Laptop super slow

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N

Nove

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Dec 19, 2013
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So I have an Acer Aspire 5250. It used to be blazing fast and good for the price but some of they keys fell of and got lost. So we sent it back and they gave us a refurbished one but now thing thing is hella slow takes forever to load pages.. Freezes easily.. Can't watch any videos in fullscreen or in HD without lag and I used to be able to do that all easily even play minecraft on low settings fine. I reinstalled Windows 7 and that didn't help either. Any idea what it could be? I am guessing its a component is it the HDD or what is a very slow system a sign of? the HDD is 500GB and it has 4gb of ram and AMD Radeon HD 6320 Graphics along with a dual core CPU.
 
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What I meant is I only run Google Chrome pretty much. Also here is hwinfo thing you wanted.
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1. I missed my own previous contribution on the CPU specs.. so disregard the last CPU specs and related comments I gave. The E-450 APU should be a bit better but it's still in the decade old dual cores cathegory.. specifically the Pentium Core Duo L and T series (not Core 2 Duo), and the lower end Pentium D models.

2. The Taskmanager shot should be the whole screen where you can sum up the total and determine which process is taking up most of cpu and ram resources

3. That HWiNFO initial report is not the one I meant. To see the HWiNFO report I meant; Start the program and after you see the initial report, close it and let the program finish loading, then press the Sensors icon... the report showing the detailed specific information we need should pop up. Take a full screenshot and only remove the right side blank space so we can read all system running specs. CPU clock, hw temps, fan speeds, etc.
 
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hope i got what you wanted.
 
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How can i find SMART status check on HWinfo. I cant seem to find it
 
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• I still don't see all the processes in taskmanager.. you missed the bottom part of the taskmanager window. That part is necessary to see ALL the processes presently running... including what keeps the CPU at 91%.

• What I do notice in the HWINFO report is; the CPU cores clock are running low at 822 Mhz current and as low as 775 Mhz... so the CPU is running at 50% of it's normal clock speed. Check the Control Panel > Power Options > and set the High Performance Plan.. if the problem stops, create your own power plan to customize the power options, you can also customize an existing plan and when you stop using it, just reset it to defaults. And if nothing changes after using the High Performance Plan, check the BIOS power options setting... the BIOS information should be available in the laptop user manual which should be available in the manufacturer's product page in PDF download.

Resetting the CPU clock at the normal 1650 Mhz may lower the 91% to around 45% of CPU usage and lower the RAM usage from the 50% that's continually being used.

 
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Sorry I had to get two screenshots. Also the CPU usage fluctuates randomly from 80% to 100%. I guess its not super random. Stuff like opening new programs and tabs in google chrome makes it go to 100%.
Also changing power plan didnt seem to help.
 
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Looks like the problem is between Chrome and svchost... see if disabling Chrome's extensions/addons, and if there's no differrence, remove and reinstalling Chrome without extensions at least initially to see the difference if any. You can also check the BIOS Power Saving options to make sure the CPU runs at 1650 Mhz.. as you can see in the image you posted your CPU is/or was running underclocked due to Power saving options,.. if a HWiNFO sensor scan still shows it running low, disable the BIOS power saving settings for CPU speed management.

For the svchost issue;
1. run a rootkit scan
2. And disable a few unnecessary Windows services following guides like those you can find in the following pages... you can search for other guides to stop more sevices safely, but some I usually disable are the Remote desktop service and those related, the Computer Browser, the Server service... other services such as Telephony, Parental control (in no children use your computer), Terminal Services, Windows Defender service, Encryption service, are examples of services you may not need and can safely disable. As rule of thumb, click on the service's Dependencies tab and if no other service or unimportant services depend on it, it can safely be disabled.

To acces Windows Services:
Start > Search for "Services.msc".

Abnormally high CPU usage from svchost.exe
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/abnormally-high-cpu-usage-from-svchostexe-solved/eb38d25d-6bb2-47cd-80f2-5389c62337be?auth=1

10+ Windows 7 services you may not need
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-plus-windows-7-services-you-may-not-need/

 
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Pretty sure it is hardware related, I already tried reinstalling Windows 7, 3 times. Also the CPU is running at 1650mhz in the BIOS. Also changing the power option didnt help much. I tried different web browsers etc, didn't help. Opening new programs or just doing simple task shoots the CPU up to 100%. Its wierd the CPU usage goes between 80% and 100% constantly. Think it could be a heatsink issue? I don't have much expeirence with trying to figure out what is the issue with hardware. I would really like to fix the laptop instead of buying a new one
 
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The HWiNFO Sensors report only shows one CPU core at the bottom of the image and it's at 55.4ºC average and the other core must be around the same temp... and that's not so high, and not even close to the temp where the CPU would start throttling down.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bobcat/AMD-E%20Series%20E-450.html

A heatsink issue would have to make the CPU heat up much higher so that doesn't seem to be the cause.

All a Windows reinstall does is refresh system files... it doesn't remove virus/malware, that takes a clean install and I would also recommend a BIOS reset with battery off for at least 5 minutes, AC power disconnected and the power button pressed from 30 secs to a minute.. that to make sure you remove all power and data from the HDD, RAM and BIOS chip, capacitors and components.
 
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I did clean reinstall. Wiped hard drive completely and got fresh copy of windows.
 
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What format mode did you use? Quick format may not have done a clean job... normal format still keeps old data. A full wipe, or low level format may be needed.. these erase all data from a HDD and replace it with zeros, ones or zeros and ones. If the problem persists after that, run a memory test with Memtest... or try different memory modules.
 
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Any format, or even just deleting the partition is all that is needed for a clean Windows setup. To Windows it's the same as a secure wipe unless you are trying to recover files or there is a sneaky virus that persists after a format.
 
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That's exactly my point... I suggested a Low level format thinking of a possible infection. If the problem persists after a reinstall, and all hardware sounds to be in good condition, it's possible an infection could be the cause, particularly because Chrome and Svchost are using most of the CPU and RAM. A collateral result of a LLF is the disk will perform better. I have some old HDDs and occasionally get expected disk surface issues and a regular format doesn't do much good besides removing (and not entirely) old data but a low level format wipes is clean and some times even improves disk performance, so if there is available time to do a low level format, that sounds to me the obvious format method to use.

 
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How would I do a LFF? I tried running the program and it said can't lock. Wouldn't I have to take the HDD out of my laptop and hook it up to my desktop somehow and run the program on my main PC? It can't do LFF when LFF is running on the actual HDD its going to wipe right:?
 
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Right Low Level format is done the same as a format and you can't format the only HDD in the computer unless you do a clean installation, but LLF is done with a tool so it has to be done from an installed Windows with the HDD to be formated connnected as USB or secondary data HDD

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/
 
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If there is a tool under 15 dollars that allows me to hook up a laptop HDD i'll do it but otherwise I dont think I will. Dont wanna waste lots of money on an old laptop and a chance that it won't even help. Im running a different version of LowLevelBuild I downloaded from LowLevelFormat.info and right now its checking bad blocks, and its at 73% and it already says there is 721748991 bad blocks. lol..
 
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Well I think that LFF program I ran did some sort of format because when I turned on my laptop it says no bootable device. That wasn't expected.. well, looks like i'll reinstall windows again and maybe it will be better lol..
 
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Yes that was expected... a format of any type has been discussed for the past five days. I suggested a Low Level Format to remove any possible and persistent infection and to possibly repair the platter surface... so if the HDD is in good condition this should restore it, and if a clean installation after the LLF still has the 90% CPU issue, it would mean it's hardware related.
 
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What I mean is I didn't think it would work, because you yourself said I would have to hook up the HDD to another pc to do a LFF and do it from my main PC. I didnt think it was possible to format the only HDD in the PC using LFF, while running windows but it did somehow.
 
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OK, but when the screen says "no bootable device" it only means the BIOS can't find the boot sector/loader in Windows and that doesn't necessarily mean the HDD or partition was formatted... so the Low Level Formart may have not been complete since you can't format Windows from within itself. Another option to do a LLF (if I haven't mentioned it before) is from the Hiren's Boot CD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh0fsn_bPOc
 
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I am installing windows 10, and I think the format was mostly complete because when I went to install Windows 10, it said that the device was was empty, all space was usable. But just in case, I deleted the partition and made a new partition. I'll update you when I know for sure if all this worked.
 
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