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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : W10: Weird stuff. Anyone seen this?
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
I got a laptop today(HP) that the client was complaining that everything was slow, and nothing would open. She is 100% correct. The system boots, but insists on a system disk check on EVERY boot, but access is INCREDIBLY slow. START menu never opens - you just get the "Busy circle" for a few seconds, but it never opens. Most applications won't open. Same "Busy circle" for a few seconds, but the apps never open. 8GB of RAM and 1TB HDD. My first thought, is to clone to an SSD and see if that helps, but I can't even install Macrium Reflect, as no web-browser will open despite many attempts. I suspect that this copy of W10 is seriously corrupted. Cloning it to an SSD would probably speed it up, but the problems would also be cloned. It is also quite possible that the HDD is dying, and that is causing all the issues. I am thinking more along the lines of a clean install over anything else, BUT also a clean install to an SSD and not the slow HDD. Thoughts? Opinions? Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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Chopperp Guru  Joined: 03/01/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1097 |
Hi G I have a HP ThinkPad & it is just sloooow. I recently updated to an SSD & I'm sure that the boot times etc did improve. Still slow compared to my newer ASUS lappy. I assumed you have checked the startup stuff etc (CCleaner). Amazing what can get loaded up & run at boot time. Running Task Manager & checking what is trying to run may also help. I assume your client is shutting down Windows correctly. This can leave files open etc. Is the BIOS or whatever it uses set up correctly? Have fun. Brian ChopperP |
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| Fabian Newbie  Joined: 19/12/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 9 |
I once had a laptop with a dying HDD. It sounded similair, even if it was not as bad as your case. But the thing I could allways see was that the Hard Drive had a 100% utilization all the time. Even if I did nothing. You can check that in the taskmanager. Maybe you do have a similair issue with your HDD. |
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vegipete Guru Joined: 29/01/2013 Location: CanadaPosts: 1132 |
I have noticed strangeness, including programs that wouldn't run, in Windows 10 specific to a user. Creating a new user made most things work again normally. Something to try. Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs. |
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Turbo46 Guru Joined: 24/12/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1642 |
Multiple virus programs can conflict and slow things down. Apparently AVG is particularly bad. An SSD will certainly improve speed. Bill Keep safe. Live long and prosper. |
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| circuit Senior Member  Joined: 10/01/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 277 |
"HP ThinkPad"... really? Just interested if there is a crossover branding in Australia - cross-licensing etc. I understood that the brand ThinkPad was sold by IBM to Lenovo who took over the brand. I have speeded up several older machines by swapping mechanical hard drives with SSDs; the difference is spectacular, especially if the old drive was using SATA 3 whilst the interface on the computer also allowed SATA 6 but the cheaper drive had been installed. Best speed increase was with a Hewlett-Packard machine which had an unused M.2 socket. I swapped out the SATA drive and installed an NVMe drive in the M.2 socket. Spectacular does not even begin to describe the difference. Almost instant-on at boot-up. |
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RetroJoe Senior Member Joined: 06/08/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 290 |
Historically, Windows installations have not aged gracefully, and a clean reinstall every so often (e.g 1-2 years) used to be part of my routine maintenance. I have been very lucky with my five year old Dell Inspiron, which is my primary work computer and gets very heavy daily use. I replaced the stock mechanical HD with an SSD very early on, and it's been pretty much trouble-free, with only slight degradation at boot up, app launch and file open/save activity over the years (other than Win10's incredibly annoying habit of relaunching every app that was open at shutdown - hey, MSFT, I usually reboot so I DONT have any apps open !!). My conclusion - SSDs are much less susceptible to fragmentation and the accumulation of low-level defects that the file system has to keep track of. I know this sounds paradoxical (I.e. SSDs are supposed to have a finite number of read/write cycles), but it's my current working theory, So, hopefully swapping the HD for an SSD and doing a clean install of Win10 will do the trick. Under no circumstances should you try to migrate the volume image containing the OS - IMO, that is asking for a world of chronic pain, versus the one-time effort of a clean install. Edited 2021-02-04 19:39 by RetroJoe Enjoy Every Sandwich / Joe P. |
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| Chopperp Guru Joined: 03/01/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1097 |
Oops, it's a Lenovo Thinkpad. Don't know where I got HP from. Had old IBM Thinkpads ChopperP |
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| at67 Newbie Joined: 02/07/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6 |
This is usually caused by a failing disk, (as noted above), run something like CrystalDiskInfo and check the S.M.A.R.T. metrics it reports back, (or just check for a yellow-orange-red indicator). |
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| Glen0 Regular Member  Joined: 12/10/2014 Location: New ZealandPosts: 95 |
Have you tried looking at the "system" logs which are found in the "Event viewer" which is found in "Computer Management" They take a while to be displayed under normal circumstances so with a slow machine it will probably take a while longer. Start by looking for things flagged in red.  |
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| mclout999 Guru Joined: 05/07/2020 Location: United StatesPosts: 490 |
If this is a Win 10 system Just back up your data and use the reset your PC in settings and have it do a fresh install NOT saving your data or programs. Anything other than Win 10 back up your data and reinstall from scratch for install media, but have your install code before you start. It just sounds like a buggy install that can happen over time. If it is still crap after that it could be hardware. I have been an IT consultant and Tech for over 40 years and this happens and you have to bite the bullet and do the work. Did you look at the device manager and see if you had any unrecognized device. |
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| Paul_L Guru Joined: 03/03/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 769 |
Hang in there Graeme! You can reset the PC. In order to do it you should really keep YOUR data on another drive, like an external USB 3.0 drive. Don't use Bill Gate's convoluted data structure under the user directory ... it mixes your data with all sorts of user program specific data plus windows specific data. If you reset the PC back to its creation date you will have to roll up windows to its current status which could be time consuming. If the machine has an optical disk you should keep a recent copy of the windows iso file on an optical disk. ISO link The ISO should be able to find the original manufacturers license for the OEM windows installed when the computer was built. It will install a current copy of windows and you won't have to roll the new installation up. I always copy the installation files for any programs I install to a "DDD" (Download or Distribution Disks) directory on an external USB 3.0 drive. If I have to reinstall programs after a new ISO bare metal re-installation or a computer reset of windows it's easy to find the installation files all in one place, and the program installation is much faster running from the USB 3.0 disk. Upgrade windows 10 to windows 10 pro which enables you to delay the monthly second tuesday windows updates until they have been field verified and patched! Microsoft lets their customers do their final quality control testing every month. Keep checking ASKWOODY.COM to discover when it is safe to permit windows to run the monthly updates. It's true that SSDs are faster than mechanical drives .... but expanding RAM memory is cheaper and usually results in a bigger speed boost. The RAM has to be big enough to keep windows from relying on the page file on the disk. This is dependent on what programs you typically run simultaneously. I have upgraded all my machines to a minimum of 16GB. I keep a freebie RAM disk program IMDISK ready to go on my desktop. I can create an 8 GB ram disk instantly whenever I need it. This RAM disk will be about 12 times faster than any SSD, but it disappears when you reboot the machine so be careful what you store on it. Windows 10 pro has been exceptionally stable for me. I do shut down and restart each computer about once a week. I have a newish Dell laptop with an SSD as c: which gets really spastic when it runs for more than a few days. The cursor won't even track the mouse movements properly. The only solution for that laptop is a full shutdown and restart. Paul in NY Edited 2021-02-05 08:02 by Paul_L |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2950 |
G'day Grogs, It is possible that the HDD is FULL. or near full.. Take the drive out and clone it to an SSD in another PC.. I have paragon hard disk manger that I often clone drives from other PCs as it is a one pc licence. Try to use an ssd that is larger than the hdd.. paragon will expand the partitions to use the drive fully. To me, it is either full or nearly full or the hdd is failing At least putting the drive in another pc allows you to scan for virii and backup data if the drive is actually ok.. If the drive is failing pop it in a zip lock bag in the freezer for 15m and try... you will be amazed at how well it works. (Sometimes) Good luck.. These things can take hours.. Regards, MICK Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1993 |
I'm looking at getting an SSD for my workshop desktop. Can anyone recommend a brand. I see there is Western Digital blue and green, Samsung, SanDisc, Kingston etc. "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
WOW!...... More replies then I thought I would get for this thread - thanks to all who posted.  @ Chopperp: I did TRY to do some stuff, but most apps simply WON'T load or start. The best I get, is the circle progress icon for a few seconds, then nothing else happens. It has been a while, since I came across such an unusable machine.  @ Fabian: YES - 100% HDD use at all times, making everything else super-slow. I suspect the HDD is probably the issue on this machine. @ GlenO: Hello fellow Kiwi!  Had not thought of that, so I will try to see if I can get anything useful out of that - but it might be impossible, as the START menu refuses to open, so I can't actually select Computer Management in the first place...@ mclout999: They want to save all their work etc. I cannot simply wipe the HDD and clean-install losing all the programs and data. As explorer etc refuse to even open at all, there is no way I can copy the files to a USB backup. This is why I am now looking towards a new OEM clean-install on an SSD, and then use the old HDD as an external drive, and copy their files back to the SSD install that way. @ Paul_L: Yes, even though I only have one W10 machine on my LAN now(all the others are now Linux), I have to be honest and say that apart from some irritations, W10 has been generally OK and not much of a problem. The issues that arise, are from cheap laptops that install W10 on old 5400RPM HDD's, which are like snails today, and W10 really hates running from them. I fully expect that they are 99% of the slow complaints from anyone running W10. Upgrade to and SSD, and W10 on ANY hardware, is like a totally different machine! @ bigmik: HDD full - no. It is a 1TB HDD, with only the system on it, but it runs like a snail. As to SSD's, I tend to use WD Blue SSD's for most of my main system builds. Green's also work OK, but the blue's have better performance. Ultimate speed performance comes from the Black series, but they tend to be expensive. (you get what you pay for!)Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1154 |
I had a similar issue on an earlier winsucks 7 or 8 ? not sure, damn thing was always busy and slow, all the time it was trying to perform Indexing, apparently to make searching faster? Indexing may have been the result of some other unseen problem, drive was not full or cluttered. I would have thought the file system indexing thing would have changed in the later win  things.Never had a problem on any other system just that one system install. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Glen0 Regular Member Joined: 12/10/2014 Location: New ZealandPosts: 95 |
Can you boot up in "SafeMode"? Not sure how it works in Win10 but I believe it is still an option. Try pressing F8 repeatedly while booting up, it will hopefully present this option. |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
Have you considered booting with a Puppy Linux CD? It will bypass windows completely and at least give you access to the HDD (if it works at all). It doesn't install anything unless you want it to. If you run it from a USB stick it can keep user files on the same stick. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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phil99 Guru Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2640 |
If you suspect the hard disk is failing remove it and connect it to another PC (via a USB adapter is easiest, if you have one) save all user files before running scandisk (or whatever it's called now) in repair mode and a virus scan. |
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