Windows 10 desktop slow - More RAM or what?

[Xtrema]

Task Manager -> Performance Tab -> Open Resource Monitor -> Disk tab.

Disk 0: (C: ) Queue Length should be under 2. If it's over 2, look at which process is trashing the disk. If something you really need, SSD will really help.

Cloning is best if you don't want to waste/charge your time on a clean install. Like Mitsu said, grab a Samsung and go to town. It don't think SSD comes with cloning software with the package but they should allow you to download one for free if needed.

[ExtraSlow]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Task Manager -> Performance Tab -> Open Resource Monitor -> Disk tab.

Disk 0: (C: ) Queue Length should be under 2. If it's over 2, look at which process is trashing the disk. If something you really need, SSD will really help.

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Ctrl + alt + Delete
Go to Task manager
Check whats making it slow

Thanks, had a really busy weekend, but will check into this as a first step. Was thinking that since it's a shared computer, and I can't seem to train the family to close shit down, I'll just schedule it to power down every night. That should really help keep shit clean anyway. Realized my daughter had 25 Youtube tabs open at once, which sure can't help.

[BigDL]

I use https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree to clone some drives to SSD even when going from a larger drive to a smaller SSD, wife's laptop was starting to get really slow on its old disk drive, damm dell put a frigging 5400 rpm drive in it.

[ExtraSlow]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Ctrl + alt + Delete
Go to Task manager
Check whats making it slow

So, there's a few things that pop u for a moment and say "High" or "Very High" but they seem to go away pretty quickly. Is there an option to have this track for an extended period and give me a total or average?
Chrome is an easy one, but other processes I don't recognize and appear to be part of windows. One in particular that I noticed was "Microsoft telemetry" or something like that.

I have an SSD or order from BF, because it seemed like a good investment, but if I have unnecessary processes, then I should take care of that too.

[killramos]

I feel like a lot of programs are no longer optimized for spinning disks, SSDs being so good have made a lot of programs able to get sloppy when it comes to disk access.

Spinners still have a place, but that place is certainly not as an OS or Program install drive.

[Xtrema]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

So, there's a few things that pop u for a moment and say "High" or "Very High" but they seem to go away pretty quickly. Is there an option to have this track for an extended period and give me a total or average?
Chrome is an easy one, but other processes I don't recognize and appear to be part of windows. One in particular that I noticed was "Microsoft telemetry" or something like that.

I have an SSD or order from BF, because it seemed like a good investment, but if I have unnecessary processes, then I should take care of that too.

Windows 10 brought in a lot of non-sense to capture users behavior.

If you don't want to be tracked or privacy issues, you can turn off a lot of stuff to lower the consumption
https://www.computerworld.com/articl...indows-10.html


Next is running latest BIOS/Drivers for your hardware. They may slow down your system a bit.

[revelations]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

So, there's a few things that pop u for a moment and say "High" or "Very High" but they seem to go away pretty quickly. Is there an option to have this track for an extended period and give me a total or average?
Chrome is an easy one, but other processes I don't recognize and appear to be part of windows. One in particular that I noticed was "Microsoft telemetry" or something like that.

I have an SSD or order from BF, because it seemed like a good investment, but if I have unnecessary processes, then I should take care of that too.

You need to look at the total % for CPU and Disk 0 (or Disk 1) .

If your CPU is pegged at 90-100% when its idling, you have an issue.

If your HDD is pegged at 90-100%, same thing.

Its pretty rare though, usually its a HDD issue caused by a bad disk or disk controllers.

[ExtraSlow]

It takes a while for the various processes to settle down after a restart, or after opening a new program, but both CPU and HDD idle down to nearly zero eventually.

My SSD arrives later this week, I'll put that in and see where I'm at. I think I will try for a clean install of windows rather than a clone. I can recover the few non-system files I need to bring over by copying to the NAS.

[killramos]

That sounds suspiciously like you have a lot of garbage triggered on startup. Like update checkers or more nefarious things.

[ExtraSlow]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

That sounds suspiciously like you have a lot of garbage triggered on startup. Like update checkers or more nefarious things.

Probably.

[colsankey]

The clean installs really the way to go. Just take your time to do a proper backup.
Check your downloaded files, favorites, %programdata%, c:/ and anywhere you might have saved files. Back them all up and start fresh. The good news is from a usb 3.0 drive to a decent ssd, the latest windows install can be done in as little 15minutes.

[sabad66]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Any new ssd should come with cloning software. I usually put the new drive into an enclosure, clone existing drive onto new one, then replace the drive. But if it’s a desktop there should be a free slot to run both drives at the same time so you can clone without needing an enclosure

Clarifying myself here - they don’t “come with” the software (ie a CD or thumb drive containing it) but they make it available on the drive brand’s support website.

I’m actually in the process of upgrading my laptop SSD to a WD blue 1TB from a WD blue 500GB. WD provides a restricted version of Acronis, but it requires at least 1 WD drive to use it. Funny thing is it wouldn’t detect either of my 2 WD drives so would not install. Decided to try Samsung Magician as mentioned in a few posts, but that wouldn’t work for me either as it requires at least 1 Samsung drive to see the cloning features.

Ended up calling WD support and they sent me a special workaround file to bypass the WD drive check and would allow Acronis to install. I forgot how tricky it was to use this software when cloning... if you have Multiple partitions (which I have due to a recovery drive), you have to set the new sizes based on the order the partitions are in. So basically if your main partition is in the middle, you have to “move” the partitions after it over to the right to be able to allocate the increased size on your main drive. Just thought I’d share this in case anyone else gets confused using Acronis

[Kobe]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

So, there's a few things that pop u for a moment and say "High" or "Very High" but they seem to go away pretty quickly. Is there an option to have this track for an extended period and give me a total or average?
Chrome is an easy one, but other processes I don't recognize and appear to be part of windows. One in particular that I noticed was "Microsoft telemetry" or something like that.

I have an SSD or order from BF, because it seemed like a good investment, but if I have unnecessary processes, then I should take care of that too.

This can be from a failing hard drive as well, i remember my skype was taking very high before i changed to an SSD, if the comp is 3-4 years+ old then hard drive is #1 to change.

But ya as stated if its 90%+ or 80%+ unistall the programs if its not needed but it's most likely the hard drive.



Run a spyware software and anti-virus as well prob a bunch of spyware on the comp if the kids use it, nobody likes reading the shit...

- - - Updated - - -

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

The clean installs really the way to go. Just take your time to do a proper backup.
Check your downloaded files, favorites, %programdata%, c:/ and anywhere you might have saved files. Back them all up and start fresh. The good news is from a usb 3.0 drive to a decent ssd, the latest windows install can be done in as little 15minutes.

There is a secret folder as well search %appdata% with the % it will have a bunch of folders in it, mostly settings you can copy/paste it into it after format to save you time getting settings again...

Click back after there is a local and roaming folder... both should have settings in them...for example Display Fusion if you use it or skype/telegram... etc...

[ExtraSlow]

My SSD arrived this week, so I'm backing up my files to my NAS. Ugh, I assume the bottleneck is the crappy current HDD, but it says 14 hours right now. I mean, I have time, but gross.

[revelations]

If youre doing this wirelessly on a ISP-provided wifi, yes its quite normal for abysmal performance.

If youre on a hardline connection (100mbs min), yes the HDD is cooked and is running in 'limp home mode' essentially.

[ExtraSlow]

Its hardline connected via Cat5. I found a few folders that we definitely don't need to save, so I dropped the size of the transfer by half. It's grinding away, i guess I'll leave it all day and see what happens. None of it is "mission critical" as we have that stuff backed up already, just a few things that would make life easier to save.

[revelations]

I was going to suggest running CHKDSK a few times but that would take longer than the xfer.

[ExtraSlow]

It is kind of weird that there's not some kind of automatic thing to notify unaware users that the hard drive isn't performing anywhere close to expectations. Not like it would be tough.

[P_D]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Firefox and uBlock is all you need. No need for another "browser"

I tried dumping chrome for firefox but firefox kept on not responding every 20 minutes so i moved to Opera. No issues since

[revelations]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

It is kind of weird that there's not some kind of automatic thing to notify unaware users that the hard drive isn't performing anywhere close to expectations. Not like it would be tough.

There are 3rd party programs that do this - but yea, its wierd how Windows wont even query a drives SMART status to detect the obvious failure.

With SMART though, it wont report issues related to the controller though. I have seen 'good' drives crap out too. Maybe why Windows didnt bother?