General computing has slowed down

[Morpheuskibbe]

My computer is a bit older i7-5820K |  1080-Ti  |  32GB DDR4-2133.  but shouldn't be at all "slow"

 

In fact when it comes to running programs or games there has been no change over time.

 

The oddness is that some general compute tasks feel like they lag longer than is normal.  IE right clicking an image on line and clicking "save as".  The actual Save box that comes up seems to take while to appear.  Also dragging windows around, especially from monitor to monitor feels sluggish, like its running at less than 30Hz when I'm dragging the window.

 

Again, games and such still work fine, it's just general compute that seems laggy.  it passes things like virus scans and is regularly defragged (SSD boot, HDD mass storage)

 

Any ideas of any ways to get the regular stuff to run better / feel smoother?

[adarw]

try reinstalling windows

[Morpheuskibbe]

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but I'd rather not if i could avoid it.

[jec6613]

On the face of it, that sounds like a storage issue, I'd verify SSD/HDD health first, not least of which because that's where you can have data loss.

 

Also, verify your monitors have a common refresh rate, or you can get the weird issues dragging between them.

[GuiltySpark_]

Is the Windows install from 2014 originally? Absolutely re-install.

 

Shoot I do it twice a year just for fun.

[BondiBlue]

Yeah, reinstalling Windows every once in a while can help in a lot of ways. You'd be surprised how much of a difference it can make. 

[jec6613]

8 minutes ago, rickeo said:

Is the Windows install from 2014 originally? Absolutely re-install.

 

Shoot I do it twice a year just for fun.

But why?  I've had the same OS install since 2007, and when I boot a fresh install from another drive... no difference in performance, synthetic or perceived.  If you re-install that often, you really need to learn how not to trash your Windows install.

[BondiBlue]

5 minutes ago, jec6613 said:

But why?  I've had the same OS install since 2007, and when I boot a fresh install from another drive... no difference in performance, synthetic or perceived. 

Then you're really damn lucky. That's not the experience lots of users have (myself included), and it's not always caused by something the user did. 

[GuiltySpark_]

7 minutes ago, jec6613 said:

But why?  I've had the same OS install since 2007, and when I boot a fresh install from another drive... no difference in performance, synthetic or perceived.  If you re-install that often, you really need to learn how not to trash your Windows install.

Its not trashed, in fact its usually fine. Just like a fresh install... That was a bit of hyperbole for effect 

 

The point is people leave their OS installed for so long they feel like a re-install is a huge job when its not if you're smart. Basic apps on the boot drive and everything else elsewhere. Means a wipe, re-install and app install is an hour, tops. 

[jec6613]

1 minute ago, BondiBlue said:

Then you're really damn lucky. That's not the experience lots of users have (myself included), and it's not always caused by something the user did. 

Repeat it enough times across multiple systems, and it's not luck, it's just knowing what you're doing.  I only use fresh installs when I need testing or a sandbox (or a new system, obviously), I've done it for years, both personally and professionally, and have never run across an unfixable error, or personally even an error that would be faster fixed by an OS re-install* including kludging nForce PCI-E switches to run Windows 10. And I have fully automated OS customizations that will install the important software and updates immediately after OS install, and it's still faster to fix than reload.

 

Especially now with Windows 10.x effectively giving you a fresh OS with your existing software every time you apply the semi-annual (now annual, thank goodness!) update, as well as a myriad of built-in repair tools starting with Windows 6.x, re-installing your OS all the time is just giving yourself a headache.

 

*yes, with servers, it's often faster to just spin a new server because one can have one added to a farm in well under an hour, but that's hardly a, "Normal," use case

[GuiltySpark_]

10 minutes ago, jec6613 said:

re-installing your OS all the time is just giving yourself a headache.

Maybe for you it does, I quite enjoy it.

[BondiBlue]

7 minutes ago, jec6613 said:

Repeat it enough times across multiple systems, and it's not luck, it's just knowing what you're doing.

I have, and respectfully, I know what I'm doing. Experiences differ, but from all of my years of experience with many different versions of Windows a reinstall absolutely can make a difference without the user screwing things up.

 

Hell, I used to do it on my main machine. The only reason I haven't reinstalled Windows on my main machine in 2 years is because this is the first time I've had it running a copy of Windows that hasn't developed strange quirks and issues, and it also hasn't slowed down. I haven't treated this Windows installation any differently than past installations. I've used this one for a whole lot more in some ways. That has almost never been my experience with other computers. 

[Morpheuskibbe]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:23 PM, jec6613 said:

On the face of it, that sounds like a storage issue, I'd verify SSD/HDD health first, not least of which because that's where you can have data loss.

 

Also, verify your monitors have a common refresh rate, or you can get the weird issues dragging between them.

This may seem strange, but I THINK I figured it out.  and it seems to be a side effect of leaving Microsoft word open and minimized with a large file loaded for a long period of time. 

 

Like 100K work count document open but minimized and left that way overnight sort of thing.  Over time this actually appears to degrade the responsiveness of windows explorer somehow...

[jec6613]

1 hour ago, Morpheuskibbe said:

This may seem strange, but I THINK I figured it out.  and it seems to be a side effect of leaving Microsoft word open and minimized with a large file loaded for a long period of time. 

 

Like 100K work count document open but minimized and left that way overnight sort of thing.  Over time this actually appears to degrade the responsiveness of windows explorer somehow...

That doesn't sound that strange to me, but I've been at this rodeo before ... though usually it's Excel tthat has trouble.

 

For my own curiosity, what version of Word are you on?

[Morpheuskibbe]

19 hours ago, jec6613 said:

That doesn't sound that strange to me, but I've been at this rodeo before ... though usually it's Excel tthat has trouble.

 

For my own curiosity, what version of Word are you on?

Its part of office 365 so I imagine "the newest" . The about place under 'account' says: 

Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2111 Build 16.0.14701.20204) 32-bit

 

[jec6613]

2 hours ago, Morpheuskibbe said:

Its part of office 365 so I imagine "the newest" . The about place under 'account' says: 

Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2111 Build 16.0.14701.20204) 32-bit

2111 is 2021, Month 11, or November.  Since today is patch Tuesday, yep, that's current.

 

Picking up a 64-bit copy might alleviate your woes though - they're available for download direct from the site as an option.  Recent OS patches have some low level kernel changes going on to fix some issues with running 32 bit memory spaces, so there could be knock-on effects for things like Office, especially when you're running close to the 2 GB limit for 32 bit user space.