Question Notebook system runs Windows 10/11 amazingly, but it gets too slow (unusable) some days later...

[Messala Oliveira]

Firstly, I'm talking about my wife's Samsung Style S20, a 2016 notebook with a 5th generation Intel (obviously not officially compatible with Windows 11). It's modest, with a I5-5200U, 4GB and 256GB of solded SSD sata.

The notebook was mine before, and it was smooth running Windows 10. After I passed it to my wife, I didn't touch it for a long time. So, early this year, I needed to borrow it for a little job, and It was unpracticable! Everything was slow, the boot, the Windows login, the desktop, start menu, window panes. There was no malware, no unknown software/process installed, no missing driver, so I jumped direct to a Windows 10 clean install, just to discard hardware malfunctioning. After the reinstallation of Windows 10 and the software needed (Office, Adobe Reader and Chrome), there was the beautiful performance I knew before, even more smooth after all update Windows 10 received while I didn't used this notebook.

It happened again, a while later I needed the laptop again and it was slow as hell again! I was so stuck that I didn't bother checking the processor's performance, I just did that later (I'll talk about that in a moment). As I was in a haste, I just run a linux from a pendrive and it ran smoothly as intended.

I was sure the problem was with the Windows 10, so in my next free time I did a clean install of Windows 11 (I used the official ISO and the method of erasing the appraiserres file at the right time). I confess I didn't expect that this modest and already old machine could run the Windows 11 so well (taking a few seconds of loading, it was running as smooth as my i7 desktop)... until last sunday, when I grab the notebook again and it was, guess what, with the exactly same slowness from before.

This time, I noticed that the processors was running capped at 22% of its capacity. I found some people with similar issue on Internet, and some people saying that the problem was with the processor driver (intelppm) and changing its "start" config on RegEdit (from 3 to 4) would solve this issue. In fact, it removes the 22% cap, and improves the whole system performance, but just a little bit! It's still unusable.

At this point, I was guessing that Microsoft could be removing the support for old processors through the driver software (idk, I became really skeptical at this rate). So, I grab an official Windows 11 ISO and extracted the Windows Update from it (and all Windows bloatware and things I would not need) and installed it last night. As usual, everything runs gorgeously. I didn't installed nothing but WinRar (I left the Office to be installed today) and, today, it was already damned as before.

My next step will be to fully install a linux distro to, in fact, discard hardware problem.

Anybody here have came through something like this before? Or any suggestion for log output that could help me to discover what's happening here?

Thanks in advance.

 

[rgd1101]

how full is the ssd?

 

[Ralston18]

Two step process:

1) Do another Windows 11 install as before.

2) Immediately (while "gorgeous" -staying with your wording) look at Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

Use all three tools but just one at a time while looking. Do some screen captures and print out the results.

Look for what system resources are being used, to what extent (%), and what is using any given resource.

Next, "when damned" - again staying with your wording ) once more check via all three tools and print out new screen shots.

Compare.

Very likely you will find something that is different and causing the performance to decline.

And do stay out of the registry. Regedit is a last resort and any tinkering could be counter productive in unknown and unforeseen ways.

Also skip installing WinRar for a few days while doing the performance observations.

 

[Messala Oliveira]

how full is the ssd?

This last time, I didn't even restored the backup files of my wife (photos), so it has only Windows installation and WinRar. Less than 10% used.

Two step process:

1) Do another Windows 11 install as before.

2) Immediately (while "gorgeous" -staying with your wording) look at Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

Use all three tools but just one at a time while looking. Do some screen captures and print out the results.

Look for what system resources are being used, to what extent (%), and what is using any given resource.

Next, "when damned" - again staying with your wording ) once more check via all three tools and print out new screen shots.

Compare.

Very likely you will find something that is different and causing the performance to decline.

And do stay out of the registry. Regedit is a last resort and any tinkering could be counter productive in unknown and unforeseen ways.

Also skip installing WinRar for a few days while doing the performance observations.

I'll try this and come back with prints.

 

[rgd1101]

256gb ssd only 10% with windows? are you sure?
windows not doing update?

 

[Messala Oliveira]

256gb ssd only 10% with windows? are you sure?
windows not doing update?

Yeah. After the debloat from ISO, the clean installation goes to 22gb or even less (I can check later the exactly value if necessary). Anyway, what I mean is that there's lots of room for the system. Or are you suspecting there is something missing on the OS?

On my last trying described above, I removed the Windows Update, so there's no updates (I'm running the 22621.525).

EDIT:

Two step process:

1) Do another Windows 11 install as before.

2) Immediately (while "gorgeous" -staying with your wording) look at Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

Use all three tools but just one at a time while looking. Do some screen captures and print out the results.

Look for what system resources are being used, to what extent (%), and what is using any given resource.

Next, "when damned" - again staying with your wording ) once more check via all three tools and print out new screen shots.

Compare.

Very likely you will find something that is different and causing the performance to decline.

And do stay out of the registry. Regedit is a last resort and any tinkering could be counter productive in unknown and unforeseen ways.

Also skip installing WinRar for a few days while doing the performance observations.

I think the issue is related to the battery charging controller. I brought the notebook to my workstation today to start the suggested tests and I always use the notebook with charger plugged in. I turned it now and it was slow like yesterday, than I noticed I forgot my pendrive with Windows 11 installation at home. So I started to pack in the notebook back to the bag and I remembered that @Ralston18 sent the link for the Process Explorer, so I turned the notebook without the charger to download the software and do some initial tests, but the system was healed.

I ran some softwares to test it and everything was right. I plugged the charger again (with notebook turned on) and it didn't get slow. I restarted it with the charger plugged in, and no slowness. Now I turned it off and I will let it charge back to 100% and will test it again plugged in and I come back to post news here.

I'm monitoring the CPU temperature with RealTemp and there's nothing wrong until than.

EDIT:

I will consider it resolved. It appears to be a battery charger system malfunction. So far so good and I was unable to reproduce the problem for the rest of the day. If it gets worse I'll look for local hardware assistance.

But why does a clean install of the operating system bypass this problem? Could it be related to a specific Samsung driver installed after installing Windows? I don't know how this charging system works, I assume there is a driver to control when the battery needs charging and when it needs to stop charging.

Anyway, I suppose it still has to do with hardware malfunction, whether it's enabled by software or not, because it affects the overall performance of the computer.