, physical memory usage never exceeds 15% and CPU never exceeds 10% usage even when not in safe mode. Safe mode drops those percentages even lower.
I think it was a worm that messed up the desktop a year or two ago. I tried to eradicate it, but when i couldn't i tried a system image restore, was still slow. Tried a fresh boot from recovey CDs, still slow, tried factory reset from recovery partition on internal hard drive, still slow.
The computer is recieving internet through a wifi adapter and once IE is open i can browse a bit with a delay of speed similar to opening any application initially. Some extra info: I'm using a USB mouse, a keyboard slot keyboard (non usb, dont know name of port), and when opening in safe mode it gets stuck on CLASSpnp.SYS for the longest. If you need additional information, please ask. I really want to try to get this thing back to it's former glory.
Initially, this would be the first place to start: What to do if your Computer is running slowly.
See how thing are going after following that guide.
Cheers,
Lee
I can see how closing the indexing and startup programs would affect the speed, and I guess i'll give that a try, but two things… One, when you boot into safemode doesn't it automatically not open all those extra start up programs? It still has that delay even in Safemode so are the startup programs really the problem? And Two, the defragmenting i considered, but since I basically have a fresh boot (System Image -> Boot from CD -> Factory reset through partition), is there anything to actually defragment?
I can see your point about safe mode, but is that were you want to do all your future computing? Following that guide is a basic starting point as mentioned and is worthwhile following. If you don't wish to do so that's fine, I won't argue the point but for future handy reference, let me know if you followed any of it.
The next step would be to check out your computer's physical HDD.
CHKDSK is a routine part of good machine maintenance. If CHKDSK identifies bad-sectors or a large numbers of bad-sectors, it could be an early indicator predicting hard drive failure. If you find this to be the case with your machine's hard drive, consider data and file back-up solutions, run manufacturer's disk-health utilities and anticipate the possible need to replace the hard drive.
Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click ENTER …It will ask if you want to do this on the next reboot …click Y
I can see your point about safe mode, but is that were you want to do all your future computing? Following that guide is a basic starting point as mentioned and is worthwhile following. If you don't wish to do so that's fine, I won't argue the point but for future handy reference, let me know if you followed any of it.
The next step would be to check out your computer's physical HDD.
CHKDSK is a routine part of good machine maintenance. If CHKDSK identifies bad-sectors or a large numbers of bad-sectors, it could be an early indicator predicting hard drive failure. If you find this to be the case with your machine's hard drive, consider data and file back-up solutions, run manufacturer's disk-health utilities and anticipate the possible need to replace the hard drive.
Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click ENTER …It will ask if you want to do this on the next reboot …click Y
Oh no no don't get me wrong, i certainly don't plan to run safemode 24/7. I was just saying that if safemode deactivates the start ups and I'm still having the delay during safe mode, then it doesn't seem likely it's the start-ups causing it. I could be wrong though so in case I used MSConfig to disable all startups before normal booting it. but it didn't help the speed much if at all. I'm checking the disk defragmenter on drive C, but i just checked it on one of my other recently factory reset desktops and it came back with 1% Fragmented. So I kind of don't expect much difference from the current one… Though it would be lovely if that solved the problem…
At the moment I'm analyzing Drive C to defrag it, but i also see "PQSERVICE" and "System Reserved" under the disk defragment choices. Since I only have one hard drive in the desktop, these must be partitions… Should i analyze those as well? Analyzing my everyday use laptop certainly shows some fragmentation on Drive C, but little to none on the other partitions. I'll check the ChkDsk method as soon as the defrag shows it's results from the analysis.
PQservice is the hidden partition which allows you to return the system back to out of the box state. System Reserved is a 100 MB reserved hidden partition at the front of the disk for the boot config data store, recovery files and W7 bitlocker space. Neither partition needs to be defraged but I would advise to defrag. the rest of the HD regardless and ideally before you run CHKDSK.
PQservice is the hidden partition which allows you to return the system back to out of the box state. System Reserved is a 100 MB reserved hidden partition at the front of the disk for the boot config data store, recovery files and W7 bitlocker space. Neither partition needs to be defraged but I would advise to defrag. the rest of the HD regardless and ideally before you run CHKDSK.
Disk fragmentation was at 1%. I'm attempted to ChkDsk /r now. but it isn't showing any pop up asking if i would like to allow it for when it reboots. I'll try to reboot and see if it went through.
