Feel like my computer slowing down

[Blingo]

Boot time is slower

Load times are getting ridiculous with most programs

I get these like hang ups even though they aren't long but it still hangs up a little when i open something.

Part of me thinks its just windows 7 is forcing me to update to windows 10, but i never heard of Microsoft doing things like that.

The other part of me thinks maybe its my hdd and its time to go ssd.

Or it could be i have too many programs and need a good like pc cleaner.

What do you guys use to clean out your pc? any good programs i could try?

 

[EarthDog]

Nothing like a fresh OS install to speed things up!

 

[Mr.Scott]

I thought everybody had SSD's by now.
Once you have one, you'll never go back to a spinner again.

 

[caddi daddi]

and don't worry over which one just get a 500 gig and never look back.

 

[Blingo]

Kind of wanted to wait till the new ryzen to get a SSD so it'll be like fresh cpu fresh motherboard fresh OS but probably do it tomorrow.
You guys still using 7 or 10?

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

Run the defrag on your HDD, it will speed things up, also clean out your Windows Temp folder.

 

[trents]

There are several things you can do to check the health of your disk and file system as well as removing a lot of the accumulated junk that drags down the system.

1. Run CrystalDiskInfo to check the SMART info on the drive. Blue means everything is probably good. Yellow or Red means there are potential or actual problems. If other than blue, look at replacing the drive as soon as possible.
2. From Command Prompt with admin privileges, run "sfc /scannow" (without quotes). Checks for broken system files and trys to repair them.
3. From Command Prompt with admin privileges, run "chkdsk /f /r" (without quotes. Put a space after the k and again after the f). Takes hours to complete and may seem to get stuck at 10 or 11%. But it will finish. Finds failing disk sectors and moves the data on them to healthy sectors.
4. Run Ccleaner to remove the overburden of accumulated but unneeded files and data that build up over tome. Cleans temp folders and and browser history and cache and other things as well.

 

[Blingo]

There are several things you can do to check the health of your disk and file system as well as removing a lot of the accumulated junk that drags down the system.

1. Run CrystalDiskInfo to check the SMART info on the drive. Blue means everything is probably good. Yellow or Red means there are potential or actual problems. If other than blue, look at replacing the drive as soon as possible.
2. From Command Prompt with admin privileges, run "sfc /scannow" (without quotes). Checks for broken system files and trys to repair them.
3. From Command Prompt with admin privileges, run "chkdsk /f /r" (without quotes. Put a space after the k and again after the f). Takes hours to complete and may seem to get stuck at 10 or 11%. But it will finish. Finds failing disk sectors and moves the data on them to healthy sectors.
4. Run Ccleaner to remove the overburden of accumulated but unneeded files and data that build up over tome. Cleans temp folders and and browser history and cache and other things as well.

thanks a alot guys
I got two yellows! Will get a ssd soon. I am running the scannow as I type this , I will do the chkdsk and ccleaner after

 

[don256us]

In Win7 I run msconfig.exe and uncheck anything that I don't need. Clean C:\Windows\Temp and the temp folder in your appdata\Local\ folder.

Of course, if your HDD is failing, there's your answer and in any machine, I've found by upgrading from HDD to SSD makes a difference you didn't know could happen.

 

[trents]

thanks a alot guys
I got two yellows! Will get a ssd soon. I am running the scannow as I type this , I will do the chkdsk and ccleaner after

Specifically, what were the two yellows and what was the number in the Raw value column for each? The reason your computer slowed down so dramatically was likely some of the sectors on the disk were failing and the data residing there was becoming difficult to read. So the disk spends a lot more time trying to read the data on those weak or failed sectors. SMART errors like "Reallocated Sector Count Exceeded" or "Uncorrectable Pending Sector Count exceeded" mean that that the healthy sectors reserved for moving data over to from failing sectors has been exhausted.

Sometimes you can squeeze a little more life out of a hard drive throwing some SMART errors by "zeroing out" the disk. This means to write zeros to all sectors. You can do this from Command Prompt or Power Shell but there is a neat little free program called Mini Tool Partition Wizard that makes it easy to do. Should take about 4-5 hours on a 500 gb hard drive to zero it out. Of course you need to weigh the time cost/benefit ration of doing this as it will wipe the disk. You would need to first backup data and programs and then when the wipe was done you would need to reinstall all software. And it is most likely not a long term solution nor does it likely eliminate the need for a new disk. That disk should not be trusted for long term service even after zeroing out.

 

[EarthDog]

Kind of wanted to wait till the new ryzen to get a SSD so it'll be like fresh cpu fresh motherboard fresh OS but probably do it tomorrow.
You guys still using 7 or 10?

Just use 10. Unless you have some applications you need that dont work on 10 or overly concerned about telemetry there is no reason not to go 10.

 

[habbajabba]

I use ultradefrag on my spinners every now and then. The os drive could be updated (840evo), but I think a ryzen would make more sense. It would also require me to upgrade everything. At least I can say I didn't waste any money on graphics cards lol. Just go linux if you want real speed, unless you game a lot of course.,

 

[don256us]

I use ultradefrag on my spinners every now and then. The os drive could be updated (840evo), but I think a ryzen would make more sense. It would also require me to upgrade everything. At least I can say I didn't waste any money on graphics cards lol. Just go linux if you want real speed, unless you game a lot of course.,

The last time I checked, 3rd party defragers were not any better and sometimes worse than the built in defragger from Vista/7/8/8.1/10. I haven't spent my time, drive space or CPU cycles with a defrag in many a year. I'm happy to see you point out that you defrag your HDD only which is a very important distinction. You should not run a defrag on your SSDs unless you have a specific and pointed need.

 

[EarthDog]

I recall the windows defrag being 'good enough' and better than some apps, but not most. That said, I just let windows handle it on my 2 (cold storage) HDDs..otherwise I'm all pcie m.2 or sata ssd.

An SSD should never be defragged AFAIK. Windows (8+) should identify an ssd and disable defrag automatically.

What about SSDs—do they benefit from defragmentation? The simple answer is no. The entire basis of fragmented data relies on the fact that your storage device uses moving parts to access data. Since SSDs have no moving parts, hence “Solid State”, there's no seek time or rotational latency.

...Because of the way SSDs work, not only does data not become fragmented, but running a defragmentation utility will actually burn through the program/erase cycles and potentially cause premature 'death' of your SSDs.

https://www.pcgamer.com/should-i-defrag-my-ssd/

 

[habbajabba]

When I used to use a regular hd for the os, defragging, as well as cleaning up useless/broken registry entries (the reg can be defragged also), msconfig etc., helped with hd slowdowns. Now that I use an msata, the slowdowns are much harder to perceive, if at all. Ultradefrag works excellent and shows a map of the actual sectors, has options to fully optimize (spinner os drives only), quick optimize, or simply defrag, which is what I do on my spinners used only for data. Plus it will exit, standby, hibernate, reboot, shutdown as options which is nice too. It can optimize the MFT (on the os disk) which requires a reboot I think, but again, I use a non-spinner so I have not used that feature in a long while. If you are still using a spinner for your os you are definitely in need of an upgrade.

 

[Blingo]

Got a SSD , put a clean windows 10. Now it is so much better!