Acer Aspire ES 15 Series super slow

moonweez

Thanks for the password article Al.  I've tried this before and I'm forced to have either a password or PIN. No getting around having one or the other as far as I can tell. No biggie. 

Re Vivaldi, I like many of the features and layout, but the ads are craaaaazy. I may go back to Chrome for Ad Blocker. 

moonweez

Froze again last night coming on. Chrome and Vivaldi both. Seems to happen if I shut the lid (not shutting down) with whatever is open, usually a few tabs in Chrome or Vivaldi, sometimes iTunes, and leave it for an extended period of time. Disk was 100% as it usually is in that state. For a second Windows Problem Solver was high in the yellow but when I looked again, it was low. A few processes were in the yellow 1-2 like before.

JackE

I suggest that you simply try to layoff Chrome & Vivaldi for awhile. Use Internet Explorer instead to see what happens both at home and at work. Jack E/NJ

moonweez

Will do JackE.  Thanks.

topcat7736

Moonweez,

All Chrome addons, including Adblock, run on Vivaldi without a problem.

I'm concerned with this "Windows Problem Solver" which is something that should never be loaded during startups. Can you do a CTRL Shift ESC to go into the task manager, sort the processes by name and see if it is resident. If so, left click it and then End Task. 

If you do an ALT and tap the TAB key, there should only be one open window on each tab. If there are more, terminate them (an Alt F4 will close the current window) until only one remains. It could be you have a lot of hidden background processes running and this will close them.

When turning off the machine, do an ALT F4 and select shut down from the drop down menu. This will actually close the open processes on the machine. Don't just close the cover!

It should boot up fairly quickly after a real shut down.
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On the screen for the password, you must uncheck the box at the top which says "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer". Then do an Apply and enter your password twice. There won't be any further stopping on the lock screen for either a password or pin!

Al

topcat7736

moonweez, 
When you're getting the adblock plus for Vivaldi from the chrome webstore, also get Extensions Manager (AKA Switcher). It will put a little icon on the upper right of your screen which will allow you to quickly both enable and disable things you've added on to the browser.

moonweez

Thank you. I tried to download AdBlocker for Vivaldi several times and it didn't show up in my downloads. The site also didn't list Vivaldi as a compatible browser.  Maybe not going to the Chrome webstore was my mistake.

kalidogg

topcat7736 said:

Hi moonweez,

Hold the Windows key down and press X. When a box opens find Command Prompt (Admin) and left click on it. (If asked, answer yes to allow the program to make changes to your machine).

When the prompt appears inside the black box, type or copy the following lines, one at a time,  and then enter or return after each one.

net stop superfetch
net stop sysmain

(One of the net stop commands will have an error. Only one is needed but because I don't know the exact version of your windows I'm having you enter both. The error on one is OK and the other will have a completed OK message so don't worry).
Once you've entered them both, type exit and hit return or enter. You'll be back into Windows. Give the machine a couple minutes and go into the Task Manager again. The disk of 100% should have gone to a low level or zero. It should never be 100% and in the red (which is why the machine is performing poorly). If it hasn't come down, reboot the machine and give it about 5 minutes once it's back up. Then check the Task Manager and insure the disk activity has subsided. Your machine will run OK from now on.

I did this with the PowerShell (admin), and got a message that Superfetch has stopped, but my disk was still running at 100%. Restarting now.

kalidogg

moonweez said:

I did a restart and disk still shoots up to 100%.

Mine too:-(

kalidogg

My BITS is running, but there is no option to turn it off. I turned off and disabled the Superfetch, which had moderate impact on my disk performance. It will not go down to 0%. 0-10-50-10-60-80-10-100-100-90-80-70-100-70-50-30-100-50-100-95-100-95-100. All this after being on for 20 minutes.

JackE

Use Internet Explorer for your browser. Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Left click the V in the upper left corner, then go to tools and left click extensions. Left click the three horizontal bars in the upper left corner and at the bottom of the window it will say go to the Chrome store. Vivaldi is 100% compatible with Chrome add-ons and extensions.

The BITS should be the first "B" in the list of services and is always automatically started.

kalidogg

That's before opening anything. I was making comments on a browser on a different computer. 

kalidogg

It took 28 minutes to boot the computer and get the disk to stabilize. The only thing I opened was the Task Manager after everything loaded. I opened the Edge browser after it settled down. 28 minutes is ridiculous, especially with a computer I don't use much. Once it's running, I don't tend to have as many problems, especially since I just installed more RAM. 

kalidogg

What is Vivaldi for?

JackE

kalidogg

Forget Vivaldi. Use Edge or InternetExplorer. Open Control Panel. Search 'button'. Click 'change what the power buttons do' in the left pane. Click 'change settings that currently are unavailable'. Scroll down and check the box for fast startup if the box is unchecked. If already checked, uncheck it.  Reboot. Jack E/NJ

topcat7736

Kalidogg,
Moonweez is running the Vivaldi browser which is a Chrome replacement. Your problem is different from hers. Your machine has other processes running and you need to find out what they are. When the machine first boots up, many of the programs you've installed will go to the internet looking for updates. This will tie up your disk and cpu until they get what they want. In the task manager is a tab  labeled Startup. Left click it and see which programs are enabled and having a high startup impact. If none are there, your problem is the BITS which is windows looking for updates to itself and its processes. If you're running a slow internet connection it will take longer for the processes to complete and the disk & cpu utilization to head toward 0 because the internet connection is the bottleneck. My 400MBPS cable connection through a 1gbs ethernet cable allows things to update much faster than someone elses 54mbps wireless G connection.

The speed of your cpu is also a big factor in how long it will take to update the programs. An Intel Celeron M at 600mhz with a benchmark of 151 is not going to update its programs as quickly as an Intel Xeon Platinum 8176@2.1GHZ with a benchmark of 30,583 no matter how much memory or SSD's you might add to it.

So there are many places for a bottleneck to occur and you must find where yours is located and, if possible, repair or change it. When in the Task Manager, see how much memory you're actually using. Some people say a computer will be faster with more memory but that isn't always true. If you're not using all the memory you have, adding trillions more bytes will have no effect and is a waste of your money.

kalidogg

There are 10 programs on the Startup tab that are enabled with startup impact listed as "not measured", and 4 that are disabled with no startup impact. I have an Intel Core i5 processor that's supposed to run at 2.5GHz (between 3-8% utilization during startup). The wireless connection may be the problem. The computer has an ethernet connector, but since it's a laptop, and I got it to use around the house, so it normally connects through wifi. I don't want to turn off the BITS because I don't use this computer much, and I'm bad at remembering to check and install updates. If that's what it comes down to, I could just leave it running and plugged it in I suppose.    

topcat7736

kalidogg,
I understand. What you might try doing is turning it off, connecting it to an ethernet cable, turning it back on and letting it run overnight so it can do its updates and then use it over the wireless connection during the day. (Leaving it running continuously is not a good thing for updates or the operating system). Or, turn it on when you awake having it on ethernet for updates and then disconnect the ethernet and run it wirelessly during the day. Or, anything to avoid doing updates via the wireless connection.
Al