Very slow start times for all programs

[ilman]

Since about a week or so I found out that all of my programs tend to take about half a minute to start, even My Computer. A friend of mine said that I have too much stuff on my Registry but since I haven't installed that many programs and I use RegFix once a month. I also ran a scan for viruses with avast and it found nothing. The funny thing is that after everything starts up, it runs absolutely normally with the exception of Flash. When I start up Chrome and I launch a video on Youtube, sometimes there is no audio and when I click the volume icon it loads then immediately freezes and after 30 seconds it's working again. These slowdowns annoy me very much. I don't want to wait a minute for Chrome to open so that I can search something on Google. Heck, my phone opens Google faster.

Is there anything I can do to fix this besides installing Windows 7 again (the last installation was 1 month ago)?

My laptop:
Model: Lenovo Ideapad Y580
Processor: quad-core Intel Core i7 3610QM @2.30Ghz (3.3 Ghz with TurboBoost)
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M and Intel HD Graphics 4000
RAM: 8GB DDR3 @ 1600 Mhz
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

 

[shadowmanwkp]

Probably too many things to load upon startup. I'd say clean up your startup folder in your start menu first. Any program in that folder will execute itself when you start up your pc.

After that, open the start menu and type in "msconfig" (without the quotes) followed by and enter. Win7 will ask for admin rights. Ignore the current tab and head straight to startup, here you can disable all programs you don't want to have loaded upon booting your pc by removing the checks. Note: only disable programs that you don't need, some programs might be vital for your computer, like your virus scanner.

It will speed up your startup time significantly if you take out certain programs (like office quick start, or adobe quick start). I don't really have a good solution for your flash problems, flash sometimes hangs in firefox occasionally as well and it really is beginning to become a pain. My only solution is that you can try to re-install it...

 

[Originality]

One month and you've slowed down this much?

This type of lag I find is usually caused by too many concurrent access requests to the HDD. Simply put, it's trying to do too many things at once.

Try to remove any unnecessary bloatware or crapware that's installed on the laptop. Update all drivers if you can and look for the number of processes that run on startup.

Also, if you have a DVD in the drive, take it out.

 

[ilman]

Probably too many things to load upon startup. I'd say clean up your startup folder in your start menu first. Any program in that folder will execute itself when you start up your pc.

After that, open the start menu and type in "msconfig" (without the quotes) followed by and enter. Win7 will ask for admin rights. Ignore the current tab and head straight to startup, here you can disable all programs you don't want to have loaded upon booting your pc by removing the checks. Note: only disable programs that you don't need, some programs might be vital for your computer, like your virus scanner.

Already tried that and all programs there are vital for my PC. Thanks for the quick reply though.

One month and you've slowed down this much?

This type of lag I find is usually caused by too many concurrent access requests to the HDD. Simply put, it's trying to do too many things at once.It has a normal amount of processes running in task manager. I don't think that's the problem here.

Try to remove any unnecessary bloatware or crapware that's installed on the laptop. Update all drivers if you can and look for the number of processes that run on startup.
All of my drivers are up to date. I have no unnecessary crapware since I can't install any for a month.

Also, if you have a DVD in the drive, take it out. There's nothing in the DVD drive.

 

[Rydian]

The amount of processes is like saying "there's no serial killer in the class because the class has 25 people and that's a normal amount". It's incredibly easy for a single process to slow your computer down as much as 25 others combined.

"Unnecessary bloatware" usually refers to extra programs that came pre-installed on the computer.

Screenshot the "msconfig" tab? Just because something has an entry there doesn't mean that entry is required for the program to run. That entry makes the program run pre-emptively, that is everything in there runs on startup, whereas in reality you can uncheck some things and they'll just run when you need them to (such as yahoo/MSN messengers).

With I/O slowdown, the most common culprit is the antivirus, but there's other possibilities. In the task manager go to the Processes tab, go to the View menu and choose "select columns". In the new window check all of the "I/O" entries and press okay, then take some screenshots so we can see what's up in those columns.

 

[ilman]

Screenshots of msconfig:

I think there's something wrong with the processor since it never goes to above 5% usage with the exception when playing games or running heavy programs but that might be normal.

 

[Rydian]

There's some stuff there that's not needed for your computer to run.
Google Update - This checks for updates even when your google products aren't running.
Skype - This makes skype run on startup, whereas you may only need to use it every so often, in which case you can just run the icon when you need it.
Daemon Tools - Same deal.
Adobe Reader - Same deal with auto-start and updates.

So there's a few programs that are running in the background that you don't need. There's also ones like the Java update checker and stuff, but those are generally more important.

Also that's normal for a modern machine, most tasks won't stress the processor.

 

[ilman]

There's some stuff there that's not needed for your computer to run.
Google Update - This checks for updates even when your google products aren't running.
Skype - This makes skype run on startup, whereas you may only need to use it every so often, in which case you can just run the icon when you need it.
Daemon Tools - Same deal.
Adobe Reader - Same deal with auto-start and updates.

So there's a few programs that are running in the background that you don't need. There's also ones like the Java update checker and stuff, but those are generally more important.

Also that's normal for a modern machine, most tasks won't stress the processor.

I don't think those 4 things will cause me to wait 30 seconds to run anything.
On my old laptop I had a ton more unimportant stuff and programs took maximum 5 seconds to launch.
Anything else I can do?

 

[Rydian]

You tend to keep skipping over stuff...

With I/O slowdown, the most common culprit is the antivirus, but there's other possibilities. In the task manager go to the Processes tab, go to the View menu and choose "select columns". In the new window check all of the "I/O" entries and press okay, then take some screenshots so we can see what's up in those columns.

 

[ilman]

You tend to keep skipping over stuff...

With I/O slowdown, the most common culprit is the antivirus, but there's other possibilities. In the task manager go to the Processes tab, go to the View menu and choose "select columns". In the new window check all of the "I/O" entries and press okay, then take some screenshots so we can see what's up in those columns.

Here you go:

Spoiler

 

[Rydian]

136 processes is a lot more than the average computer should be running. I'm at 68 right now, with multiple user programs open.

There's a lot of stuff I see running in the background that doesn't need to be running.

One of the many CMD.exe entries appears to be causing the problem specifically, but still, you need to trim out a lot of the shit that runs in the background.

 

[ilman]

Ok, so I fixed the thing with cmd and my father's profile had a couple of processes running and it improved speed a little but I can't close any more processes (currently there are 114).

 

[Rydian]

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-switch-user-option-in-windows-vista-and-7/

Turn off the "switch user" option, since that doesn't actually log the other person out, and it keeps their stuff running. "Log off" should be used since it closes whatever the original user was running so their stuff doesn't interfere with the next person logging in.

See how it behaves after that.

 

[tueidj]

With I/O slowdown, the most common culprit is the antivirus, but there's other possibilities. In the task manager go to the Processes tab, go to the View menu and choose "select columns". In the new window check all of the "I/O" entries and press okay, then take some screenshots so we can see what's up in those columns.

^^ This. I get people complaining all the time that their computers are too slow ("I think it must have a virus or something?") and nine times out of ten it's because their antivirus program is making everything slow as molasses. That entire industry has become a big scam, convincing people that they need something they don't and purposely underperforming so their "upgrades" seem worthwhile.

TL;DR version: get rid of avast.

 

[Rydian]

It's most often the active full-disc scans that cause issues, generally when scheduled scans are disabled (relying on the scanning done when files are read and/or written to) performance greatly improves.

 

[Originality]

You think we don't need AV? When you've seen as many IM worm infected PC's as I have, such ignorant opinions fly straight out the window and under someone's front tires.

Unless you enjoy paying techies to clean such computers every few months.

 

[tueidj]

And pray tell, what adverse effects do these worms inflict? Scan all files as they are being accessed? Waste memory? Check for updates and send system info behind your back? Inject crap into your web browsing? Cost you money? Annoy you with pop-ups for things you don't need? Sounds exactly like the symptoms of using an AV program...

 

[Rydian]

And pray tell, what adverse effects do these worms inflict? Scan all files as they are being accessed? Waste memory? Check for updates and send system info behind your back? Inject crap into your web browsing? Cost you money? Annoy you with pop-ups for things you don't need? Sounds exactly like the symptoms of using an AV program...

Suggesting that somebody change AVs to one with lesser resource usage is fine, but suggesting users run without an AV at all in modern times is damaging advice and I, for one, will NOT tolerate that shit. If you're not going to take personal computer security seriously then GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS SECTION.

To answer your questions, this shit 'aint the Wii. Modern computers are used for all sorts of serious activities that require privacy. Online banking and shopping, personal/family e-mails, things of that nature are things that modern criminals target. Modern infections are designed with data mining and fear mongering tactics in order to get hold of a user's private information however they can. Whether it's a keylogger recording their bank info or scaring a user into putting it into a fake site, they can wipe somebody's account clean in minutes. Personal information? I, personally, have naked pics of multiple women I've gone out with stored in a truecrypt container on my computer. If my OS was compromised (background screen streaming, remote access while I have the volume mounted, etc.) those very personal images could easily be leaked out on the internet without permission (not to mention that it's just private shit to begin with). And what about work secrets? Modern companies keep all sorts of records and transactions digital, and there's a growing "work from home" force that do office work from home (say, over a VPN). If the main OS is compromised then any sort of stream or feed from the VPN could easily be rerouted elsewhere, exposing internal company data to the public.

So I'm pretty sure that "keeping a user's bank account from being emptied" is a higher priority than some CPU or I/O overhead.

 

[tueidj]

That's probably the lulziest reply I've seen on this forum, "I'm going to prove my point by mentioning I have naked lady pics!"

If you're proposing that there is any AV program that can flawlessly protect you against all the threats you mentioned then your own advice is also negligent. The only assured protection against all those threats would be a PC that wasn't connected to any network at all. Personally I haven't used any AV for over 20 years with zero infections, currently running a win XP box that was setup in 2006 and a win7 box setup in 2010.

 

[Coto]

AV are crap these days anyway... I don't use any.

System rollback + backup of system every 1 week = win.