Do computers slow down and why ?

86JR

86JR

86JR

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I have always believed the old "your computer is slow due to lack of HDD space" a myth as it makes no sense to me, i have 4gb of ddr2 and i have around 1950mb of data stored in ram at any one time.

However i have 50gb of hdd space left, and 2 more full hdd's, and my computer is immensely slow.

When i boot up, about 4 services in msconfig start up, the same as usual, since i installed win7. Then it loads nvidias stuff, and my software calibrations for my twin monitors. Then it should be ready, but no, i run firefox and have to wait around 3 mins, sometimes it runs out of ram and crashes or hangs for a few minutes, the best thing is to leave it for the same amount of time before trying to do anything.

Now when im reading about something in FF or IE i like to zoom in, and lately i have found lots of hardware lag, for instance if i scroll down the page, it will stutter and do that overlap thing on the monitor where it shows the data from the page before at the same time as the new data.

Virtual swap on the HDD is 5gb and always has been, and i have 55gb of free space, so that makes no sense.

Im guessing i have loads of spyware that doesnt show up in task manager ?

Thats leaves me to 2 more points.

if i load task manager via ctrl alt delete, i cant close it, as all the alt_f functions such as file, edit etc dont show, neither does minimise or the X button, all i get is the information. So i then have to log off and back on to get rid of the task manager.

Also sometimes i close FF, then i start it again only to get a dialog box telling me i closed it but its already running, so i have to click ok and wait 30 seconds before trying again.

AND

sometimes i load FF and get a blank GREY screen, like im seeing the layer underneath google (my homepage), as if im seeing a blank greyed out system window.

Any ideas ? Please dont say reinstall windows, because i was naughty and its a pain to reinstall it. I did buy it from ocuk originally but bought the oem edition and then changed my components leaving me with a useless OS license.

Can i just add more hdds or ram or something and all my problems disappear ?
 
how often do you run disk cleanup/defragment?, do virus scans etc. how many procceses have you got running in the background?. all these things can effect pc performance.
 
yeah depends how long u defreg/clean up. over time can keep more and more hardrive space up. Id just recomend a fresh copy of windows reinstalled again and wipe your hardrive and start again
 
get ccleaner, regseeker, superantispyware & dfraggler. run them in that order.
then report back.
been doing it for years, my old Q6600 & 8gb of kingston hyper-x still fly at the same speed now as they did the last time i reinstalled windows.

and install windows 7 if you have't already.
 
twoblacklines said:
I never defrag or clean up lol!
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I0yLE.jpg


Do Disk Cleanup and clear the %temp% / prefetch folders occasionally at least! jeez and defrag frequently if you don't have SSD's....
 
Erm... Defrag is automatically set in Win 7 AFAIK so no need to actually adjust it...

Does sound like you have something drastically wrong with your computer though and not just the "cleanup" issue (which I doubt actually does anything...).

Have a check where you told your pagefile to save to, that can cause a massive difference I've found.

Sounds to me like you have an issue with the install though that pagefile swaps, hardware upgrades and most of all defrag and system cleanups aren't going to sort out...
 
True, I just skimmed over his post :)

Well anyway, it does sound like a software issue, not a hardware one, so upgrading wouldn't be much use imo. He might even have a virus or two, so it's worth doing some cleaning up, best case being a full re install.
 
Yep. I've always noticed slowdown after a long period of time. This is why reinstall windows annually.

For example, I installed this installation of Win7 on 6/9/2009, photoshop used to take under 3 seconds to fully load up. Now, it takes about 6 seconds.

I do all the usual defrag/cleanup stuff bi-monthly. I think I'm due a re-install.
 
This used to be more of a problem with XP and earlier OS's but Vista and 7 seem to keep going better. Of course it depends also on how much you have starting up (use MSCONFIG to remove all the rubbish) and whether you use disk clean up then defrag to keep the hard disk at a good speed.
 
Not sure about the annual reinstall - I ran the RC for the full term it was available and I never had any slow downs or poorer performance at the end. All my computers have had Windows 7 RTM installed since last October and they're still as snappy as the day I installed them.

As for the OP, if you are getting glitches in windows showing up properly it might be time for a reinstall!

It is around this time that people really wished they had made a backup image of their shiny, shiny Windows 7 install before it got erm.. less shiny! :D
 
twoblacklines said:
if i load task manager via ctrl alt delete, i cant close it, as all the alt_f functions such as file, edit etc dont show, neither does minimise or the X button, all i get is the information. So i then have to log off and back on to get rid of the task manager.
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Actually, all you need to do is find the tskmgr.exe process and end it, that will close task manager for you rather than having to restart/log in and out

Like others have said though, you really need a clean up. I garantee Ccleaner will find at list 4GB's of temporary files that need deleting
 
I'd add a good Spybotting and a good Malwarebytes Anti Malwareing to the list of tasks to do. Such horrible performance is likely to involve a nice infestation of malware imho.
 
twoblacklines said:
if i load task manager via ctrl alt delete, i cant close it, as all the alt_f functions such as file, edit etc dont show, neither does minimise or the X button, all i get is the information. So i then have to log off and back on to get rid of the task manager.
Click to expand...

Double-click on the "border".
 
groen said:
i have not defragged a hard drive for over 5 years. never have speed problems.
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Depends what you install and in what order, I suppose. But access times when opening files will decrease dramatically, especially if you uninstall stuff, data will be written all over the place. Defrag just puts everything in order so the hard drive can access them faster.
 
Ignoring fragmentation, as a hard-drive fills up it uses the (as I remember) outer edges of the disk first, which is faster than the inner part of the platter(s) (not sure it's not the other way around, but either way, the theory stands).

So as a hard drive fills up, the data further into the drive gets slower and slower.

There's a nice little test on another forum (which is banned on here unfortunately due to past issues) where a user sets up a real-world test using partitions - circumventing the filter somewhat, if you do a Google search for "Zak's Partition Theory" it's the first result.

I've not tried it myself, but it should work in practice as it does in theory. :)
 
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