Why is my laptop so dang slow????

I've about had it with my laptop! It should be a pretty good system but I am experiencing slowness that simply shouldn't be happening. I'm hoping the good folks here can help me figure this out or at least send me in the right direction.

Specs:
HP Pavilion d7 Notebook PC
Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 (64-bit)
4 GBs RAM
AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-72 (2.10GHz)
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
64 GBs available out of 285 GBs
DirectX 11


The slowness of the laptop typically displays itself in media-related programs. For instance, both NetFlix and Hulu experience some level of sluggishness or skipping, especially during times of intense action on the video.

Most recently I installed a mobile DJ application called PCDJ Red Mobile. When playing music through this system it is very jumpy and stops and starts regularly. The program itself has these minimum system requirements:
1.2 GHz or greater
DirectX
2 GBs RAM (for Vista)
40 MB available

Obviously I blow those requirements away, and since I'm experiencing speed issues in other areas, I can't blame the DJ software.

Is there some part of my configuration that is insufficient?

I would also point out that I just recently did a clean install of Vista on the computer to try and resolve this issue (therefore it's hard for me to believe that the issues I am experiencing have anything to do with spyware or malware). The majority of installed programs are the ones that came with the computer. I've added AVG Free, Adobe CS5 Master, Lightroom 3, Open Office and Windows Live stuff.

Any thoughts???

Thanks!

John

 

Have you run pc decrapifier to get rid of software that came already installed?

http://majorgeeks.com/PC_De-Crapifier_d5223.html

And use ccleaner to remove startup programs?

http://majorgeeks.com/CCleaner_Slim_d4191.html

 

Hi,
Open task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and see what is causing the heavy load.

iain.t :major

 

Samtal,

I did install and run Decrapifier but it didn't seem to change anything (but there wasn't too much to remove). I have also gone into MSCONFIG previously to remove unwanted startup programs but that didn't help either (is CCleaner somehow better than MSCONFIG?). Thanks for the ideas though!

iain.t,

WTM shows that I have 74 processes running (I don't believe that's unusual for out-of-the-box Vista). Out of those the DJ program is definitely the worst, accounting for 209,972k of memory. The next closest is 130,768k for an instance of SVCHOST and then 59,268k for Explorer. It also shows my CPU Usage at 100%, but I can't see how. Aside from the mentioned processes, I have 9 more running at 25,000k or less and the rest are at 10,000k or less. So when all is said and done the processes account for less than 1 of the 4 GBs of RAM installed. How on earth does that equal 100% CPU Usage? Or am I not understanding how it is calculated?

John

 

Hi,
yes its not unusual to have that many processes running.

In MSCONFIG can you disable all the adobe start up programs as i believe these to be your issue with the heavy load on your cpu. AVG has also gone very bloaty lately, though it still is one of the best AV's, i would try one that does not use up too much resource, like Avira or Panda.

http://majorgeeks.com/Avira_AntiVir_Personal_-_FREE_Antivirus_d955.html

http://majorgeeks.com/Panda_Cloud_Antivirus_d6144.html

iain.t :major

 

iain.t,

I only had two Adobe processes running on startup: Service Manager and Startup Utility. I disabled both and restarted but I'm still having the same issue.

TimW,

Zip file attached.

Thanks to all for taking the time to help me out!!

John

 

Greetings, JohnAgape.

Do you experience the same symptoms when playing local audio/video? Not familiar with the DJ application, but if NetFlix and Hulu are freezing, that could be network related.

 

TimW,

Thanks for taking a look. I did go to services.msc but it wouldn't let me delete the entry for Norton. However I was able to disable it.

My C drive was defraged about 8 hours ago.

Caliban,

The DJ program is playing music locally. It's all installed on the same hard drive. As for Hulu and Netflix, I have tried them both wireless and wired and both result in similar issues. I might question the actual signal coming into my home but I have a far less powerful computer hooked up to my TV and the exact same router and it plays both Netflix and Hulu without any kind of a hiccup at all.

So I'm certainly open to any other suggestions. This whole thing has me stumped. I am seriously considering going to Windows 7 with the hopes that it will fix the problem, but I hate doing that when I have no particular reason to suspect that Vista is the problem.

Anyone know of a program that will strip all of the "eye candy" out of Vista and minimize the number of running processes and services? Kind of like Safe Mode, but without any loss of functionality...just the goofy stuff that looks pretty but serves no real purpose.

Thanks again!

John

 

Are you using any kind of effects in your audio?

 

You can strip some 'eye candy' by doing this:

1. Click Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings. In the Advanced tab, click Performance > Settings. In the Visual Effects tab, select 'Adjust for best performance' and OK. (This path is on a Win 7 machine, but Vista should be similar).

2. As far as services, the standard is Black Viper's Vista SP2 cofigurations. Run through the 'Safe' list and disable unneeded listings. If that doesn't satisfy, then go through the 'Tweaked' list, but heed any BV caveats.

3. Processes: TimW's StartupCPL suggestion is the way to go for that. Practically everything in the Startups list can be safely disabled - Windows will still run.

You might also consider running the Norton Removal Tool, try to get rid of anything Norton.

 

Satrow,

No effects on the audio. The program does allow for "mixing" between two tracks, but that's about it.

Caliban,

1) I changed the performance settings as you suggested (this is exactly what I meant by stripping off the eye candy).
2) I looked at BV's configurations but it appears it requires the alteration of registry files which is something that I'm not really comfortable with. In other words, I skipped this step.
3) I did attempt to install StartupCPL from TimW's suggestion, but I couldn't find the installed program (it's supposed to be under "Startup" in the Control Panel but "Startup" doesn't exist in Vista). However I found the developer's site and got the standalone version. I unchecked AVG and Adobe Bridge. The only thing I have checked at this point in time is HP Wireless Assistant. I would have had more stuff but I went all kamikaze on my startup programs last night. The computer loads super-fast now but the problem persists.
4) The Norton Removal Tool did remove that service I had in the list. Thanks.

At this point I am still having the same issue. I would say it was the DJ program itself except that it is running on other, less powerful machines without any issue at all. Also, my issues persist with Netflix (I haven't tried Hulu). I am running at 5.5 Mb/s down and 2 Mb/s up which should be more than sufficient for Netflix streaming.

I am going to install 7 today and see if that alleviates the problem. The only other thing I can fathom is that I have some kind of an issue with hardware. Let's just hope Windows 7 fixes everything.

If anyone has further suggestions I am certainly open to them.

Thanks to everyone for all of the great ideas and tips! You guys rock!

John

 

Just thought I would make a quick note to let folks know I upgraded to Windows 7 and I no longer have the problem. Apparently it was just a case of Vista being a dog. So I have no idea what the problem was, but it's all better now.

Thanks again to everyone for their help!

John

 

What Antivirus have you on board? AVG is no longer recommended on MG's.
How to Protect yourself from malware!

Cheers..