Dell computer slow down
 

Hi Guys, I have a Dell Inspiron 15 which has been working well enough until Dell installed an update a few weeks ago. Now it is painfully slow to load in the morning. Took almost an hour this morning to open my Chrome browser. If I call up the task manager, I can close a few unneeded things to speed it up a little. I've used the Windows cleanup and the free AVG one. Task manager says my disk use is usually 100% but I don't know what that means. The other things on the Task Manager I can get down to about 65%. Any recommendations for things I can do on my own to help this problem? Thanks

Look at memory usage on the Task Manager; is that above 90%?

When mine have slowed down it has been due to running out of memory. Dozens of programs are trying to run and use memory but there isn't enough. The way the system handles this is to move some of the program out of memory and onto the disk. Then it swaps some of another program off the disk and into memory. It runs a little of the program that is in memory and then moves onto the next program. To make room, it now swaps the current program to disk and retrieves the next one back into memory. This causes the disk usage to hit 100% because it is constantly swapping programs into memory. All this takes time and causes the computer to run slowly.

It is suspicious that this started happening after Dell installed an update. If you were very behind in your Windows updates then that might explain some of it (newer versions use more memory).

It is possible, though not likely, that the Dell update is limiting the amount of memory Windows is allowed to use. For example, your system used to be able to use THIS much but after the update it is only allowed to use this much even though that is less than what is installed. That would be odd but not impossible.

Do you notice any new programs or services running that you didn't use before? Maybe Teams or Skype or some Update Service? These could have been enabled by the update and are now using a lot more memory than before.

You might tell the Task Manager to sort by memory to see if anything is using way too much. Be careful though, Firefox, mail tools, and certain other programs normally use a lot so it is difficult to tell whether they are using more than they should. On my system, Firefox is using 1.8GB, about four times as much as the next highest user and 20 times as much as most other processes.

For me, the rest is mostly magic. I stop some processes that I feel I don't really need and get the system to work reasonably well while I order a new one. Not the best solution perhaps but easier than finding a computer tech to figure out why my ten year old system is running slowly.

I would check the wireless performance on task manager, it is possible that the update screwed up the driver. Also, I have seen the hard disk at 100%, and the computer really slows down, in my case this appears to be antimalware and some other windows programs working in the background. I did change the timing of the updates to avoid when I am typically using the computer.

What version of Windows are you running, and is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

How much RAM do you have?

It may not help, but try installing and running the free version of ccleaner (I have used it for years and it is very safe).

Odd that an update would cause such a major slowdown, but if you keep turning off or disabling or uninstalling the background programs that you don't use that may help a bit. Just be careful that you have backed up your data, and have a restore point so you can go back one step if uninstalling a program causes a further problem.

If you are saying that Task Mgr. says that disk utilization is 100% you have a runaway application. If you click on the work DISK you can sort the applications by disk utilization. Find the runaway app and let us know what it is.

Windows like model t ford compared to Apple Mac.

What is a little bit funny about that statement is that the Mac's OS is essentially Unix, which was first developed at Bell Labs in 1969 and therefore predates Windows. Regardless, once I retired I purged anything with Windows from my home and I often suggest that others do the same.

Agree, IMO gates should be arrested for selling that slow locking up full of malware antiquated software.

When you do an update, is almost always true that the update first created a restore point for you. If you are sure this is related to the update not working well, you might consider doing a restore back to what you had before the update.

Norton 360 and Norton Ultimate Utilities

If you don't really need the power of Windows (Windows only programs like Quicken, Adobe, etc) consider Linux Mint. I got rid of Windows 7 years ago and put Linux Mint on the PC. I helped a few people convert and they will never go back to Windows.

Glary utilities free version. Or roll back the update via restore and see if the problem resolves

Thank you all! I do think the problem was a runaway app. I fixed it by accident this morning. Don't know exactly what I did except for deleting some mov. files, but the disk usage is now ranging from 0-60%. Will keep all your other suggestions for later.

100% disk usage is either something scanning the hard drive, like antivirus, which should in theory stop at some point, or something using lots of memory, in which case it's using disk to page or swap programs from memory to disk.

Updates to windows and other programs generally use more memory as they add new features and bugs to fix with more updates to continue the cycle ;)

You can bring up activity monitor and sort by memory utilization, see which programs are using the most memory, and if you really need them.

Then go into the control panel -> add/remove programs, and get rid of all the stuff you don't use, then reboot.

Also, if you have an SSD or NVMe solid state disk (non-spinning), they generally slow down as they get full. Get rid of stuff you aren't using (go into the disk properties and do the disk cleanup to get rid of temporary files and saved system states and update backups).

I use Norton Utilities to go through my system. It regularly cleans up junk files, repairs registry issues, frees up memory, and alerts you to unnecessary Startup files.

If the update was major, there could just be a lot of baggage that needs to be cleaned up. Bill Gates has yet to meet the processor he couldn't bog down.