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nobusFlag for Belgium

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slow system

i'm looking at a pc that is rather slow; it has following hardware
mobo P8H61-M with i3 -2130 cpu and  8 Gb Ram + 1 TB WD drive for OS and data
when i open taskmanager, i see lots of spikes on disk usage, cpu and ram seem rather normal
the disk shows several AVG processes - can that be the cause ? -it's AVG free btw
is Panda Free AV better ?

 - the system seems virus free, but the disk is about 60 % full -  - disk is tested with WD diag and passed !
what should i also look into?
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Alan
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Hi Nobus,

If it were me, i'd consider wiping the OS and reinstalling.

It would likely be quicker than trying to work out what has gone wrong, plus always good to wipe periodically.

You could also do a reset it you're nervous.

Verify you have solid backups first!

Alan.
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Dr. Klahn

Hail, nobus!

Is there anything in the event logs?
If it is a rotating HDD then its speed and fragmentation is normally the culprit. Especially when the mft file is fragmented on the drive then it gets a lot of disk activity to open any process or file.
A SSD drive would improve this.
Note that your CPU is also not the fastest one, it plays big role as well even if it is not showing the productivity in task manager.
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it is a rotating disk, and i know a SSd will speed things up, but i want to get it snappy befors doing that; does that make sense?
there is also a big folder, seescreenshot below - can i safely delete it?
User generated imageevent view shows lots of errors - so where do i start?  scr shot below
User generated image
i3 and possibly a 5400-rpm hard drive it will never be snappy.

Where is the folder above?  You can likely delete it safely.

Run Disk Cleanup and click on "Cleanup System Files"   This will likely take a long time.

Run Disk Defrag.   Allow today and possibly overnight.
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As noxcho suggested, slow downs almost always relate to disk i/o, because normally disks are the slower system component.

Check things like disk fragmentation, disk i/o errors, swapping.

If your system is swapping, you must add more memory. Swapping may be a factor on your system because you're only running 8GB of RAM. Whether 8GB is sufficient or you require more, can be determined by tracking your memory usage over time.

Note: Recently I had a system slow down to a crawl. Finally tracked the problem down to a failing WB 6TB drive. I never figured out exactly what was wrong with the drive, just that any i/o targeting this drive produced a massive slow down.

Disks do last a long time + they also do eventually fail.
yes you can safely delete that folder it is a remnant of an update or other installation .. if you look through it it probably has a setup.exe inside.
A 2130 is a 2nd generation processor, so it's quite old now.

If you're not using all 8 GB of RAM, it's time to turn off swap and stop wearing out your disk.  If you are using more than 8 GB RAM and swapping, that's why it's slow and you're wearing out your disk.  Get more RAM and turn off swap.
Reinstall a new copy of AVG.
Then Defragment the hard disk. <- If you haven't done this in years, it may be quite fragmented.  If you plan a putting in a new spinning HD, you'll have to do a defrag if you'r going to do a block copy/clone, but if it's a file copy/clone, then it should defragment on that first copy.  If you plan on putting a new SSD, it won't matter.
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john  its a pc with a 7200 rpm drive - - -it shows 6 GB free, while slow - -  so i suppose it's NOT SWAPPING
if it is - correct me and show me how i can see it is swapping
Dr Klahn   tx - i was not yet looking into event viewer; any ideas how to correct the errors, or how to start ?
i'll try defrag and disk cleanup, and post back results   +  delete that folder
it shows 6 GB free,  <-- Ah ha!  Way too little free space. That is probably one huge cause. Back off 200 - 300 GB and then defrag again. See if it speeds up.
You won't be able to easily defrag a 1TB disk with only 6GB free.  It's going to take days of churning with very little progress.  You're going to need at least 50 GB to even do a good defreg, and definitely 100 GB or more if you want to complete in a decent overnight time frame.  If your system has been swapping, assuming you let Windows manage it for you, you'll see fragmented non-movable blocks in defragment program.
I think the OP means 6GB free ram... Not hard drive
netbt 4319 error -- usually caused by having 2 network cards - disabling netbios over tcpip for one of the adapters will fix this.  Not a cause for slowdown.
http://www.jenovarain.com/2015/10/event-id-4319-netbios-over-tcpip-with-dual-nics/

instead of sorting by name sort by date.
Have you tried defragmenting the drive?
nobus, there are some errors in the log to be sure but they appear only once a month on the third.  I would guess that something happens on that date, ... or perhaps the system is rebooted.  At a guess those errors are occurring when the system reboots, so other than that ... the log looks remarkably clear.

Since this system is ahem! a "budget model" with a physical disk drive, you might try adding a 16GB or 32GB flash drive to the system and allocate it to ReadyBoost.  That should also, at the same time, automatically move the SuperFetch onto the USB flash drive.  For a few bucks worth of flash drive it is worth trying to see if there is any improvement.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/is-readyboost-still-an-effective-tool-in-windows-10/
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i assume John is missing his coffee - a bit sleepy
YES i meant 6 gb ram free (that's what we were talking about) disk has about 350 Gb used, rest = free, after deleting several  things

Noxcho, i just finished that - as i posted that i would
it is running a bit better, i must re-evaluate it a bit - work for tommorrow, - i'm stopping now
David, i have deleted that folder, i believe its a .net install folder
good ideas up to now - keep suggestions coming
Disk Cleanup and Defrag are the two most important things you can do on a slow system. Please keep us posted.
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dr Klahn  i don't know Ready boost,
can you post a link how to do that?

John results are just above
Anything for a steady customer.

https://fossbytes.com/how-to-speed-up-windows-using-readyboost-usb-drive/

The faster the hard drive, the less improvement ReadyBoost can produce.  Windows evaluates the performance of the USB drive when it's attached and asks if you want to use it for ReadyBoost only if it thinks there might be a performance improvement.  In general this means access times of less than 1 ms and throughput of 2.5 MB/sec or better ... so a faster USB drive will produce more performance gains.

Or so Microsoft claims.  The whole thing to me is reminiscent of optional motherboard cache modules.
Lots of effort for a dated machine.
Is there any plan to get new machine? Not only will you get much better hardware, you will also have the latest OS.

I personally don't see any real improvement after a Defrag. Being that this is a second gen i3 there is a good chance the HHD age is the cause of the slowness and a reinstall of the OS may help, but may not be worth the effort.

As mentioned a SSD would be a great replacement if a new computer is not an option. I did this to my entire fleet of laptops a few years ago to get some additional life out of my laptops. I was very happy with the performance boost. They are relativity inexpensive and most bang for the buck is a new computer is not in the cards
Have you done the repair yet? It's what AVG support say to do every time anyone posts about it consuming high disk resource,
The defragmenting should be done with a third party tool which can defragment or compact mft. Windows Defrag cannot do this.
I think Perfect Disk (Raxco) can do this. I have a current version of Perfect Disk on my hard drive Desktop system.
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Dr Klahn does that mean it shows a nice net improvement, or not?
yobee - you seem quick to throw away older stuff - but it does not help the customer here; i want solutions
i know it won't run like an SSD, and plan to recommend it - AFTER the system runs as well as possible
@ andyalder : not yet, will do so and report in a couple of hours, it seems a good idea
noxcho and John i downloaded PD and will try it

in your opinion - is avg free still a resource hog (like it was a couple of years ago)and is it worthwile replacing it with panda free or not?
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i ran the AVG repair, and when restarting, i noticed it displayes a window saying could not start the process - referring to spotify
it seems i need to uninstall/reinstall spotify -  right ?
Ah, nobus, now there you have put your finger right on the nub of the matter.  Sometimes it will produce a good improvement and sometimes it will not, and despite Microsoft's predictions when the flash drive is allocated to ReadyBoost ... the only way to find out, is to try it.
This seems like a lot of effort to end up with an old install of Windows....
Uninstall Spotify, repair AVG, reinstall Spotify, repair AVG again is what I would do. Maybe worth turning "local files" off on Spotify but then every time a song is played it is streamed again.
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Alan such posts do not contribute - plse keep them to yourself
it is my decision what i want to spend on a repair; and i do them nearly for free.....
but in the mean time -  i Always learn things

ok avg is repaired, and as a whole - up to now the system runs  more or less as expected
i still have to handle spotify -  and post the result later
Hi Nobus,

I am sorry you have chosen to be be offended - I would ask you to consider your motivations for making such a decision.

My posts were made with the intent of providing you with the best advice in the situation.

You never had the good manners to respond to my initial post - again, I do not know why you would choose to act that way, but you have your reasons.

The best outcome here would be to wipe the machine, and start from scratch.  You may be doing it for 'nearly free' - which sounds to me like you are charging a fee for a 'service', but that does not mean that this is the best outcome for the owner of the machine.

I hope it all goes well for your customer.


Alan.
@nobus.

I am not quick to throw the hardware away. I have been doing this for years and personally the amount of effort being put into this for an old piece of hardware for the overall outcome is most likely not going to be worth it. My recommendation was based on personal experience.

If you are going to reinstalled the OS I would recommend getting an SSD and not install this on a spinning. You can get an SSD for under $100.
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yobee - that was my plan from the start, - as i said i wanted to get the thing running as well as i could first, so i could leave the customer the option to upgrade  or not with SSD
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Alan i did not reply because i did not want to do a fresh install.  can you read the question?  i don't ask that at all.
i asked how i could get it running normal.  fresh install is Always possible, but it is also the easy way out - and from this Q i have learned several things.
also - i'm not offended, you may post what you want, - without excuse, as long as it's a bit polite.
@Nobus

I see your angle on this.
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there was no exact solution, but many helpful ones
i reinstalled windows 7 on an SSD this afternoon, as i said i would do