Sluggish response

[Rebel1]

My friend's laptop (Vista Home Premium with updates) is sometimes
sluggish in its most basic functions. For example, there is a delay of a
second or two after clicking on Start before the next menu appears.
After highlighting Programs, there may be as much as a five-second delay
before the next menu opens, even though few programs are installed.

Sometimes, simple tasks like launching one of the games included in
Vista takes over five seconds. Internet UL and DL speeds are excellent.

I've run various anti-malware programs (Malwarebytes, AdAware, Avira
AntiVirMicrosoft Security Essentials, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware) and
CCleaner. Everything is okay.

The hard drive is defragged.

What else can I try?

Thanks,

R1

 

[Sjouke Burry]

My friend's laptop (Vista Home Premium with updates) is sometimes
sluggish in its most basic functions. For example, there is a delay of a
second or two after clicking on Start before the next menu appears.
After highlighting Programs, there may be as much as a five-second delay
before the next menu opens, even though few programs are installed.

Sometimes, simple tasks like launching one of the games included in
Vista takes over five seconds. Internet UL and DL speeds are excellent.

I've run various anti-malware programs (Malwarebytes, AdAware, Avira
AntiVirMicrosoft Security Essentials, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware) and
CCleaner. Everything is okay.

The hard drive is defragged.

What else can I try?

Thanks,

R1

check in the hardware profile whether the disk is
running in dma mode.
If it is in PIO mode, I have cured that(xp sp3) by deleting the
disk interface in the hardware list, and after reboot that is
re-installed, and back to dma mode.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

My friend's laptop (Vista Home Premium with updates) is sometimes
sluggish in its most basic functions. For example, there is a delay of a
second or two after clicking on Start before the next menu appears.
After highlighting Programs, there may be as much as a five-second delay
before the next menu opens, even though few programs are installed.

Sometimes, simple tasks like launching one of the games included in
Vista takes over five seconds. Internet UL and DL speeds are excellent.

I've run various anti-malware programs (Malwarebytes, AdAware, Avira
AntiVirMicrosoft Security Essentials, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware) and
CCleaner. Everything is okay.

The hard drive is defragged.

What else can I try?

Run the Resource Monitor and watch the disk tab. Most system
sluggishness problems can be traced back to an overuse of the disks.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Rodney Pont]

My friend's laptop (Vista Home Premium with updates) is sometimes
sluggish in its most basic functions. For example, there is a delay of a
second or two after clicking on Start before the next menu appears.
After highlighting Programs, there may be as much as a five-second delay
before the next menu opens, even though few programs are installed.

Sometimes, simple tasks like launching one of the games included in
Vista takes over five seconds. Internet UL and DL speeds are excellent.

I've run various anti-malware programs (Malwarebytes, AdAware, Avira
AntiVirMicrosoft Security Essentials, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware) and
CCleaner. Everything is okay.

The hard drive is defragged.

What else can I try?

How much memory does it have? Every time I've seen sluggish menu
display it's been due to memory. In all but one case adding more memory
fixed the problem. In the one case where it didn't replacing the ram
fixed it. You do say 'sometimes sluggish' but with lack of memory it's
(usually) always sluggish so check the DMA settings as suggested in
other replies. Additionally Windows tried to boot using DMA but if it
gets errors it will drop back to PIO mode so if it's fast after boot
but then slows down after use it could be a faulty controller.

 

[John Doe]

I don't really disagree with any of the replies, but...

I had a strange sort of Start Menu delay problem a few weeks ago.
The pop-up menu for "Sort by Name" took several seconds to show.
I'm not sure what fixed it, but the fix was a relief. I think it
was fixed before removing the SDD, so not hardware.

Using windows XP SP3 here.

My best wild guess, no better than the rest, might be to download
some Windows Updates, like the Net Frameworks and their updates.

Good luck and have fun.

 

[John Doe]

I know you said "with updates", but the Net Framework (and their
updates) might be optional, so they might not be installed.

 

[Paul]

I don't really disagree with any of the replies, but...

I had a strange sort of Start Menu delay problem a few weeks ago.
The pop-up menu for "Sort by Name" took several seconds to show.
I'm not sure what fixed it, but the fix was a relief. I think it
was fixed before removing the SDD, so not hardware.

Using windows XP SP3 here.

My best wild guess, no better than the rest, might be to download
some Windows Updates, like the Net Frameworks and their updates.

Good luck and have fun.

Vista will already have a .net framework. And Windows Update
would offer more of that garbage.

The .net is a library, that only gets used by applications
written with it as a base. It's the equivalent of Java,
in the sense that the application can be slightly
smaller, and then rely on the library already on the
machine, for support. This is as opposed to including
your own set of DLLs when developing a program.

The .net framework runs the "ngen" service, which attempts
to "recompile" .net programs, and has been known to increase
boot time. Eventually, ngen should stop doing that (or, so
the theory goes).

But otherwise, "adding" .net related stuff, is not a strategy
as such. If you tried to run a brand new .net program, and
it didn't run, and reported "mscoree missing" or the like,
then adding some .net crap might help. Otherwise, it's a red
herring. When updates are offered, they're for security
holes.

Paul

 

[Paul]

My friend's laptop (Vista Home Premium with updates) is sometimes
sluggish in its most basic functions. For example, there is a delay of a
second or two after clicking on Start before the next menu appears.
After highlighting Programs, there may be as much as a five-second delay
before the next menu opens, even though few programs are installed.

Sometimes, simple tasks like launching one of the games included in
Vista takes over five seconds. Internet UL and DL speeds are excellent.

I've run various anti-malware programs (Malwarebytes, AdAware, Avira
AntiVirMicrosoft Security Essentials, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware) and
CCleaner. Everything is okay.

The hard drive is defragged.

What else can I try?

Thanks,

R1

I'd at least look at Task Manager and Resource Monitor, and
see what's already running. The CPU could be running at 100%
for some reason, RAM could be so full that any new command
causes page faults, and a need to page out 4KB chunks of
currently resident RAM content.

As an example of something that'll use up all machine resources,
the 64 bit version of CHKDSK will attempt to fill all RAM. But
that's not something that runs, unless you ask it to (or the
dirty bit is set by an unclean shutdown).

You can benchmark the hard drive with HDTune, and see what
the curve looks like. This would be the second thing I'd try,
after a check of basic resources.

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Paul

 

[Flasherly]

My friend's laptop (Vista Home Premium with updates) is sometimes
sluggish in its most basic functions. For example, there is a delay of a
second or two after clicking on Start before the next menu appears.
After highlighting Programs, there may be as much as a five-second delay
before the next menu opens, even though few programs are installed.

Sometimes, simple tasks like launching one of the games included in
Vista takes over five seconds. Internet UL and DL speeds are excellent.

I've run various anti-malware programs (Malwarebytes, AdAware, Avira
AntiVirMicrosoft Security Essentials, Spybot, SuperAntiSpyware) and
CCleaner. Everything is okay.

The hard drive is defragged.

What else can I try?

Thanks,

R1

Run a clean install and keep notes, logs of additions, obviously not
worth much without the ability to countermand undesirable behavior.
If a problematic program, that would be in formative terms a binary
backup to safeguard and utterly negate undesirable instances. Often a
combination of software factors, however, may affect otherwise capable
programs. The backup is still the only way around, literally getting
back to a state of reference. All a part of processes for then
advancing to test much of what personal perspective will play in how a
computer is structured. Perspective then becomes as much an alter ego
of learned development. For instance, a certain point may occur when
security, for an aspect of specialization, is so ingrained within
comprehensive understanding for security suites to become redundant if
not a measurable instance of counter-productive inefficiency.

Trying, I'm afraid, isn't quite within absolutes and standards of a
set nature to precision and engineering. To largely an
incomprehensible field, the sum totality, is more simply a postulate
lacking perspicacity more or less within admittance, for probable
confidence levels generalized over equally far-ranging speculations
when concerning a superficial assessment of such a nature as you're
proposing.

 

[John Doe]

John Doe wrote:

Vista will already have a .net framework. And Windows Update
would offer more of that garbage.

The .net is a library, that only gets used by applications
written with it as a base. It's the equivalent of Java, in the
sense that the application can be slightly smaller, and then
rely on the library already on the machine, for support. This is
as opposed to including your own set of DLLs when developing a
program.

The .net framework runs the "ngen" service, which attempts to
"recompile" .net programs, and has been known to increase boot
time. Eventually, ngen should stop doing that (or, so the theory
goes).

But otherwise, "adding" .net related stuff, is not a strategy
as such. If you tried to run a brand new .net program, and it
didn't run, and reported "mscoree missing" or the like, then
adding some .net crap might help. Otherwise, it's a red herring.
When updates are offered, they're for security holes.

Stop beating around the bush and tell us how you really feel about
Net Framework, Paul.

I have a feeling that Start Menu problems can have to do with
networking problems. The sluggishness could have something to do
with searching network drives (or whatever).

Something fixed the Start Menu problem I had here. I'm not sure
what happened, but I vaguely remember it might have had to do with
installing the Net Framework updates. Are you sure that Start Menu
activity has nothing to do with Net Framework? Do you have a
better lead?

Whether you like it or not, obviously Net Framework is required by
some stuff these days. Thinking about it further, something that
the Net Framework updates more memorably apparently fixed recently
was a problem I was having with a Microsoft game Age of Empires
Online. Of course you might not care for that game, but that's
beside the point.

I am reasonably sure that there are in fact some programs that
require Net Framework, even the latest version, it's not just a
security hole update.

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