Computer Related > Slow PC - what checks do I do? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Bobby Replies: 35

 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
My laptop running Win 10 has suddenly started going slow in the last few days. Takes ages to start up (till all the icons are on the desktop) and then when you do select a program, it takes ages to load.

I really notice this when I did an itunes backup of my phone - usually takes a few minutes but I ended up giving up it was taking so long.

Have ran a windows defender full check but what other tests can I run to establish what issues are causing it?

I am not too sure if the fan is running on it as its quiet but I am not sure if it is always quiet?

Any advice would be appreciated!
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bromptonaut
While C(rap) Cleaner is no longer the solution it once was it's worth a try to remove clutter. It also allows an easy route to checking what programmes are installed to run from start up.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
Ctrl-Alt-Del

Select and click on "Task Manager"

If it says "More Details" in the bottom left corner, then click on it. If it says "Fewer Details " then you already have more. If you see what I mean.

Look at the total percentages at the top. CPU ought to be in single figures. Memory anywhere 30 - 70%
, Disk under ought to be very low, single figures and network ought to be 0 or thereabouts.

All assuming that you are not doing anything in particular at the time.

Have a look at that and tell us what sort of figures you're seeing. There's more to look at, but let's consider that to try and get a direction.

CCLeaner is not worthless but I doubt it'll make any difference in this situation.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sat 27 Oct 18 at 18:45
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
Dusk usage of 100% is showing which I am guessing is a good starter for 10?

When I click on that column there is only about a dozen items with a value and the highest being com surrogate at 0.9mb/s and the others lower
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
It is exactly what I expected you to find.

EDIT: Sorry, just read your post properly, let me revise....
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sat 27 Oct 18 at 19:02
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R

Do you know how to check the status of your updates? [Happy to explain if not]

Have a look and see if anything is stuck there.

Consider downloading the free version of Malwarebytes and running that;

www.malwarebytes.com/
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
By the way, this could also be a disk fault. You've got a recent backup, right?

If you haven't, now's the time.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
I launched the update desktop app and it told me that all my updates were up to date?
I will try the link you sent once I finish my taxi duties. Cheers!
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
No worries.

I'm writing a huge document so I shall be here all day.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
I had been trying to do an iPhone backup via iTunes but that was going so slow.
I just killed it and pulled the usb out and now disk is down to 50% from 100%??
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
Could be a device error, but still 50% is very high.

Malwarebytes
Reboot
Check for disk errors

And then let's see where we are.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
Apologies the taxi service turned into “just come in with me”.
Ran the Malaware and it identified 118 threats which it quarantined.

Reboot system and disc showing at 100% again.

Did some googling and there seems to have been issues with recent Win10 updates though they don’t necessarily reflect this issue I am having.

Now back to work for a couple of hours.....
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - bathtub tom
This seems similar to the problem I had earlier this year. It was caused by Windows Defender anti-virus update. When scrolling down task manager I could see it was hogging the processes.
I cured it by disabling Defender (I couldn't find a way to uninstall it) and loading AVG instead.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Stuartli
One thing often overlooked is to clear the web cache - Firefox, for example, can quickly build up a gigabyte of cache in double quick time. Clearing it regularly speeds up browsing quite substantially.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - rtj70
Well that tells me to stop using Firefox if the cache slows it down. Cache in computer terms is meant to speed things up.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Stuartli
>> Well that tells me to stop using Firefox if the cache slows it down. Cache in computer terms is meant to speed things up.>>

I'm perfectly aware of that but it still slows Firefox browsing up, especially if a number of tabs are open. Same for Waterfox, although the cache is limited to 350Mb rather than Firefox's 1Gb.

 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
1) Disk issue. - Maybe the hardware is failing. If you perform a chkdsk does it detect any errors? Does it complete?

2) have you installed anything in the timescale that you have had this issue?

3) Check your update history. Any failures in there?

4) Run Malwarebytes again. If it find anything for the second time, then that is a good place to start.

5) What anti virus/anti malware software do you run?

6) Check running programs again, ordered by disk usage (click on the total disk usage percentage). Anything noticeable?

7) Have you changed anything or has anything happened in the relevant timescale? Even if you think it unconnected?

Starting to run out of ideas.

I will repeat, you do have a backup of your hard disk, right? Because it may well be a failing disk.

 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - rtj70
I agree with No FM2R.... get a full backup of important files.

Then stop Windows Defender and report back.

Since this is Windows 10... if you had the latest upgrade installed you might have already had files deleted by the system but that is a different issue.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 29 Oct 18 at 01:17
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Ambo
"Free" malwarebytes may mean "free trial for a month". I have the genuinely free version but have learned not to respond to frequent invitations to try a"free" new version, having been caught out once already.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - VxFan
I updated CCleaner at the weekend after it nagged me there was a recent update.

Just before I clicked the install button, I noticed that it would also install Avast by default. I unticked the option as I'm already running MS Defender.

Why are more and more software providers now doing this? If I want to install something else, then that's up to me, not them.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
Because they get paid for doing it.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
Cheers - will do further checks when I am home tonight. I do have a full backup - I backup to EDD every month or so and any of my common used files I keep in dropbox.

One thing I discovered - my hard drive is 720Gb and it was only showing about 60GB free - on doing some checks I have now realised that the itunes phone backups I do , do not overwrite the previous one as I assumed it did. So I deleted all the iphone backups from 2017 backwards, keeping the more recent ones, and it freed up an extra 100Gb of space!

Will be later tonight when I am back on it.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
Ah, then a major clean up and defrag is probably called for,
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
someone else told me to run a crystaldiskinfo program which i have done and it has came back Health Status Good.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
Disk issue. - Maybe the hardware is failing. If you perform a chkdsk does it detect any errors? Does it complete?

How do I do this?

2) have you installed anything in the timescale that you have had this issue?

Not that i am aware of

3) Check your update history. Any failures in there?

How do I do this?

4) Run Malwarebytes again. If it find anything for the second time, then that is a good place to start.

Ran it again - nothing found

5) What anti virus/anti malware software do you run?

The standard Windows 10 defender thingy

6) Check running programs again, ordered by disk usage (click on the total disk usage percentage). Anything noticeable?

Disk currently running as low as 0%, System at 0.1%, RapportMgmtservice 0.1% are the highest!

7) Have you changed anything or has anything happened in the relevant timescale? Even if you think it unconnected?

Not that I am aware of.

 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - smokie
Is it still running slowly, even though disk usage has dropped dramatically?
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - T junction

>> 6) Check running programs again, ordered by disk usage (click on the total disk usage
>> percentage). Anything noticeable?
>>
>> Disk currently running as low as 0%, System at 0.1%, RapportMgmtservice 0.1% are the highest!
>>

I would put money on Rapport. Had problems with it in the past. Try googling "rapport software issues"
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - rtj70
>> I would put money on Rapport.

I agree. I spend a lot of time trying to sort out a PC for a friend of my wife. I started by cloning the drive and tried to work out what on startup led the PC grinding to a halt. It was Rapport. But when it went wrong I had to revert to a previous restore point.

In fact I actually ended up using a P2V copy on VMWARE because it was quicker.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 30 Oct 18 at 22:14
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R

>>6) Check running programs again, ordered by disk usage (click on the total disk usage
>>percentage). Anything noticeable?
>>
>>Disk currently running as low as 0%, System at 0.1%, RapportMgmtservice 0.1% are the highest!


Does that mean the Pc is running better now?
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bromptonaut
Santander pester me on a near daily basis to use Rapport.

I tried it once and it turned my PC into a snail.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Stuartli
>>tried it once and it turned my PC into a snail. >>

I can second that. Best mate had a slow laptop and asked me to see if I could cure it.

Turned out to be this Rapport banking app/utility or whatever. Once removed laptop back up to full speed, but best mate also still gets nagged to reinstall it.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
So what is rapport? Is it just a program that I can uninstall without any worry?
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - No FM2R
windowsreport.com/trusteer-rapport-windows-10/


I would uninstall it. If the problems do not improve you can always put it back.
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
just done that - will see what happens
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Haywain
"just done that - will see what happens"

Your bank will call you to ask why you've withdrawn every last penny from your accounts ;-)
 Slow PC - what checks do I do? - Bobby
>>Does that mean the Pc is running better now?

yes it does, cheers for your help.
still incredibly slow running any itunes though on doing backups / syncs with my phone.
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