Why is our Acer Aspire TC-780-UR1A running terribly slow?

TheMutt06
TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

Tinkerer

edited October 2021 in Aspire and Veriton Desktops
We have upgraded the system memory to 16GIG, installed a 2GIG Barracuda hard drive, reloaded Windows 10 and the system still boots and runs terribly slow.  Help please!

Windows 10 Home 64-bit
7th Gen Intel Core i5 Processor 7400
Intel HD Graphics
2TB Hard Drive
16GIG DDR4 Memory
«1

Answers

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    (1) Do you have any non-Microsoft scanners running in the background? They are no longer needed for most users.

    (2) Open Task Manager. Click startup tab. Please post screenshot of startup tab if possible .

    (3) Open Control Panel. Search 'button'. Please post screenshot or search result if possible.

    Jack E/NJ

  • Easwar
    Easwar Member Posts: 6,727 Guru
    Hi @TheMutt06,

    How much memory space left free in the HDD ?
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    (1) Do you have any non-Microsoft scanners running in the background? They are no longer needed for most users.

    (2) Open Task Manager. Click startup tab. Please post screenshot of startup tab if possible .

    (3) Open Control Panel. Search 'button'. Please post screenshot or search result if possible.

    Jack E/NJ

  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    Novabench 
  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    Novabench Score
  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    Task Manager
  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    HDD Space HUGE
  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    task manager
  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    Program Files
  • ttttt
    ttttt Member Posts: 1,947 Community Aficionado WiFi Icon
    @TheMutt06

    If you are still using the mechanical HDD as the boot drive, it will be slow for sure.

    Also, not enough RAM may also  be the cause, you can check Task Manager, Performance tab for that.
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    Intuit Data Protect may be the cause. It can be setup to take a daily snapshot or essentially a restore point  of your system every time you boot up. This can take several minutes to do this. I suggest temporarily disabling it to see the effect on boot time. Also I note that you have chrome installed. If it's running in the background while doing other tasks, it can slow the system down since it is a notorious memory hog.


    Jack E/NJ

  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    I turned Intuit Data Protect off last night (please see previous screen shot).  Better response but not like I believe an intel i5 should be working with 16GIG of system memory.  What about BIOS settings?
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    edited October 2021
    The CPU &  RAM have little to do with boot times. The main bottleneck is the time it takes a mechanical drive to load drivers and Windows system files into fast RAM. These drivers and files are huge in today's Win10 compared to earlier versions. The Barracuda name may sound fast, but it really isn't compared to a garden variety 3.5" SSDs or m.2 SSDs.  Sorry.

    PS: Some desktops have a fast startup/boot option that works if the machine is kept plugged in. Open Control Panel. Search 'button'. Click on 'change what the power buttons do' in the left pane if it's availabe. In the box that pops up, do you see a fast startup or fast boot option listed?

    Jack E/NJ

  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    Not just a boot issue as the system is running like it's in mud when fully loaded.  I will wipe and reload the OS and update you of the results.
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    Before you do this open  Task Manager, click performance tab, click memory option to see how much RAM is actually available. Also see what the CPU is clocking at.

    Jack E/NJ

  • Larryodie
    Larryodie Member Posts: 1,658 Community Aficionado WiFi Icon
    Could it be your server speed. Run some speed test like speedeasy, speedsmart or speedtest.  Post the results and how much bandwidth are you paying for.
  • TheMutt06
    TheMutt06 Member Posts: 15

    Tinkerer

    Reloaded Windows and still running like stuck in mud.  Stand alone system not on a network.  Slow in boot and multitasking.  Scrapping unit and moving onto a Lenovo desktop!  Thanks for following!  ;)
  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer
    (1) Did you reload the OEM Windows version from the hidden recovery partition? Or did you use the Microsoft generic version?

    (2) Did you check Task Manager yet? Click performance tab, click memory option to see how much RAM is actually available? Also see what the CPU is clocking at?


    Jack E/NJ

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    My suggestion is to look really closely at your drive. IIRC that drive is a 5400RPM drive, so data transfer off it will be slow (as indicated in your benchmarks). Add a second drive using a SSD or 500GB or 1TB, clone the existing drive to the new one only allowing the cloning software to shrink the C: partition. Remove the HDD temporarily and boot from the SSD. You should see boot times in seconds instead of minutes. :)
    Next put the HDD back in and use Disk Management to wipe it clean and create one or two big partitions on it. Set that up as data storage and perhaps backup of the system drive. You will have a much more useful machine without having to spend all that much more on it.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • ttttt
    ttttt Member Posts: 1,947 Community Aficionado WiFi Icon
    @TheMutt06

    Let me repeat. As long as you are still using an old style mechanical HDD as boot drive for your PC, it will be slow through its lifetime, disregard of what CPU used. The HDD is the bottleneck.

    Change the boot drive to a 2.5" SATA3 SSD (or better yet, use M.2 NVMe SSD), and you will see a significant boost in performance. Get a cloning software to do it.