Windows 7 slow after clean install

Jake Barr

Posts: 11   +0
I recently did a clean install of windows 7 64-bit and also upgraded from 4GB to 8GB RAM. For the first few days my computer ran fine. It opened up programs very quickly and was very responsive. As a few weeks have gone by it has slowed dramatically (the reason why I did a clean install). Does this sound like a hardware issue (HDD?) or could it simply be a software issue?
 
Windows Updates can cause serious problems if not completely installed.
not necessarily, only if a person shuts down when installing updates, which corrupts the registry in some cases.

What hard drive do you have? It may be a 5400RPM one.
 
I have 391 GB free. It does appear that my HDD is a 5400 RPM though. http://www.fixya.com/support/p4347681-toshiba_mk5065gsxn_hard_drive_500gb_2_5

Would upgrading hard drive's be something that I should try?
5400rpm drivers are very slow, my sisters PC has a 5400RPM drive, while mine has a 7200RPM one, and I notice a huge performance difference, less hangs and it is just faster. I would recommend a caviar black from WD, anything is fine, just avoid caviar greens--which are 5400RPM and Seagates--which are unreliable from my experience. Do you have a price range? Oh yeah, and it isnt a laptop right?
 
Would upgrading hard drive's be something that I should try?
With the question posed in that manner, it sounds like more of a topic you might take up with a therapist. It's not very difficult from a technical standpoint. How handy, (or not), are you?

The drives in a desktop just pop in and out, and you just have to learn how to use "disc management", which is on a file path starting at the "Control Panel", to get them formatted and fully operational.

Unless the drive is failing, it doesn't seem to me it's the most likely problem. One supposes than it should have been slow upon install, (due to 5400 RPM), , and still the same level of slow, and couple of weeks on.

The issue begs the question, how many programs and processes are running at startup, how much software have you installed over the time period, and is it possible you may have a malware infection?

Although, it does take less going on to sandbag the performance of a 5400 RPM drive, than the faster 7200 RPM units. Laptops are oftentimes 5400 RPM HDDs, and they can be a bit frustrating.
 
Since he has to reinstall windows if he gets a faster HDD, formatting it from the drive options in the setup is a breeze
 
Since he has to reinstall windows if he gets a faster HDD, formatting it from the drive options in the setup is a breeze
Good point! And I also have just come to the realization, that this is in fact, most likely a laptop. I suppose that puts the kibosh on the idea of keeping the Toshiba a a storage drive as well >(looks around sheepishly)<:D

(In my own defense, you do have to follow the link before you find out that this is a 2.5" drive).

With all that said Jake Barr, it is a quite bit more of a project to replace the HDD in a laptop, as opposed to a desktop PC.
 
If he is up to the challenge, then lets do it! What processor do you have so I can find out the SATA connectivity. I think the Crucial V4 (SSD) would be the best bet since I bet it is SATA 2. If you want a faster HDD, that is a different story. Price range?
 
Hey. Sorry I have been away for a few days.. I've been busy with the family and stuff around the holidays. My processor is a Pentium CPU B950 2.1GHz though. I would like to spend somewhere around 100-200 if possible.
 
Unless the drive is failing, it doesn't seem to me it's the most likely problem. One supposes than it should have been slow upon install, (due to 5400 RPM), , and still the same level of slow, and couple of weeks on.

The issue begs the question, how many programs and processes are running at startup, how much software have you installed over the time period, and is it possible you may have a malware infection?

Although, it does take less going on to sandbag the performance of a 5400 RPM drive, than the faster 7200 RPM units. Laptops are oftentimes 5400 RPM HDDs, and they can be a bit frustrating.
Laptops use 5400rpm HDs to reduce power consumption and increase battery life per charge - - a major consideration for these users.

Having run laptops as my primary system for ~4 years now, the 5400 rpm is a non-issue (at least for me), as the system is used as a desktop, single user system and I don't do games. While I do web development and run a webserver on the laptop, it is solely used for testing and not publicly accessible (ie only via http://localhost).

I find that using Defraggler to manage fragmentation allows me to ignore user files and to ensure *.EXE & *.DLL files are always in one clump. Add the advanced feature to defrag boot startup gets the pagefile.sys and the five registry files also in one clump and the system just purrs along nicely.
(defraggler also runs much quicker with less to do and also saves the battery).

"programs and processes are running at startup"; yes I tightly manage these MS Bloated services:
  1. reduce memory / paging activity
  2. reduce Internet usage
  3. reduce autoupdates
  4. reduce attack vectors into the system
following the simple guideline, "If I don't need it, Why let it consume resources?"
 
Laptops use 5400rpm HDs to reduce power consumption and increase battery life per charge - - a major consideration for these users.
OK, I always manage to get myself hammered for making blanket generalizations such as this. Accordingly, I see no salient reason why you shouldn't suffer the same fate. (In the nicest possibly way, of course). So, a minor rephrase is in order:
a major consideration for many these users.
The thing I find most distressing about computing in 2012, (and beyond), is the marketing industry has managed to establish a relationship between boot and access times, and the user's self esteem and ego gratification. Go figure. But then there is also the iZombie phenomenon as testimonial, which is largely predicated on shiny objects and merchandising prowess.

Having run laptops as my primary system for ~4 years now, the 5400 rpm is a non-issue (at least for me), as the system is used as a desktop, single user system and I don't do games.
Hm, "I don't do games"! Now there's a "cyber-blaspheme" if I've ever heard one. I won't admit to that anymore, no siree! I figure that puts a target on your back. A person could be cruising down the "cyber-freeway", and some thugs, immersed in playing, "Grand Theft Auto", might jump out, slam your head in a virtual church door, and finish you off with blunt force trauma to the head, using a 3D holographic statue of St. Christopher, as the weapon of opportunity. (And believe you me, that would hurt like hell, especially if the ne'er do wells are running DX-11).

But, using the laptop as a desktop, does take "battery life" out of the equation. That just tells me you're patient, as am I. My "erotic art machine", is P-4, Intel 915 based, running DDR. (Not a mistake, there's actually no number behind, "DDR").

All seriousness aside, when I first looked through this thread, I thought to myself, "that more or less, sounds pretty normal, the system would slow as you add programs". After all, with only Windows installed, what's to slow it down? (Don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question, and we have a sticky on the topic).

So, the first of my post seems to have gotten lost in the "need for speed shuffle". Adding AV software, with possibly iTunes, (a notorious Windows bricker), on top of it, would slow down the system quite a bit. Then you got your "googleupdate. exe, adobeupdate.exe, plus how ever many others, to add to the downward performance spiral. Then too, the whole "possibly malware" observation seems to have gotten misplaced also. "Do you know where those little rascal downloads of yours have been hanging out", seems like the sort of question worth asking.

In any event, if the OP isn't terribly concerned with battery life, but is in need of storage capacity, then a 7200RPM HDD might do some good. If absolute storage volume isn't a consideration, with $200.00 as a price ceiling, an SSD could be an alternative. The least expensive, in both time and treasure, would simply be, being patient.

(My New Year's resolution is to restrict the verbosity and satirical content of my posts. How am I doing so far)? :confused:[/quote]
 
captaincranky "(My New Year's resolution is to restrict the verbosity and satirical content of my posts. How am I doing so far)?"
Q.E.D :) Best wishes
 
To give a little more information about the usage of my laptop, I do quite a bit of audio production on it. These software's can definitely be computer intensive but even with a clean install and upgrading ram it doesn't seem as though the laptop is up to the level of performance that it was when I got it (slightly less than a year ago). Battery life is essentially a non-issue at this point. It would be a nice bonus but typically I leave my laptop on the charger while doing anything important.

and to answer some questions:
"Adding AV software, with possibly iTunes, (a notorious Windows bricker), on top of it, would slow down the system quite a bit."
I'm sure this is a contributing factor to how my machine is running but in the past it has been just fine with even more programs installed.

"Then you got your "googleupdate. exe, adobeupdate.exe, plus how ever many others, to add to the downward performance spiral." Do these update in background? Shouldn't it only affect the performance when they're running or do they use resources even when not updating?


"Then too, the whole 'possibly malware' observation"
I feel as if this is pretty unlikely. I have done several scans with several different programs just to make sure one program's database did not miss some type of malware.

"'Do you know where those little rascal downloads of yours have been hanging out'"
I organize my downloads fairly well. Place all of the pictures in the pictures library, all the music in the music library, etc. I also delete any downloads that I don't need (zip/rar files that have been extracted and installers for example). My downloads folder is empty.
 
and to answer some questions:
"Adding AV software, with possibly iTunes, (a notorious Windows bricker), on top of it, would slow down the system quite a bit."
I'm sure this is a contributing factor to how my machine is running but in the past it has been just fine with even more programs installed.
When configured properly, A/V software is also a non-issue.
Consider;
  • If we scan every download before we install &
  • config the A/V to scan email and weblinks,
then why the heck rescan every program or document when we open it? The scan before launch is the back-breaker - - for every system.

I've used this technique (as well as to run from an LUA/UAC limited account) for several years now without any infections.

To exist or not exist are the only absolutes in the Universe - - everything else is Relative.

Just my $0.02
 
Let's "assume", nothing is wrong with the machine. Since this is Win 7 machine, can't you enable the, "speed up my computer option", and buy a high end USB flash drive to utilize it.

(I have no idea if this works or not, but my Win 7 boxes offer me the option every time I plug in a thumb drive). I think it just acts as extra RAM, but I never use it, so I don't know if it helps.

Anybody want to ring in on this?
 
If so I can use that as I have a 16GB flash drive. I can't really attest to the effectiveness since I have never tried it.

Going back to the updaters.. Do those consume a noticeable amount of resources while in background use?
Also..I did not do this before my system restore but shouldn't uninstalling all the bloatware that toshiba installed on my laptop improve performance slightly?
 
Let's "assume", nothing is wrong with the machine. Since this is Win 7 machine, can't you enable the, "speed up my computer option", and buy a high end USB flash drive to utilize it.

(I have no idea if this works or not, but my Win 7 boxes offer me the option every time I plug in a thumb drive). I think it just acts as extra RAM, but I never use it, so I don't know if it helps.

Anybody want to ring in on this?
it doesnt do anything noticeable, I tried it on my sisters pc, still really slow lol.
 
Personally, I disable ALL updaters and take responsibility to do them manually.
( what a waste of time / battery when at a hotspot!).

I like Spybot S&D for disabling startups. Easy to read and use.

I disabled ALL Dell services and Uninstalled a flock of Toolbar C*** on day-1.
 
Awe heck, I'll show the math myself:

Time for one I/o to complete is delayed by:​
1) time to move the arm to the right cylinder/head​
2) time to position to the right record​
3) time to transfer x bytes via DMA​
The big advantage of SSD is the absence of any real time for events 1+2.​
#2 is taken to be 1/2 of the rotation of the platter (on an average).​
7200rpm is 7200/60sec = 120 revs/sec, so one rev is 0.0083 sec / rev​
5400rpm is 5400/60sec = 90 revs/sec, so one rev is 0.0111 sec / rev​
The difference between 7200 vs 5400 is 0.0028 sec (ignoring the 1/2 rotation)​
It take 355.73 I/O events to consume ONE second and 1067 events use THREE seconds.​

You have to extremely picky to even feel 3 second difference :)
 
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