I have a rather bizarre issue. When I load into windows normally windows explorer is VERY slow, it takes several seconds, sometimes minutes just to open shell menus or folders, some programs will load but more resource intensive programs such as Firefox won't come up at all though the process for it will load. When I boot in safe mode everything works fine, I have no issues, but every time in normal boot I have this slow-down problem. My CPU usage is minimal, peaking at a maximum of 5% but usually staying around 1%, and my system RAM never goes above 15% used.
System Specs:
CPU: i3-2125 @ 3.30GHz
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition SP1
RAM: 16GB DDR3
GPU: GEForce GTX 550 Ti
I have tried numerous options to try and pinpoint this issue including the following:
- Full virus scan (AVG)
- Full malware & adware scan (MalwareBytes & Spybot S&D)
- Clean Boot (Disable all non-windows startup items & services)
- System Recovery (I only had a restore point as far back as 12/23 for a DirectX install)
- Removing all new windows updates since the problem began (about 1 week ago)
- Memory Diagnostics (all RAM is functioning fine)
- System File Checker (comes back no problems)
- Ensured all drivers are up to date
- Disabled any extra shell menu extensions from programs
- Ran Windows Fix-It program (Discovered that SuperFetch wasn't working and restored it)
- Start-up Repair
- HD Defrag
Despite all this nothing has solved the problem, but I am fairly convinced it's an issue either with Windows Explorer itself or something causing a conflict with it. I can't recall doing anything out of the ordinary when it began. Originally the first few days it would only be really slow for the first few minutes then recover, but now it doesn't seem to recover at all even if left alone for hours. What makes me think Windows Explorer is the problem is that I have no issues in Safe Mode, if I can get a program open in normal mode it performs fine except for tasks that use explorer such as opening a file, I never lose control over my mouse cursor and windows task manager works normal though it can be slow to launch like any other program. The machine never locks up but it's very easy to make windows explorer stop responding and freeze up if I try to do multiple tasks with it.
Programs I use:
AVG Antivirus
ZoneAlarm Firewall
MalwareBytes
Spybot Search & Destroy
Advanced System Care (uninstalled this as I read it could cause issues but didn't change anything)
Any ideas would be welcome.
