Something is gradually slowing down my computer

To whom may solve this - or give me a way to do so:

Since a few months, my computer is gradually slowing down, certainly at startup.
- Startup itself is not as fast as it used to be
- I checked all apps etc. that are loaded at startup, disabled quite a lot that seemed superfluous (and apparently were), to no avail
- Phenomenons:
- Chrome takes a long time to load. I checked everything, emptied unnecessary caches, and so on. No improvement.
- My VPN (NordVPN) takes a long time to load. As it does so, it seems to interfere momentarily with WiFi connection in general. I contact the very helpful NordVPN support, did a lot of tests. Nothing helped.
- Microsoft Solitaire and Casual Games takes an inordinate amount of time to get up and running, not to mention Xbox (necessary for my Premium subscription).
- Foxit PDF reader (which I use instead of clunky and limited Adobe) takes an unusual amount of time to load, even when completely "empty".

Please note that once they have started, the apps behave as they should, as does the device. Exiting them, then loading them again, takes no time at all - with the sole exceptions of NordVPN (albeit with a slight improvement), and most staggeringly, the Solitaire Games, which continue to misbehave (not really while playing, just when stopping then starting the app). Microsoft Support just can't seem to do anything...

It goes without saying that I tried a lot of things "in the book", like uninstalling completely, then reinstalling the apps. Nothing helps.

What I'm almost certain of, is that something, somewhere is interfering at startup, and that getting rid of it will get things back to normal. Why otherwise would everything work without a hitch after everything is finally up and running (with the Solitaire exception)?

Please help me out with this ridiculous situation, which is plaguing me - if only because I see no end in sight. Most users, at this point, believe their device has silted up hopelessly and buy a new one. But I don't believe that a machine is programmed to do such shenanigans. So...

Best regards,

HK

Very old hardware.. And i guess an ALDI pc?
Do you daily use the computer, or do you only turn it on once a week for an hour, to try to do something directly.
With those older machines, and win11 on it, that has a lot of background task scheduled up, you need your pc on more often to let those task run. Otherwise if you had your pc off for a week or 2, almost all of those task start to run when you turn it on.

HI,

It's a Lenovo. Use it daily. So, that's certainly not the problem.

Thanks all the same for your reply.

Bye

Was reading your My Computer that you had filled in:
As Medion pc, CPU @ 1.10GHz Memory 4,00 GB (3,83 GB usable)..

So what are you Lenovo specs? Then there might be a diffrent issue?

What antivirus program are you using? Is it running a scan at start up?

Hi Jacee,

Jacee said:

What antivirus program are you using? Is it running a scan at start up?

Click to expand...

Windows Defender. And all that comes with it.
Scan at startup? Not that I know of. Where can I check this?
Anyway, the latter would only explain the slowness of startup itself, not of the apps. Be that as it may, how can I check that Defender would be doing something untoward?
Thanks for your helpful hint...

do you have any other USB device connected to your laptop besides mouse and keyboard?
Running Windows 11 on a very old, unsupported hardware (based on your system specs) is also probably the main problem. Windows 10 is probably the best OS for your hardware.

badrobot said:

do you have any other USB device connected to your laptop besides mouse and keyboard?

Click to expand...

Yes, a stick containing lots of files. I never thought about that as a possible culprit. I'll disable it, then try to restart and get back to you.
Thanks!

Hi again,
No change whatsoever...

haku100 said:

Yes, a stick containing lots of files. I never thought about that as a possible culprit. I'll disable it, then try to restart and get back to you.
Thanks!

Click to expand...

When you say disable, did you mean pull it out? There could be malicious files on that stick that's taking over your laptop.

Running a pc, especially Win11, with only 4 gb of memory would be my first suspect. Doubling it to 8 would make a huge difference.

badrobot said:

When you say disable, did you mean pull it out? There could be malicious files on that stick that's taking over your laptop.

Click to expand...

No. Thoroughly checked...

How long have you been running W11? It will bloat itself over time, up to 200+ GB.

BamaInArk said:

Running a pc, especially Win11, with only 4 gb of memory would be my first suspect. Doubling it to 8 would make a huge difference.

Click to expand...

That could be. But it means I have to buy a new computer. I'm sure it would resolve lots of problems, including no need to update to the atrocious 24H2 version, I guess. But, before going into that drastic measure, maybe we can find a simple way to get out of this conundrum.

That's probably the best solution. A new PC. But we don't know what is your idea of fast. My Asus laptop boots up in 45 seconds.

To be honest, I don't think you have enough computer horsepower for Win 11! Another computer with a lot more memory is needed for speed!

haku100 said:

That could be. But it means I have to buy a new computer. I'm sure it would resolve lots of problems, including no need to update to the atrocious 24H2 version, I guess. But, before going into that drastic measure, maybe we can find a simple way to get out of this conundrum.

Click to expand...

Assuming you're also running an SSD? Otherwise you're going to be limited as to get it to run faster. You might try running a different OS than Win11. Or try running one of the cut down versions of Windows. If that laptop is using a hard disk drive changing to an SSD would help somewhat.

BamaInArk said:

Assuming you're also running an SSD? Otherwise you're going to be limited as to get it to run faster. You might try running a different OS than Win11. Or try running one of the cut down versions of Windows. If that laptop is using a hard disk drive changing to an SSD would help somewhat.

Click to expand...

Hi, thanks. Got a SSD, of course. Plenty of space and a SSD HD - even more space... Running a different OS... Linux?! Actually, I have a desktop still running on Win 10. Never a problem. Unfortunately, it's too old to update to Win 11...

My Acer Swift runs Windows 11 perfectly with 4GB of RAM. RAM may not be the problem.

4GB still matches the requirements from Miscrosoft.

Assuming you have not made any mods, might try a complete virus scan and look deeper into the startups and background apps with System Internals Suite.