Windows 10 performance is abysmal

[Wbutchart1]

I am staggered by how slow windows 10 is. I have a Dell i5 laptop. I switched it on today to do some work - it couldn't open an Excel file! Instead of the resources of the computer being for the user to use, it is simply doing its own thing, sucking up all resources in the process. It's got the anti executable process running, office 365 update running, windows updates running, disk at 100 percent and it's been that way for half an hour. Yup, half and hour and it can't open an excel file in that time.

Truly why they don't stagger these things so a user can actually use the laptop is beyond me. Chrome book next time... Google may spy on every word but at least I can type them!

 

[anon(5327127)]

Why don't you learn to control your own machine? You can defer updates via simple setting or even set your working hours so it installs AFTER that time. The built in AV can also be configured. I'm also gathering that your machine has a standard hard drive and NOT an SSD. Consider an upgrade as that one change can literally transform a machine. Especially if your drive is a 5400rpm snail.

I'm amazed at how fast Windows 10 can be.

...and then your post makes sense as you've mentioned a Chrome Book. Why not a mac? Ah, yes, they're falling out of favour and are no longer cool. Your usual Chromebook will have an eMMC drive at 32Gb, not that much ram, which will cost a silly amount of cash for what you get. You'll then have to spend time getting to grips with it (Which won't take that long).

P.s. Your Dell is probably filled with crapware, fresh from Dell, which a clean restore would resolve. Blame Dell for that not Windows 10.

 

[PerfectReign]

Yeah as one who repeatedly bashed the abomination that was XP, I find Windows 10 to be the best version of NT since Win2k. Faster than Vista, less bloated than 8.x and you can still get rid of the start menu. (Was annoyed when 95 and then NT 4 added that.)

 

[anon(50597)]

I am staggered by how slow windows 10 is. I have a Dell i5 laptop. I switched it on today to do some work - it couldn't open an Excel file! Instead of the resources of the computer being for the user to use, it is simply doing its own thing, sucking up all resources in the process. It's got the anti executable process running, office 365 update running, windows updates running, disk at 100 percent and it's been that way for half an hour. Yup, half and hour and it can't open an excel file in that time.

Truly why they don't stagger these things so a user can actually use the laptop is beyond me. Chrome book next time... Google may spy on every word but at least I can type them!

I've had the same issues. Even if it's not an update it can freeze, slow down. I'm getting tired of it.

 

[Wbutchart1]

I've had the same issues. Even if it's not an update it can freeze, slow down. I'm getting tired of it.

Sorry to hear that. I got mines working in the end, 40mins after I switched it on it became responsive and I could do work... That's 40 wasted minutes where the only thing I was going was fighting the urge not to kick it off the table.

Wish I could say this was a once off, it's never quite been 40 mins before but steadily the time the laptop goes off and does its own thing and I'm effectively shut out is getting longer with every switch on.

I am seriously considering a chrome book next time. Some problems around that for me but I need a laptop os that works for the user and not throttling the laptop

 

[Wbutchart1]

Why don't you learn to control your own machine? You can defer updates via simple setting or even set your working hours so it installs AFTER that time. The built in AV can also be configured. I'm also gathering that your machine has a standard hard drive and NOT an SSD. Consider an upgrade as that one change can literally transform a machine. Especially if your drive is a 5400rpm snail.

I'm amazed at how fast Windows 10 can be.

...and then your post makes sense as you've mentioned a Chrome Book. Why not a mac? Ah, yes, they're falling out of favour and are no longer cool. Your usual Chromebook will have an eMMC drive at 32Gb, not that much ram, which will cost a silly amount of cash for what you get. You'll then have to spend time getting to grips with it (Which won't take that long).

P.s. Your Dell is probably filled with crapware, fresh from Dell, which a clean restore would resolve. Blame Dell for that not Windows 10.

It is a fresh install, several months ago, no bloatware present. It is a classic hard disk but I should not need ssd for it to work efficiently, that's bad coding at Windows end should I need to.

I do have updates differed, however this doesn't stop the anti virus that decided to fight with Office 365 updates to see which could dominate disk process. Surely it's possible and sensible for Windows as an os to recognise it is doing one thing taking sizable resources and stagger the others.. Instead of doing them all at the same time and bringing the machine to a stand still?

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I think windows 10 runs fine on Atom.

 

[Chazzy J]

Runs perfect on my Samsung Galaxy Book 12...

 

[jlzimmerman]

W10 on my 8 year old Gateway laptop runs better and faster than the day I bought it with W7. I think your performance problem is pretty isolated.

 

[TechFreak1]

Why don't you learn to control your own machine? You can defer updates via simple setting or even set your working hours so it installs AFTER that time. The built in AV can also be configured. I'm also gathering that your machine has a standard hard drive and NOT an SSD. Consider an upgrade as that one change can literally transform a machine. Especially if your drive is a 5400rpm snail.

I'm amazed at how fast Windows 10 can be.

...and then your post makes sense as you've mentioned a Chrome Book. Why not a mac? Ah, yes, they're falling out of favour and are no longer cool. Your usual Chromebook will have an eMMC drive at 32Gb, not that much ram, which will cost a silly amount of cash for what you get. You'll then have to spend time getting to grips with it (Which won't take that long).

P.s. Your Dell is probably filled with crapware, fresh from Dell, which a clean restore would resolve. Blame Dell for that not Windows 10.

In all honesty, the OP has a point even my desktop slows to a crawl on idle and these are my specs:


At one point it got a point that I couldnot even get on the forums and after a few KB updates I stopped getting out of memory prompts - on idle.

Which leads me to say W10 is suffering from poor optimisation and that's understandable since they have gone to a Windows As A Service Model, this model leaves very little coding hours for optimisation.

Plus another update will break something that was fixed previously and so on.

However I do agree a chrome book will have even slower performance over time but through the lack of code optimisation the Window O/S will eat up additional resources.

I hope when the fall creators update iso is released they will have taken the time to optimise the o/s and make it as efficient when W10 was released.

 

[darrell reimer]

I am staggered by how slow windows 10 is. I have a Dell i5 laptop. I switched it on today to do some work - it couldn't open an Excel file! Instead of the resources of the computer being for the user to use, it is simply doing its own thing, sucking up all resources in the process. It's got the anti executable process running, office 365 update running, windows updates running, disk at 100 percent and it's been that way for half an hour. Yup, half and hour and it can't open an excel file in that time.

Truly why they don't stagger these things so a user can actually use the laptop is beyond me. Chrome book next time... Google may spy on every word but at least I can type them!

Strange that you are having this problem. I have a number of Dell and Lenovo computers; all run great! I've got a 10 year old Dell Vostro 1500 - this thing is build like a tank. It's been dropped and suffered many years of middle-school-student wear, and it still runs the latest Creators 1703 update; amazing!

 

[midnightfrolic]

I did a bare bone fresh install, not the factory restore. Used MS recovery tool creator and created a USB WIN 10 installer.

Upgrade to SSD, I have a 1TB SSD with my older 500GB SSD for extra storage.
Max out on RAM, 16GB gaming RAM is what I got now
Decent GPU like AMD RX480 8GB.

Don't compress the drive

Disable page file feature

Disable drive indexing

Check your startup items in Task Manager and disable non-essentials

Check updates religiously to avoid having to do them when it's inconvenient, like having to do them every time you turn on the PC

Defrag, defrag, defrag yes even on SSD it help minutely

Check TRIM is enabled, you never know

Replace all RAM chips. They may be going bad.

HDD could be going bad,

mobo SATA controller could be going bad

Reset mobo BIOS back to defaults

edit: also check PSU is working properly. Can get a PSU tester cheap. Or maybe upgrade to better PSU while you're at it because they aren't that expensive anymore.

If all else fails, toss it and get a new PC, as everything could be suspect.

 

[Elky64]

In all honesty, the OP has a point even my desktop slows to a crawl on idle and these are my specs:
View attachment 137119

At one point it got a point that I couldnot even get on the forums and after a few KB updates I stopped getting out of memory prompts - on idle.

Which leads me to say W10 is suffering from poor optimisation and that's understandable since they have gone to a Windows As A Service Model, this model leaves very little coding hours for optimisation.

Plus another update will break something that was fixed previously and so on.

However I do agree a chrome book will have even slower performance over time but through the lack of code optimisation the Window O/S will eat up additional resources.

I hope when the fall creators update iso is released they will have taken the time to optimise the o/s and make it as efficient when W10 was released.

Finding performance can be hit-n-miss yet my concern is with those elusive updates that manage to continually break something, have several computers and don't think there's one that hasn't been inflicted in one form or another. It has gotten to a point we rarely turn most of them on any more due to the fact it has become an effort in futility. And as time roles on things seemingly get worse.

The Fall Creators Update manage to F-up my desktop w/i5, 16GB Ram, running an SSD. After updating, it was unable to find my primary drive rendering PC useless. No matter what I tried it refused to recognise drive, recovering to a previous version was the only remedy being thankful at least we were able to do that. Used to play on this particular PC a couple times a week and now don't even want to look at it, same goes for the umpteen other's I own. Have relegated myself to using one and one only now, doesn't have a clean bill of health either but it works - next update might change that. Finding diagnosing, recovering, restoring, blah blah blah is more the norm these days w/Windows 10 and I'm literally sick of it.

Although somewhat older we do have a Linux machine and MacBook Pro to fill in where Windows is unable, not sure what I'd do without them.

 

[TechFreak1]

Finding performance can be hit-n-miss yet my concern is with those elusive updates that manage to continually break something, have several computers and don't think there's one that hasn't been inflicted in one form or another. It has gotten to a point we rarely turn most of them on any more due to the fact it has become an effort in futility. And as time roles on things seemingly get worse.

The Fall Creators Update manage to F-up my desktop w/i5, 16GB Ram, running an SSD. After updating, it was unable to find my primary drive rendering PC useless. No matter what I tried it refused to recognise drive, recovering to a previous version was the only remedy being thankful at least we were able to do that. Used to play on this particular PC a couple times a week and now don't even want to look at it, same goes for the umpteen other's I own. Have relegated myself to using one and one only now, doesn't have a clean bill of health either but it works - next update might change that. Finding diagnosing, recovering, restoring, blah blah blah is more the norm these days w/Windows 10 and I'm literally sick of it.

Although somewhat older we do have a Linux machine and MacBook Pro to fill in where Windows is unable, not sure what I'd do without them.

I hear you, the anniversary update messed up my laptop as it randomly turns off and powering back on sometimes reverts back to where it turned off and now after a few KB updates it turns off but it lingers in limbo - black screen, spinning down fan and flashing power button as if in sleep mode. But pressing the power button or function keys for sleep mode does nothing at all unless you force a cold boot :grincry::grincry:.


Some of the KB articles are so vague it makes diagnosing a pain in the rear, although we can choose when to download and install with W10 pro - we have no control overwhich KB update installs first, second etc unless you run the "troubleshooter tool" everytime you want install a KB update individually :grincry::grincry:. This tool is extremely clunky (to put it politely).

However that's not the worst part, I have seen countless low end laptops running windows 10 home with little to zero storage space left as they only have a 32gig emmc.

I still cannot fathom why Microsoft didnot mandate 64 Gigs for the low end laptops running Windows 10 Home. By this very omission they have created a massive base level and security flaw as these laptops would not be even to install next iteration of Windows 10 as it takes more than several gigs to even install W10 inplace.

Plus users get 28 gigs and after installing office and Windows all they are left with is 8 gigs at the most - that's after you disable hibernation, pagefile and the swap file but that just defeats the purpose of a laptop.

So after 2 gigs for hibernation, 2 gig page file (anything less and everything slows to a crawl) and 250 for the swap file all that is left is 3.5ish gigs. But you need to take another 1 gig for system restore so 2.5 gigs.

2.5 GIGS!

Then once you connect to the internet, bam 0 gigs left after Windows update runs the first time.

So you have no choice but to partition and compress the newly created data partition then invariably the o/s partition just to make sure there is enough room for the damn updates. One cannot expect every single person to follow this process as not everyone is tech savy.

 

[kaktus1389]

I think windows 10 runs fine on Atom.

I strongly disagree with that. I have owned an Atom 2-in-1 Windows 10 device and I am not satisfied with its performance and from my experience my Lumia 950 is way faster in Continuum mode. Can't imagine how fast a phone would be with SD835, hopefully it is going to run full Windows 10 well.

On my desktop with a Core i5 and a GTX 1070 with 16 GB RAM Windows 10 runs like a charm, however I didn't like the performance with 8 GBs of RAM but that's probably because I like to multitask a lot (high end game + Steam browser + other apps running in the background). OP, perhaps you should get yourself a laptop with more RAM next time, or at least try to pause updates so they don't eat your resources.

 

[TechFreak1]

There has been a new KB update and it appears to have fixed the memory / ram hogging issue - as you can see below



This is 20 minute after a cold boot and at this point my ram usage would be 6 gigs or higher and then it would taper off into 4-5.8 gig range and slow everything to a crawl so I couldnot even use Print Screen or the snapshot tool without crashing explorer.exe.

Also the other change was a Windows Update Database corruption which was 'fixed' with the Windows Update troubleshooter tool. Unfortunately it removed all the past logs of all the updates installed, I was trying to hide - remove the Intel Graphics Update as in the past it would wreak havoc when I'm trying to overclock my RX480 and running benchmarking tools. The intel drivers from the website do not give me these problems only the ones forced through Windows Update do.





These are the running programmes - the very same programmes that run after a fresh install and there has been no change in that set up. Anything I install I make sure do not run at login let alone after a cold or warm boot unless I need that programme to run for the sake of efficiency.



Edit: Spoke to soon, I left the PC on idle and came back to find 1 gig of ram just swallowed up...

 

[Sharonj15Jones]

I am using Windows 10 from last few months on Lenovo Ideapad, and it's very slow. Sometimes it freezes just by opening multiple tabs in Google Chrome.
I think Windows 10 needs some serious improvement.

 

[anon(10237065)]

mobo SATA controller could be going bad

Very true. Once my PC got suddenly very very slow, had to wait for the machine to properly start for 30 minutes and it wasn't reliable much. Then I found out one SATA controller got bad. Just disabled it in BIOS and my PC has been working flawlessly ever since.

 

[anon(7929613)]

I am using Windows 10 from last few months on Lenovo Ideapad, and it's very slow. Sometimes it freezes just by opening multiple tabs in Google Chrome.
I think Windows 10 needs some serious improvement.

There are many things that can slow your computer. For instance, an old HDD can significantly reduce the computers performance. In my case, replacing the hard drive made my computer lightening fast.

 

[Sharonj15Jones]

My laptop is only 4 months old, So i don't think my hard drive old,and I only use it for internet browsing.