Major computer speed problems

Question

Possible Duplicate:
What is the proper way of debugging a slow Windows installation?

I've been running Windows 7 on my laptop for about a year now, and have had no issues regarding speed. About a month ago, my computer had what I refer to now as an "episode" where it runs extremely slow, when I open Task Manager I see no significant processes running, nothing out of the ordinary, but my computer is at 100% CPU usage.

Usually restarting fixed this problem, but it seems to have gotten worse to the point where restarting does not fix this problem, and it's interfering with my work.

What should I do?

Answer 1

There are many factors that can cause a computer to a halt. It could be a overheating processor, a failing component such as the hard drive, a runaway process of some kind hogging memory or the processor or even a malware infection.

A good tool that can be used to check for both overheating processors or failing hard drive is Speedfan as it can show cpu temperatures and hard drive SMART status. If your CPU is overheating then you may need to open it up and clean the dust out of the ventilation holes. If the hard drive is reporting excessive failures or errors then it may be that it is failing and needs to be replaced.

For malware checking I would recommend Malwarebytes Antimalware.

Answer 2

On Windows 7 there's a great utility called "Resource Monitor", it will show what apps are using the disk/cpu/network/memory (sort by the different columns to zero in on a particular resource usage).

Fire it up and watch what's running. Also, have a look in your Event Viewer to see if there are any services having a problem during start-up.

Answer 3

There are 2 questions noted in the performance wiki. Both should be sufficient starting points:

• What is the proper way of debugging a slow Windows installation?
• How do I troubleshoot a Windows 7 freeze or slowness?

Answer 4

See here. There are things such as the interrupt mechanism that can peg the CPU without showing up as processes. ProcessExplorer (available free from MS) is helpful.