System running inexplicably slow

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Mister Lemons

Mister Lemons

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Lately my system is taking obscene amounts of time to complete simple and ordinary tasks. This hasn't happened over time, it just kinda happened over night.

What I noticed first is that on my solid state drive the windows startup logo never even got to finish loading (the 4 colored spheres that formed the logo) before the system booted up and was nearly instantaneously usable. Now it not only forms the logo but stays there for a bit before taking a good while on the loading screen before finally coming to a rest at the desktop. The system then takes approximately 2 minutes before I can open any window or exe and use it, chrome and internet explorer included.

Speaking of browsers, even chrome takes some time to get things done now. Sometimes it simply lingers at a webpage claiming that IT is unresponsive. Now I know it's not my connection because after I finally got speedtest to load it read that I have 35 ping and 54mb/s.

The odd thing is that games run and execute just fine. Normal startup times for all my games be they steam related or not.

I DO have a sandisk ultra II SSD (only storage I installed that is backed up monthly) that is running on a year old. I put my computer to sleep nightly and shut it down every 3 days or so. In the back of my mind lingers the thought that it could be a hard drive problem, but I doubt it.

The rest of my hardware is rather nice, no cheap stuff here and it all ran fine a while ago. When I monitor my system it claims that all is well. 30% RAM usage of the 8GB I have installed when running under a normal load, CPU temperature is low and hardly utilized, GPU is low and the load is minimal.

I can't explain it. I've tried updating windows through the obvious choice of windows update, I've run malwarbytes and avast, even a boot time scan. Nothing. I've updated all my drivers as well and manually checked for anything newly released.

Things I suspect COULD contribute to the problem.
-MSI Afterburner
-Rainmeter
-LogMeIn Hamachi
-'Old' SSD
-RAM settings in the BIOS

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and for reference here are my specs.
ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
AMD FX 4350 Quad
8gb DDR3 2133
MSI R9 380 2gb (GDDR5)
Corsair CS650
 
Solution
soundguruman
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soundguruman

soundguruman

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Mar 3, 2010
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One of the issues is that you have loaded 2 security programs, which conflict with each other.

Widows update also has several issues with asus boards...incompatibility.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3050740/asus-boards-kb3133977-auto-updates-big-problems.html

 
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Mister Lemons

Mister Lemons

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Only Avast is set to active protection, malwarebytes is off at all times unless I boot it for a scan. Other than that the process is killed and all related services.

And on the topic of KB 3133977, IS THAT WHAT THE BULLSHIT WAS!? I should have known microsoft would screw my system at some point. In any case, I disabled the secure boot feature (erased but saved the keys) before I knew an update was the issue. The only reason that was installed was because my system was slow without reason to begin with.
 
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G

Gildas

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May 6, 2016
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Exactly the same thing. PC fine yesterday, slow as politics today.
Can't run Avast check, even Spybot does not start (and no, these two have lived on this PC for 4 years in perfect harmony and neither was updated yesterday).
AMD Athlon 64X2 6000+
6Gb ram
Radeon HD 7700
Shuttle XPC SN27P

This computer is due for a change, but I need it to last a month to finish my Bachelor's thesis on it.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

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most of the times...malwarebytes doesnt conflict with any antivirus...so tht should not be the problem...

as for the issue in hand...

on start menu...type %temp%...delete everything from this folder...

again...

on start menu...open cmd at elevated level...execute this...netsh winsock reset...

again...

on start menu...type msconfig...go to startup tab...select only ur OS and anything else u find relevant(i have only OS and security client activated)...uncheck everything else...save and restart...
 
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T

tman1

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Malwarebytes is not an antivirus and is av friendly.
 
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Mister Lemons

Mister Lemons

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Alright, so at some point my AI Tweaker's memory settings were set to 11 11 11 24 when my timings are actually 9 11 10 28. Don't know when that happened, possibly when I wiped the secure boot keys. That seems to have kicked the computer into gear on average.

But the problem remains, every now and then I boot from shutdown or sleep and no programs will start. It will take an eternity for even the task manager to pop up (CTRL ALT DEL included). It's all hideously delayed.

After that phase is over everything operates normally and at a quick pace.

EDIT: Windows explorer doesn't seem to be the problem. There is no loading icon on the desktop of task bar.
 
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Mister Lemons

Mister Lemons

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I'de rather not touch the CMOS and wreck my settings as I have everything where it should be but the BIOS was outdated as of May 5th (So thanks for the reminder). I've updated to 2701 from 2601 so there's that. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to have fixed the problem, my computer is still unbearably slow for no reason whatsoever after startup.

As for my bios settings everything was fine after I did my final runthrough. It had to have been about 3 months since I had set them that I noticed how slow things got after boot.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

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by this account, it seems like...ur hdd is taking some time to initialize from static...
check the smart status and health through hard disk sentinnel...
also execute chkdsk /r/f at elevated cmd...

cud be memory as well...so also do a memtest and mdsched...
 
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Mister Lemons

Mister Lemons

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So I ran ChkDsk /r/f as administrator as well as mdsched and came up empty. Another thing I tried is re-seating my RAM in a different order but when I unseated the sticks I found something odd. What looked like paint splatted (very small, much smaller than a grain of rice) across one of the seats was actually thermal paste... and one of the sticks had actually jammed some of it into the seat...

So I grabbed some Isopropol 90% and a very fine paintbrush and spent the next half hour practicing surgery getting it out of the grooves with practically alcohol vapor as a removal media. I dabbed the brush to remove most of the liquid alcohol and used the 'dampness' left to scrub the slot. I cleaned the stick as well and jammed them all back into place. Here I am with the system booted (thank god) and the issue remains.

The last time I did something with thermal paste was several months ago when I installed a smaller heat sink that allowed 4 sticks of RAM to fit. So for some time the computer functioned without issue despite the small amount of paste in the seat. I am curious however if this could have anything to do with my situation.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

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quite unlikely...if the thermal wud have done any damage, thn ur system wud have played up long time ago...i dont think this shd be a factor, though its a silly mistake being careless with thermal...cud have been worse...

i still think u shd consider resetting ur cmos...it doesnt hurt doing tht...its not tht its going to give u any side effects or after effects...at worst, it might not resolve the issue...but definitely worth a try...

other than that i dont think u have very many options left here other than a windows reinstallation...but i am not sure whether tht will fix it, cause this looks more like a hardware issue...ram/hdd is still my first suspect though...
speaking of which, can u try operating ur system from a different ssd/hdd other than the one u r operating from right now???
 
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Mister Lemons

Mister Lemons

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Alright, so thermal paste was not the issue. It can't be memory either as I have booted my system 4 times using merely 1 of each of my 2G sticks just fine.

As for the CMOS, as hesitant as I was I reseated the battery after some time without it and booted back immediately to the UFEI BIOS to reconfigure my settings. After some time getting that crap right I booted back up normally to find out that nothing had changed.

ON A SIDE NOTE: I have noticed that system processes (those pertaining to windows, at least most of them) like I.E, and the start menu open instantly without issue. It seems like the issue resides with actual programs that I have at some point installed, like Chrome for the most basic example. And this 'delay' only is an issue after boot or resuming from sleep, after that everything moves rather quickly.
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

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when this happened to me around 10 mnths ago, it eventually turned out to be a dying hdd even though it passed chkdsk and ok smart status...but thn in my case everything was lagging...right from games to windows explorer etc etc...
the fact that ur lagging instances are selective suggests more of a windows issue thn anything else...
did u run system file checker yet???
 
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Mister Lemons

Mister Lemons

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I'm running it now.

Thanks for the update, I'm looking into getting two separate SSDs for my system. One 64gb for the OS and any small files I may want mirrored, and another 128gb for the few things I actually keep on pc. (I don't use much storage, our server handles the big stuff)

Anyway, I've been looking into this since before I began having issues so this is a good excuse to invest in two new SSDs and a fresh install of Win 7.

UPDATE: Scan finished while I was typing, no system corruption or errors. Onwards to step two, SSD research!
 
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Hellfire13

Hellfire13

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investing on ssd is a gud choice, but if i were u, i wud rather try to find out the source of the issue first before making an investment...
since u have already decided to do a clean install of windows, why not do it on ur current ssd once and check out how it plays...
just to narrow down the variables...
 
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soundguruman

soundguruman

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A. Get rid off all the free programs.
Delete Chrome
B. Reset the power settings.
C. Reload win 7 in "upgrade" mode, which does not erase the programs or files.

A. When these power saver features are enabled, it causes a bunch of problems.
B. Windows shuts down your system to sleep, hibernate, standby, etc..etc...
C. After shutting down system to "save power" the system malfunctions when you try to wake it up again...and locks up, freezes, etc...
It locks the mouse, it locks the keyboard, it shuts off the display, and locks out the hard drive, it shuts off USB devices, etc...etc...
D. This will cause you to pull your hair out, and go to the funny farm...(those nice young men in their pretty white coats)
E. Make it stop, please make it stop.
F. Shut off all these "features" and USE your computer for a change):

Click Start, Click Control Panel,
Look at the top of the window, in the path bar you see “control panel >”
Click on “>” (in the path bar) now click on “all control panel options.”
(This will open up all the hidden controls available)
Click Power Options
click on the arrow to “show other plans”
Check the Box that says "high performance"
Click (in high performance) "change plan settings"
Turn off display: set to NEVER
Put the computer to sleep: set to NEVER
Click: Change advanced plan settings
Scroll down the list: Click on the + signs to expand the choices for each item on the list.
Require a password on wake up: set to NO
Hard disk: turn off the hard disk: set to NEVER
Wireless adapter settings:
Sleep: set to NEVER
Allow Hybrid sleep: set to NEVER
Hibernate after: set to NEVER
Allow wake timers: set to disable
USB settings:
USB selective suspend setting: set to NEVER
Power Buttons and lid:
Power button action: Setting: set to shut down
Sleep Button Action: set to: do nothing
PCI Express:
Link State Power Management, Setting: OFF
Processor Power Management: Minimum state (set to) 7%

System Cooling Policy: setting: Active
Maximum State (set to) 100%
Display
Turn off display after: setting: NEVER (turning off display automatically can cause freezing also)
Turn off the monitor power manually, when you want it off. Don’t use the auto monitor turn off.
Multimedia Settings:
When Sharing Media: Setting: Prevent idling to sleep
When Playing Video: Setting: Optimize Video
Click APPLY
Click OK

Open the bios set up and make sure "cool and quiet" is OFF. (AMD)
If there is a power saver or a "quiet mode" in the bios, shut it off...
There may be a performance setting in the bios setup you have...make sure it's cranked up to max.
in the bios, see that the allocation for video, if available, is maxed.

Now open the hardware manager profiles...
click start
click computer
click system properties
click device manager
double click on mice and other pointing devices
right click on HID compliant mouse
left click on properties
click on the power management tab
UN-check the box that says: "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power." (there is now NO check mark in this box)
click OK

Now repeat this procedure for all mice, monitors, keyboards, and ALL USB ports on the device manager list.

You must open ALL the devices one at a time, as above, and turn off the power saver, for each device.

NOW turn all the security back ON. NOW open your security antivirus. Make sure the antivirus is set to "gaming mode." Or "multimedia mode."
This prevents the security updating from interrupting your game / multimedia priority.
IF the security does not have "gaming mode" or "multimedia mode" get different security.
IF you are using "free" security downloaded from the internet, get rid of it NOW.
Use ONLY professional all in one security. DO NOT load multiple mismatched security programs, which conflict with each other.
DO NOT load free tools into your system such as: "driver sweeper" or any of that "free" goofy stuff.

 
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