Windows 7 Pro - Still slower than a snail

Hi, I bought windows 7 pro a few months ago and it is going sooooooooo slow its driving me nuts. I came here a while ago and some helpful members helped me get a few drivers and gave me some advice but nothing has seemed to improve. It isnt just internet explorer. Everything is crawling. If I have a file folder open and I tell it to scroll it ignores me for a few minutes. If I tell it to open something it ignores me for a few minutes. It seems to lag all over. I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials as you guys suggested and I've had all my windows updates plus my system is brand new it shouldnt be a hardware problem. This is currently I'm running on.

Motherboard
ASRock M3A785GMH/128M AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Processor
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
RAM
(I have two of these for a total of 4 gigs) Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model BL25664TG1608

I'm getting so frustraited with Windows 7 pro I'm starting to miss XP. Please help me if you can.

Have you tried running windows in safe mode to see if it still "crawls"?

Hi,

Your hardware is just fine and should run Win7 like gangbusters.
As a test I'm running Win7 Ulimate on an old P4 2.6 GHz ,RAM 1 GB and it's as fast as XP.
Actually it boots slightly faster than XP pro for me.No Aero Glass tho.
Still ,it's only a fraction of what you have.

There are a few things that affect sppeed and I would taclke them first and check what's going on.
1.Open TaskManager and see how many proceses are running and which ones are using a lot of CPU and Memory.
2. Related > Use Black Viper's list to adjust running Services.
You can use the following list to check what the settings should be.
Windows 7 Service Configurations by Black Viper
If you want to do it the easy way ,use the next list to set your requirements and save the resulting file as a .reg file.
When executed it will set all services as you have chosen in one fell swoop.
Depending on whether you 're running 32 bit or 64 bit ,go to the respective page:
Windows 7 Professional 32-bit Custom Services Registry File Tool
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Custom Services Registry File Tool

I wouldn't rule out malware either.Use your AV or antimalware program to find anything supicious.
Not sure what your using ,but Windows Security Essentials will do a half decent job.
Or use any other wellknown anti-malware program.

This is a start and may well help to cut down on your slowdowns.

Pete.

Originally Posted by DiggerP

Hi,

Your hardware is just fine and should run Win7 like gangbusters.
As a test I'm running Win7 Ulimate on an old P4 2.6 GHz ,RAM 1 GB and it's as fast as XP.
Actually it boots slightly faster than XP pro for me.No Aero Glass tho.
Still ,it's only a fraction of what you have.

There are a few things that affect sppeed and I would taclke them first and check what's going on.
1.Open TaskManager and see how many proceses are running and which ones are using a lot of CPU and Memory.
2. Related > Use Black Viper's list to adjust running Services.
You can use the following list to check what the settings should be.
Windows 7 Service Configurations by Black Viper
If you want to do it the easy way ,use the next list to set your requirements and save the resulting file as a .reg file.
When executed it will set all services as you have chosen in one fell swoop.
Depending on whether you 're running 32 bit or 64 bit ,go to the respective page:
Windows 7 Professional 32-bit Custom Services Registry File Tool
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Custom Services Registry File Tool

I wouldn't rule out malware either.Use your AV or antimalware program to find anything supicious.
Not sure what your using ,but Windows Security Essentials will do a half decent job.
Or use any other wellknown anti-malware program.

This is a start and may well help to cut down on your slowdowns.

Pete.

I put a picture in the attachments of what my task manager showed i was running before I used black vipers registry fix tool - note the cup and ram gage in the upper right corner.

His individual configuration page was a bit over my head so I used the fix too instead and just left it on the settings he had already selected. I opened the reg file and restarted and took another screen shot of what my task manager said I was running - once again no changes in the cpu gage and sadly little or no change to the laggyness in my computer.l

27% cpu time with nothing really running? that just reeks of background tasks gone rogue

@ ThePinkLady

I put a picture in the attachments of what my task manager showed i was running before I used black vipers registry fix tool - note the cup and ram gage in the upper right corner.

His individual configuration page was a bit over my head so I used the fix too instead and just left it on the settings he had already selected. I opened the reg file and restarted and took another screen shot of what my task manager said I was running - once again no changes in the cpu gage and sadly little or no change to the laggyness in my computer.

Thanks for the screenshots -it does help .Unfortunatlely it doesn't list hidden processes.
A couple of things stand out : Explorer @ 25% CPU approx. Not really enough to cause a sluggish system ,
but somewhat curious as to what's eating that CPU
The other is Internet Explorer ( iexplore.exe) somewhat high @ 251 MB ,but again ,not in relation to available RAM.

A tool to find out what it is in Explorer that's using so much CPU , is Process Explorer
Process Explorer v12 Process Explorer
Just run it and look for explorer.exe > expand the nodes (+ signs) as necessary.
Maybe you could take a shot of that too?

As to IE - you can redcuce memory usage by having fewer tabs open or just minimize IE now and then.
The minimizing causes IE to unload some of its hold on memory.
BTW ,that works for a lot of other programs as well.

As to your use of Black Viper's reg tool - you did a good job ,but just using the default ,which is preset as you open that page, is not really effective.The idea is that you change the settings to fully take advantage of obtaining more optimal settings.
Just take your time to familiarize yourself with the first page and make notes.Then apply those to the reg tool.
I know it's confusing and unfamiliar ,but you should give yourself a fighting chance
Just reread the entries so you get more familiar with the concept.

Anyway ,let's see what Process Explorer tells you.

Pete.

Originally Posted by DiggerP

@ ThePinkLady



Thanks for the screenshots -it does help .Unfortunatlely it doesn't list hidden processes.
A couple of things stand out : Explorer @ 25% CPU approx. Not really enough to cause a sluggish system ,
but somewhat curious as to what's eating that CPU
The other is Internet Explorer ( iexplore.exe) somewhat high @ 251 MB ,but again ,not in relation to available RAM.

A tool to find out what it is in Explorer that's using so much CPU , is Process Explorer
Process Explorer v12 Process Explorer
Just run it and look for explorer.exe > expand the nodes (+ signs) as necessary.
Maybe you could take a shot of that too?

As to IE - you can redcuce memory usage by having fewer tabs open or just minimize IE now and then.
The minimizing causes IE to unload some of its hold on memory.
BTW ,that works for a lot of other programs as well.

As to your use of Black Viper's reg tool - you did a good job ,but just using the default ,which is preset as you open that page, is not really effective.The idea is that you change the settings to fully take advantage of obtaining more optimal settings.
Just take your time to familiarize yourself with the first page and make notes.Then apply those to the reg tool.
I know it's confusing and unfamiliar ,but you should give yourself a fighting chance
Just reread the entries so you get more familiar with the concept.

Anyway ,let's see what Process Explorer tells you.

Pete.

I'll definetly take that advice about minamizing all unused windows, though I rarely have more than 2 or 3 up at a time. Here's a picture of the process explorer

@ ThePinkLady

Hi,
Thanks for the excellent screenshot.
I had a look at it and in general there isn't too much that stands out to be a problem.
The figures for the "Private bytes" are not true memory, only what has been allocated for a particular process.

Having said that, there are a few you may want to look into:
1. The process MSMpEng.exe - that belongs to either Windows One Care or Windows Defender.
As is often the case with anti-malware programs ,they use a lot of memory while scanning,
even if just background scanning.
You may want to have a look at the settings of Windows Defender and its scanning schedule.
2.You may want to consider turning off SearchIndexer.exe - Not an excessive memory consumer,
but can cause drag on your system.Turn off if not required.Search results will only be slightly slower.
3.As you can see Internet Explorer has 4 threads going. Not unusual for a lot of newer browsers,
but it does add up.Nothing to be concerned about ,so long as you actually have it visiible >
IOW ,either as an open window or minimized.
Can you confirm that you had IE running at the time you took the shot?
If not ,then they were hidden instances of IE and I would be concerned about malware activity.

BTW, to do the Black Viper reg tool settings - Open the first URL that descriibes the processes.
Place it on one side of the screen (taking up half of it.)
Decide what kind of user you are and follow that column.
Next open the URL for your edition of win7 (I think it's 64 bit judging by ProcessExplorer)
Place that window in the other half of your screen.
Having them side-by-side ,you can now apply the settings to the reg tool columns according
to the recommended settings in the other pane.

Unfortunately ,so far I haven't seen anything suspicious, although some things can hide under svchost.exe processes.
but even those are not excessive in either memory or CPU - at least not in the screenshot.

Let's see if we get anywhere trimming some services.
BTW ,before you do anything - Set a System Restore point, if things don't work out exactly how you wanted.
Also make a backup of the Registry How to Backup Registry in Windows 7
and save as .reg file, even on a USB flash drive or other external media.

You may also want to look at this page Super Tweaks for Windows 7 by Black Viper

Pete.

I'd maybe try running a full Hard Drive check from the HD tools (right click drive to get that) as if the drive has hard errors or damaged files that would cause all those symptoms, tick all the options and reboot for the full scanner to check the drive.

I would recommend defraging hard drive first. Then defrag your registry. Then run your antivirus app. Then check for malware, spyware and adware on your system. Here a few that I use. This is to rule out any system bugs that maybe lurking in the background. These are all free and can be downloaded from cnet.com/downloads

Auslogics disk defrag
Auslogics registry defrag
Ccleaner
Ad-aware
Spybot search and destroy
Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware
Revo uninstaller - a good software uninstaller that removes every thing.
Tuneup utilities - free to try (30 days)
Spyware Doctor from google pack