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Laptop very, very slow / Programs don't respond

software hardware age slow unresponsive freezing

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5 replies to this topic

#1 ClementZ

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Posted 18 May 2021 - 08:42 PM

Hi All,

It's been a while since I last posted on these forums, and I'm unsure if they're even active anymore. In any case, I figured I'd give it a try, especially since I can't carry my computer anywhere for repairs due to COVID.
So, as the title suggests, my laptop, as of about a month ago, has been extremely slow. It often takes 30 minutes or more from when I hit the power button to when the login screen pops up, and after I log in, I often have to wait another fifteen minutes before anything responds to my clicks. It generally takes just as long (around 30 minutes) to shut down.
In addition to this, very few of my programs appear to work anymore. The only three that do consistently are Firefox (which freezes when I do video calls), Chrome, and Malwarebytes. A few others open occasionally, with caveats: Discord opens sometimes, but freezes frequently when I try to type messages; Microsoft Word opens sometimes, but immediately freezes and crashes if I try to change any formatting parameter of the document; Adobe InDesign also opens sometimes, but again with the caveat that it has a penchant for crashing if I try to change any formatting; Steam sometimes opens, but more often gives me a "cworkthreadpool::startworkthread: thread creation failed" error.
Opening file explorer or switching between tabs too quickly will cause Microsoft Explorer to crash, at which point the machine is completely unresponsive for 10-15 minutes as Microsoft Explorer tries to restart itself. Opening the task manager also takes several dozen minutes.
An issue that preceded this one was that when on wifi, my laptop would often decide to disconnect and struggle to reconnect. Troubleshooting (when it works) tells me there's a problem with the wifi adapter which it is unable to fix.

I've run Malwarebytes, and nothing came up.

All this said, my laptop is old—going on 8 or 9 years old now. And one year ago, I moved into a place which at that point had a fairly severe ant infestation. While I'm hoping the aforementioned problems are all software related, it's certainly possible that they're hardware issues as a result of age, ants, or both—something that supports this theory is that roughly coincident with the onset of these problems, I noticed that the fans no longer ever run. I'm hoping here that I can get at least a few more months of use out of this laptop, and if not, that I'll definitely know I should expedite acquiring a replacement.

It's been a while since I posted here, so I don't recall the standard information I'm supposed to include with each post. This is an Asus G7-something laptop running (I believe) the latest version of Windows 10.

Any and all help will be much appreciated.
Thanks


Edited by ClementZ, 18 May 2021 - 08:42 PM.

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#2 PhillPower2

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Posted 20 May 2021 - 11:00 AM

Hello ClementZ,

 

Download then run Speccy (free) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s. 

 

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

  1. In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.
  2. In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.
  3. Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.


#3 ClementZ

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Posted 20 May 2021 - 06:18 PM

http://speccy.pirifo...QtRMULxVlH5nZdv

Here is the URL.

Thank you.



#4 PhillPower2

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Posted 21 May 2021 - 12:31 PM

Speccy is not telling us much but there are a couple of things;

 

Windows is months out of date and shows signs of it having trouble installing past updates.

 

The partitioning on the HDD that Windows is installed on looks messy, why does it have FAT 32 on it for example.

 

One of your partitions is low on free storage space, why this is bad explained below;

 

Partition 1
Partition ID: Disk #0, Partition #1
Disk Letter: E:
File System: NTFS
Volume Serial Number: 8C072D5F
Size: 349 GB
Used Space: 323 GB (92%)
Free Space: 25.8 GB (8%)
Hitachi HTS727575A9E364
 
For Windows to be able to run efficiently and to be able to update, on a mechanical HDD you need to have between 20 and 25% of the partition or drive available as free storage space at all times and on an SSD between 10 and 20%, if you don`t you risk Windows becoming corrupt or not being able to update which also puts you at risk of malware attack.
 
Data only storage devices should not be allowed to get any lower than 10% of free storage space of the full capacity of the drive/partition on the drive, this also to avoid data corruption.
 
Please note that storage devices can physically fail if the amount of free storage space is allowed to drop below the required 10 or 20/25% minimum.
 
Best thing that I can suggest is to download yourself the latest Windows 10 ISO from here and clean install Windows 10 and the chipset drivers for your MB.
 
I also suggest that while you are troubleshooting this you disconnect both your second screen and the USB storage device.
 
 


#5 ClementZ

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Posted 21 May 2021 - 02:07 PM

I'm unsure why there's an FAT 32 partition on the main drive; it appeared several years ago after another issue I had (virus-related) and it hasn't given me any problems as far as I can tell since, so I've done nothing about it. Would it be worth it to address it, do you think?
I'll follow your advice about freeing up space in my partitions, and manually installing the latest Windows 10, and report here if my issues persist.

Thank You.


Edited by ClementZ, 21 May 2021 - 02:07 PM.


#6 PhillPower2

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Posted 21 May 2021 - 02:18 PM

For now I would just free up the space and do the clean install and see how things go.

 

Stick with Windows Defender after the clean install, it is more than appropriate for most of us.

 

You are welcome  :)


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