Thumbnails loading slowly in Windows Explorer on Fast PC

[frigidzephyr]

This is a strange problem in my experience...

In windows explorer, folders being viewed in the Thumnails mode load VERY slowly.

This is on a dell notebook running, Pentium M1.7ghz , 2Gb RAM, Nvidia Geforce 6800 GO. This notebook can run most newer 3D video games on all high settings, why is it loading thumbnails of a dozen or so images slowly? lol

I have thumbnail caching on, to see if that would speed it up , but it makes no difference.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance

 

[N3051M]

- scan for nasties (ad/spy/malware, virii)
- defrag, chkdisk /f
- update drivers, directx, winupdates
- a folder holding a lot of images will take time to load all its thumbnails > organise into subfolders..

usualy the simplest answers and troubleshooting are the best

 

[frigidzephyr]

No adware or spyware present ( Using, Spybot, Adaware, Spyware Blaster, Crap Cleaner)

Defragged, ran Chkdisk, no errors,

All drivers, directx, video drivers, windows updates and java are all updated

Dell diagnostics show no errors


Even a folder with as few as 2 or 3 thumbnails will take several seconds to load, whereas on my desktop PC (comparable or slower than my notebook) thumbnails load relatively instantly.


Good tips though!

 

[CrossFire851]

How fast is the harddrive???

A good system can be bottle necked by one main pice of hardware.

 

[N3051M]

or an app eating up cpu time... as well as having too many running tasks at the same time..

you can download Process Explorer (like task manager, but more detailed) to check out if anythings using cpu while your checking your pics..

i just thought of something... do you by any chance got Norton ISec on there? try disabling it/uninstalling that... works wonders...

 

[frigidzephyr]

The harddrive is a Hitachi Travelstar 7200RPM, 60GB, ATA-6, 8MB Cache


I use process explorer regularly too =D No strange processes, I run Avast Pro Antivirus but usually have it disabled while working, I don't use any norton products.

Again thanks for the good ideas though, maybe we can figure this thing out lol.

I wonder if Its something to do with windows itself? I am a computer tech, and never have seen this problem before (on a perfectly healthy, high end PC)

 

[N3051M]

yes.. this system is kinda strange.. does it only happen when trying to view pictures? or everything else on windows (including startup/shutdown)?

few more things i just thought of may/may not help..
- ram settings in bios, every other setting in bios...
- windows, like it is, gets bogged down through age.. may need a good reg/data clean?
-pagefile / virtual memory settings?

i betcha that doin a reinstall (of winxp) would magicaly fix this problem... but i dun think we need to go that extreme as yet...

 

[frigidzephyr]

hehe, yes it very strange, slowdown only happens when viewing a folder in thumbnail mode. Never any other time on the computer, everything else is very fast.

I just reinstalled windows not more than a month or two ago, I keep it very clean and I fix registry issues as well as remove all temporary files every few weeks with Crap Cleaner.

I've never messed with the RAM settings in the BIOs, I assume they are all set to the default settings DELL would have put them at when building the computer.

I just checked the pagefile and it's set to Initial Size: 2046 , Max Size : 4092 which seems to be correct since the laptop has 2GB of RAM.


I bet a reinstall would fix it lol, you must have worked as Tech Support before? ;] they always seem to suggest a format and reinstall lol Seing as how I just did that amonth or so ago though, I think I'll try to figure this one out hehehehe =D

 

[N3051M]

you must have worked as Tech Support before? ;] they always seem to suggest a format and reinstall lol

no, no tech support (to your disbelief ).. just messing about with pcs for the past 5 years... and reading this forum... but yeh.. reinstall is usualy the fastest time to fix something, and i'm sure tech support cant hang on the phone for more than 10 minutes per caller or something......

i'm having a pot shot but i think you've already tried messing about with the:
[tools>folder options>view tab] settings....
[system properties>advanced tab]-performance
run disk cleanup

the only reason other than a software/rendering lag is that network (slow ones especialy) or optical media reads slow sometimes...

 

[frigidzephyr]

hehe yeah i have tryed all of those suggestions also, in performance i always have everythign turned off, for fastest performance,

in the view options, i have tryed it with and without caching of the thumbnails and it makes no difference.

also the images are being read straight off the harddrive so its not an issue with optical media or networking.

ive run the cleanup too ( trust me this computer is STERILE its so clean, i am a geek\pc tech\ clean freak , no viruses, spyware, adware, malware or junk on my PCs) =D

thanks for all the good suggestions btw!

this problem has really boggled me =D

 

[nestle579]

I had a similar issue - I figured out that I had a shortcut in my "My Pictures" folder that was pointing to a network location that was not available - the long wait was waiting for explorer to timeout trying to connect to that location...

 

[JodoKast89]

Same Problem, but in 2009 and with SP3

Hey,

So, I've been dealing with the exact same thing... I've tried everything! I just formatted my harddrive and started over, but with no luck.

Did you ever get it fixed? It's so annoying, I'm a photographer and I use ACDSee to view photos, and even the thumbnails in there load slowly! This is the only place I've been able to find anyone with the same problem, so I am very curious as to whether you got it fixed or not.

I'm running XP Home, with a Intel Core Duo 2.5Ghz, 3GB RAM, Geforce 8600m GT... it's such a weird problem! Everything else it perfectly fast....

Anyone have any idea what is wrong?

 

[corbett_1989]

Tried looking at the power saving options? If it's enabled it might slow it down a little bit. It's a far fetch idea but it seems you guys are running out of options anyways. Check in the Windows and your BIOS. While your at it check if you have both of them on. It could cause some crazy problems if they are both on.

 

[JodoKast89]

!!!!

I'd heard rumors... But I finally found the answer! All I had to do was go to the Photoshop tab in the properties box of a JPG and untick the box called "Generate thumbnails"

How did I miss that??

Oh well!! At least it's fixed!