Slow Computer - Three Reinstalls

I have reinstalled Windows 11 three times in recent months because of the horrible slowness of my computer. When I'm typing, it intermittently freezes for up to 20 seconds before displaying what I typed. Apps take forever to load, screens refresh slowly. This has been true after each reinstall, even though I wiped and reformatted C during the last one.

In this thread: Slow Computer
Somebody suggested that the data drive might be infected, so I detached my D drive, which is a USB-connected desktop drive by Western Digital. Things appear to have improved. I couldn't get text or apps to show as slowly as before, although they're still not as fast as I would like. But I ran my antivirus, Norton and MalwareBytes, on the D drive and it found nothing.

I should mention that I have followed all the instructions in the linked thread.

What do I need to do now?

GollyRojer said:

I have reinstalled Windows 11 three times in recent months because of the horrible slowness of my computer. When I'm typing, it intermittently freezes for up to 20 seconds before displaying what I typed. Apps take forever to load, screens refresh slowly. This has been true after each reinstall, even though I wiped and reformatted C during the last one.

In this thread: Slow Computer
Somebody suggested that the data drive might be infected, so I detached my D drive, which is a USB-connected desktop drive by Western Digital. Things appear to have improved. I couldn't get text or apps to show as slowly as before, although they're still not as fast as I would like. But I ran my antivirus, Norton and MalwareBytes, on the D drive and it found nothing.

I should mention that I have followed all the instructions in the linked thread.

What do I need to do now?

Click to expand...

Filling in your system specs could be a good start.

Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 @ 2.90GHz 30 °C
Comet Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
12.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1331MHz (19-19-19-43)
Motherboard
Dell Inc. 05GD68 (U3E1)
Graphics
G226HQL (1920x1080@60Hz)
SyncMaster (1920x1080@59Hz)
Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Dell)
Storage
238GB BC711 NVMe SK hynix 256GB (RAID (SSD))
3725GB Western Digital WD My Book 1230 USB Device (USB (SATA) ) 42 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
Intel Display Audio

1. Status


2. The SSD should not be filled more than 80 percent.

Win+R
perfmon /report

GollyRojer said:

Intel Core i5 @ 2.90GHz 30 °C
Comet Lake 14nm Technology

Click to expand...

So 10th generation?

I would consider replacing the internal drive with a much larger one e.g. 1 TB.

Scott said:

So 10th generation?

Click to expand...

Sorry, don't know what that means.
Perfmon report link

Documents, images, video, music, and any other data are stored on my D drive, not the SSD.

Two antivirus is totally not recommended. It might be as easy as uninstalling one of them (in the miniPC I mention below I had one but I uninstalled it to increase performance, although a modern i5 should be capable to run one). To uninstall an antivirus you might require a special utility downloadable from the antivirus web. Follow the directions but, in absence of them, uninstall it from Programs and features first, reboot if requested, and run the said utility afterwards (rebooting again if requested) if there's one.

If this doesn't fix the slowness, do another clean install. Try a bit first w/o antivirus, and if it goes well and you want, install only one of the solutions. An imaging program could save time b/c you can restore a saved Windows image and return Windows to how it was when the image was taken (using a D: drive for the data helps a lot here, but moving "official" Windows folders to D: isn't so advisable, I keep them where they're in C: although I rarely use them, for example my browsers are set to download to D: ).

------------------------------------

The two antivirus might be causing all this but just in case:

According to the Perfmon report 1st page (but it's the 1st time I see one) the system's paging excessively. The usual solution to this is more RAM but...

My Windows 11 is a 10th generation too (it counts the Intel releases from a given point) with 8 GB RAM and a much slower soldered "eMMC" (it's a miniPC) of the same capacity as disk C:. It also has an USB disk D: for the data. It isn't very snappy (Celeron J4125) but it can be used comfortably most of the time. It uses to have committed about 7 GB I believe. You can see this with Ctrl-Shift-Esc -> Performance tab -> Committed . I'm now in a much more powerful Windows 10 PC and it's about 12/32 GB (committed/installed) with just the browser, Notepad and Task Manager itself. This is my Processes tab.



I've never been too able to "exactly" match this with the reality shown in the Performance tab (there're many processes but most are under 10 MB and most ones over 100 MB are Firefox processes whose total is about 1000 MB as displayed in the upper part, I doubt my list can total 3/4 GB let alone 12), but if anything out of the normal exists it should appear here.

JLArranz said:

Two antivirus is totally not recommended.

Click to expand...

Thank you, JLArranz and wiganken. Actually, I was not using either Norton or MalwareBytes when this first started. I was using the free version of AVG. I decided to upgrade to a paid antivirus, and after researching chose Norton. When that didn't make any difference, I followed a suggestion and added MalwareBytes after my third reinstallation. There may be something to not running two at the same time, but they are definitely not what is causing the slowness, since it preceded both of them.

You can have as many AntiVirus programs on your computer as you like, but the last one you install will be the only Active one, and that will disable all others. If you use the Free Version of Malwarebytes, it does not conflict with any other AV program.

We strongly suggest uninstalling all AV apps, other then Free Malwarebytes and using the included Windows Security (Defender)
It works just as well if not better than all other AV apps and it is free.

If you choose to remove Norton.
Download the Norton Removal and Reinstall app

Be sure to Click the Advanced button then Remove Only or Norton will reinstall again.

Well, that was an exercise in futility. Click on the HERE link and there is no such information there.

What does it say when you click the Here link?

If you still have problems, run the Remove and Reinstall app and reinstall Norton, then run it again and choose to Remove only

It takes me to the same link you posted above. Download and run the Norton Remove and Reinstall tool for Windows
I'm about to do the Remove and Reinstall.

First I got this, and when I clicked Remove I got the one above. Maybe I should reinstall from the Norton installation.

1) Please run the V2 log collector > post a share link






2) Open administrative command prompt and copy and paste:

fltmc

dism /online /get-drivers /format:table >c:\drivers.txt

Post share links.




3) Monitor the computer using:

Arghh! Unless you are doing some really intensive networking or some serious commercial work odds are :::drum roll::: you don't need any extra virus scanner apart from the one that comes with Windows 11. Having said this Malware Bytes is more than a virus scanner and I recommend you keep it. But . . .
Please bear in mind that Celeron processor chips are not exactly the fastest CPUs in the race to begin with. That doesn't mean they don't have a purpose. In fact I own an N95. I call it my D-Celeron, as in "decelerate" because these chips are very efficient at slowing down over time. In other words they slow down fast. They don't take to a whole lot of bloatware gladly. AVG is among the worst of the worst to put on your PC because of the way it is designed — multiple engines. Plus they sink their hooks into your PC so deep it's a real job to get their crap off your computer when you don't need them anymore. Bad, bad, bad. I rate AVG right up there with McAfee. You probably still have remnants of AVG floating around in your PC eating up valuable real estate and bogging down your system.

If it were me and my PC, I would strip off my personal data to a separate drive and opt for a factory reset. But that's me. I really don't know if AVG is still pulling the same shenanigans that they used to resort to with their "free" ware but I sure wouldn't chance it. Nasty stuff.

JLArranz has given you some good advice here, in my opinion.​

Be nice to your little baby. It's only a Celeron. That's what they put in tablets. Treat it like a low budget tablet and it will be good to you. Avoid duplication of services, keep it light, no intensive software or games, run disk cleanup on it once a month. How much memory does it have? 4GB? 5? If you can give it just a litle more RAM by all means do so. Be gentle to it. This is a baby computer so it can only eat so much.

GollyRojer said:

Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 @ 2.90GHz 30 °C
Comet Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
12.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1331MHz (19-19-19-43)
Motherboard
Dell Inc. 05GD68 (U3E1)
Graphics
G226HQL (1920x1080@60Hz)
SyncMaster (1920x1080@59Hz)
Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Dell)
Storage
238GB BC711 NVMe SK hynix 256GB (RAID (SSD))
3725GB Western Digital WD My Book 1230 USB Device (USB (SATA) ) 42 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
Intel Display Audio

Click to expand...

Interesting. Perfmon says you have 5GB of physical memory. This is showing 12?

Scannerman said:

Interesting. Perfmon says you have 5GB of physical memory. This is showing 12?

Click to expand...

In the pdf I see (near the bottom)
TotalPhysicalMemory 12619235328
ie 12 GB. Now why on earth don't they show the units? Or thousand separators (for goodness sake) - Or Quote GB (or failing that, MB). 'They' go to all that trouble to write the software, then bork the output. But back to the point: further up the pdf report is this:
FreePhysicalMemory 518532
So only 0.5MB free RAM? Could that be the explanation?