Why is my Windows so slow?

Nux

Nux

Banned
After few years my Windows got slower from one of my many crappy laptop computers (HP-PC). So straight to the point: I gotta be honest, my HP's actual hardware is not capable to run win10 right now so I'll have to stick with the factory Windows 8.1 and it’s done it to my computer the last few years. It is extremely slow. Sometimes it shuts itself down. It takes forever to restart or reboot (rebooting/starting Windows takes forever). Sometimes it can’t. My hard drive is literally empty and working well so far... I ran a long check on it in setup options. It said it found no errors. It said press enter to restart. I got a notice stating it could not be started because there was a problem with windows 8.1. They suggested I do a repair by returning it to Windows 7. I hit alt + control + delete and this time 8 loaded but it’s still extremely slow! I use Nod32 and not the programs listed. I wonder if disabling Windows Defender would resolve these issues but no, just doesn't work, my PC specs are Intel i3, a 500gb Sata Hard Disk Drive and 6gb ram, just a humble hardware lol... Even copy/paste process takes forever (18Mbps) when I'm copying larger files, I wonder if disabling Windows Defender would solve these issues but no.. Even browser pages loads slowly and my optical internet connection is fine and also start up takes a while to settle to low cpu usage.. best to wait before launching my own apps. Using Ctrl-shft-esc to watch my cpu usage and I don't see anything fishy.

What to do... Should I get an SSD drive? And get this whole thing done?
Please help thanks! Feel free to ask anything regarding my hardware and software specs, it might help...
 
Before you invest in an SSD you should try to find out why it is randomly crashing and not booting into the OS.

The crashing could be caused by overheating because of dust blocking the airvents or old thermal compound not doing it's job properly anymore. Or it could be a faulty RAM Module (I have a DDR3 Stick here that is happy to boot into the OS, it will let you work for sometimes hours and then randomly crashes the machine). It could also just be a broken OS Installation. Honestly, it can be a very wide variety of reasons.

The System not being able to boot could also be caused by things like faulty RAM or a broken Windows Installation. Windows On Board diagnostics can't find faulty RAM and if the OS is unstable because of faulty 3rd Party Software Windows own Diagnostics can't find that either.

Nod32 btw could be part of the reason why your System is slow. We used that for years on all of our companies PC's (Mix of Windows 7 and 10 Machines ranging all the why from Core2Duos up to Ryzen based APU's) and all of them at times felt slower than they should be. Reason was that whenever Nod32 felt to scan something or update itself it would the HDD with a 100% load, and since Nod32 often did this right after bootup some of our older machines would be unusable for up to 15 Minutes after boot. By now we switched to Bitdefender (mainly because of much, much lower license fees), but a nice sideeffect was that even by default Bitdefender wouldn't hit the systems with a massive read/write load right after booting the machine. I would recommend to look into Nod32's options to see if you can set specific times when it is allowed to update / update only after manual permission or even uninstall it for a short test to see if it would improve the current situation, Windows Defender is good enough as long as you stay away from shady sides and / or downloads from sources you can't blindly trust 100%.

Throwing a SSD into the current situation would be like putting a 700 Bhp V8 into a old rust bucket with a broken suspension. It would be faster for sure, but the underlying issues aren't solved.

Personally I would switch to either Win7 or a more Lightweight Linux Variant as both are better and faster on older Systems anyways. Though Win7 won't get new updates for very long anymore, honestly I don't see that as a big issue for the near future since Anti Virus / Anti Spyware tools will keep it safe to use for a couple of years down the road.
 
I used Advanced System Care for many years, but a tech friend said it was not legit to use, and was mainly spy where. I found that there was software on my computer that wanted to control everything, and I did not install it. I tracked where it came from and it was ADV.Sys.Care. So I ditched all but the defrag section, but one day later there was ADV.Sys.Care., it had reinstalled it's self. So now I don't use it at all. I bought Bitdefender Security and it works very well. Memory problems can sure make you crazy, too. Sometimes the work or not, replacing them sometimes does the trick, or just taking them out, and reinstalling them again.

Now I know who's been BREATHING HOT FIRE on my neck, thanks Sabkahn
 
CCLEANER
IOBIT Defrag
Spybot Search and Destroy
Malwarebytes Anti Beacon
Malwarebytes Anti Rootkit
Malwarebytes Antimalware

1. Run MB Anti-rootkit. Follow anything it spits at you
2. Run MB Anti-Beacon "" ""
3. Run MB Anti-Malware
4. Run Spybot
a. Update
b. Immunize
c. Scan
d. Remove all it finds
5. Run CCleaner
a. Tick Flush DNS Cache
b. Run
c. Remove all it finds
6. Run IOBit Defrag to optimize your windows files

7. Plan a holiday while the above scan and defrag....

This should speed you up. The Anti-Rootkit and Anti-Beacon are both free and work great. Everyone should run these two programs every now and again.

Malwarebytes software is top notch and worth a sub
 
Before you invest in an SSD you should try to find out why it is randomly crashing and not booting into the OS.

The crashing could be caused by overheating because of dust blocking the airvents or old thermal compound not doing it's job properly anymore. Or it could be a faulty RAM Module (I have a DDR3 Stick here that is happy to boot into the OS, it will let you work for sometimes hours and then randomly crashes the machine). It could also just be a broken OS Installation. Honestly, it can be a very wide variety of reasons.

The System not being able to boot could also be caused by things like faulty RAM or a broken Windows Installation. Windows On Board diagnostics can't find faulty RAM and if the OS is unstable because of faulty 3rd Party Software Windows own Diagnostics can't find that either.

Nod32 btw could be part of the reason why your System is slow. We used that for years on all of our companies PC's (Mix of Windows 7 and 10 Machines ranging all the why from Core2Duos up to Ryzen based APU's) and all of them at times felt slower than they should be. Reason was that whenever Nod32 felt to scan something or update itself it would the HDD with a 100% load, and since Nod32 often did this right after bootup some of our older machines would be unusable for up to 15 Minutes after boot. By now we switched to Bitdefender (mainly because of much, much lower license fees), but a nice sideeffect was that even by default Bitdefender wouldn't hit the systems with a massive read/write load right after booting the machine. I would recommend to look into Nod32's options to see if you can set specific times when it is allowed to update / update only after manual permission or even uninstall it for a short test to see if it would improve the current situation, Windows Defender is good enough as long as you stay away from shady sides and / or downloads from sources you can't blindly trust 100%.

Throwing a SSD into the current situation would be like putting a 700 Bhp V8 into a old rust bucket with a broken suspension. It would be faster for sure, but the underlying issues aren't solved.

Personally I would switch to either Win7 or a more Lightweight Linux Variant as both are better and faster on older Systems anyways. Though Win7 won't get new updates for very long anymore, honestly I don't see that as a big issue for the near future since Anti Virus / Anti Spyware tools will keep it safe to use for a couple of years down the road.
 
as Sabkahn already said could be a lot of things
ie i remember my win7 laptop a couple of years ago acting in this manner...
after a week the internal hdd ended his life

apart malware/hardware issues, i have also seen some win8 systems restarting to work normally only creating a new user profile

and a couple of machines going into shit after win10 upgrade from win7 lol

i like to try to fix these things, it's my bread

Nux, have you checked in Windows Event Viewer if there are critical/normal issues stored ?
 
Massamo said:
I do it every mouth with a clone drive
Click to expand...
Doesn´t make any sense though. If you are using an SSD the only thing you are doing is causing unneccesarry read / write cycles (though I have to admit that I strongly believe that it shouldn´t be an issue for normal daily use). Only because you are doing it, for whatever reason, doesn´t mean it´s a good tip that people should do it on a regular basis. Like I said, at least since Win7 it really isn´t something you need to do to keep the system stable.

That being said, the instructions given by ZX81v2 really should cover everything on the software side of things.
 
SSD You DON'T Format...
You destroy it's life cycle every time you do.
You should just delete/remove data, unless it's a OS drive.
OS Drives : Any OS falling over that you have to reinstall every couple of months is a total WTF... Seriously
I have had this OS running for over 4 years.... Keeping maintenance is the key

One other thing I forgot to mention. Slow downs can happen due to HEAT.
Check you have no "Hamster Nests" inside your PC and check your temps on Processor and GCard
Compare to the optimum temp rage in the manuals.

My Laptop suffers from excess heat and at times it can be incredibly slow...But my laptop is a utter sh*t.
 
Clean board and heat sinks
Replace thermal compound
Clean fans
Properly lubricate fans (most fans have oil inlets under their stickers)
Clear out temporary directories, recycle bin, unwanted files, download directories
Review running services and processes, remove unnecessary items
Aforementioned Spybot and Malwarebytes activities

My computer is over ten years old, and the closest I came to reinstalling the OS was installing Windows 7 on a different drive from the original XP install. I'm not overly cautious, but I never have any suspicious garbage on my computer. The only things that give malware scanners a stroke is my collection of keygens and cracks because of their music, since sites like KeyGenJukeBox keep getting taken down for no legitimate reason. Oh no, hosting chiptunes named after the software their keygens were for is a sin?
 
ZX81v2 said:
One other thing I forgot to mention. Slow downs can happen due to HEAT.
Check you have no "Hamster Nests" inside your PC and check your temps on Processor and GCard
Compare to the optimum temp rage in the manuals.

My Laptop suffers from excess heat and at times it can be incredibly slow...But my laptop is a utter sh*t.
Click to expand...
 
ZX81v2 said:
SSD You DON'T Format...
You destroy it's life cycle every time you do.
You should just delete/remove data, unless it's a OS drive.
OS Drives : Any OS falling over that you have to reinstall every couple of months is a total WTF... Seriously
I have had this OS running for over 4 years.... Keeping maintenance is the key

One other thing I forgot to mention. Slow downs can happen due to HEAT.
Check you have no "Hamster Nests" inside your PC and check your temps on Processor and GCard
Compare to the optimum temp rage in the manuals.

My Laptop suffers from excess heat and at times it can be incredibly slow...But my laptop is a utter sh*t.
Click to expand...

have no idea who told you about this don't format ssd's because its a load of shit (quick format is fine if your talking about full format that's another story)
now days formatting isn't going to hurt it at all anymore then normal uses and I uses clone images and just get a clean windows 10 install with everything I need and im not only one that does this. We don't have to do this but we do

you could always uses secure erase for ssd's as well
 
Massamo said:
ZX81v2 said:
SSD You DON'T Format...
You destroy it's life cycle every time you do.
You should just delete/remove data, unless it's a OS drive.
OS Drives : Any OS falling over that you have to reinstall every couple of months is a total WTF... Seriously
I have had this OS running for over 4 years.... Keeping maintenance is the key

One other thing I forgot to mention. Slow downs can happen due to HEAT.
Check you have no "Hamster Nests" inside your PC and check your temps on Processor and GCard
Compare to the optimum temp rage in the manuals.

My Laptop suffers from excess heat and at times it can be incredibly slow...But my laptop is a utter sh*t.
Click to expand...

have no idea who told you about this don't format ssd's because its a load of shit (quick format is fine if your talking about full format that's another story)
now days formatting isn't going to hurt it at all anymore then normal uses and I uses clone images and just get a clean windows 10 install with everything I need and im not only one that does this. We don't have to do this but we do

you could always uses secure erase for ssd's as well
Click to expand...

While Cloning you are rewriting the entire disc which is harmful to a SSD's lifetime. It is a heavy, unnecessary Read / Write Load on the SSD and you are actively killing it with what you are doing. You are gaining no benefits what so ever from what you are doing anyway, unless you are too lazy or too incompetent to properly maintain your OS for more than a month at a time.

Secure Erase is something you should ONLY ever do when you are either selling or throwing away a drive since the whole idea of Secure erase is to overwrite the entire Disc multiple times with random Garbage in order make it impossible, depending on which method you are using, even for Data Recovery Centers to get your Original Files back. It is also a great way to reduce your SSD's lifetime.

Please find a different source for your Tech Knowledge, maybe you can stop being paranoid about benchmarks and keeping an OS Install for more than a month.
 
Sabkahn said:
Massamo said:
ZX81v2 said:
SSD You DON'T Format...
You destroy it's life cycle every time you do.
You should just delete/remove data, unless it's a OS drive.
OS Drives : Any OS falling over that you have to reinstall every couple of months is a total WTF... Seriously
I have had this OS running for over 4 years.... Keeping maintenance is the key

One other thing I forgot to mention. Slow downs can happen due to HEAT.
Check you have no "Hamster Nests" inside your PC and check your temps on Processor and GCard
Compare to the optimum temp rage in the manuals.

My Laptop suffers from excess heat and at times it can be incredibly slow...But my laptop is a utter sh*t.
Click to expand...

have no idea who told you about this don't format ssd's because its a load of shit (quick format is fine if your talking about full format that's another story)
now days formatting isn't going to hurt it at all anymore then normal uses and I uses clone images and just get a clean windows 10 install with everything I need and im not only one that does this. We don't have to do this but we do

you could always uses secure erase for ssd's as well
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

lol I don't read anything I learn this stuff by doing it and I have been doing this to ssd for years had one for really long time hasn't broken down yet so stop the bullshit

been doing that to ssd for what now 5 years every month and its still going strong

its a bloody windows booting drive it reads and writes just booting your damn pc
 
It is NOT Bullshit that you are destroying your SSD on Purpose, but given that you are clearly having a YOLO approach to this you should be the one stopping to post in topics related to tech questions. You clearly have no knowledge of the matter and I honestly hope that nobody ever followed your advice. I will be putting you on my Ignore list so I don't have to read your nonesense anymore. Good luck with your uneducated YOLO approach in the future.
 
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