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Thread: Win7 Desktop slows then freezes up

  1. #1
    Senior Member Woodcycl's Avatar
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    Question Win7 Desktop slows then freezes up

    My father's Desktop, a Lenovo (Core i5 6GB RAM) is having some issues and I am not sure what to try next. After a fresh start/reboot, after 3 to 5 min, it begins slowing down and barely reacting to mouse or keyboard commands and within a minute or two, has no reaction to commands.

    I've run HDD diagnostics on both the boot drive (Seagate 500GB) and on the data drive (WD 1TB) and both extended tests passed. I ran memtest on the RAM (4GB & 2GB dimms) overnight and they passed as well. I unplugged all components except boot drive, fans, 4GB RAM, and CDROM and disabled all Non-MS services and disabled ALL startup items. Same issue.

    He is running AVAST free and full version of Malwarebytes. But, I'm not able to even begin any kind of scan with mbam.

    Event Viewer ... nothing jumps out at me in windows log files as to what the issue may be.

    What should I try next?

    Many thanks!

  2. #2
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    What does Task Manager show? It sounds like there is a process or processes eating up all the system resources.

  3. #3
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    Since the system is so slow that you can't get anything done *in Windows*, I would recommend trying a boot time rescue CD:

    https://www.avira.com/en/download/pr...-rescue-system

    Many AV vendors offer them. I'm surprised that MB doesn't yet. The only downside is that these disks must be made fresh each time they are needed.
    MS MCP, MCSE

  4. #4
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    Can you boot into safe mode and run your spyware programs?

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    It's great to see BipolarBill back here again!

    I had to re-register under Deege. I was Druggas originally.

  6. #6
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    Great to see BipolarBill back posting again.

    I had to re-register as Deege. I used to be Druggas.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Woodcycl's Avatar
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    I was able to uninstall AVAST and since that time, it is running without an issue. Makes me wonder if AVAST, Windows Defender, and possibly MBAM were causing conflicting issues with one another's files. I like AVAST the best ... so I may setup exclusions among AVAST and MBAM and see what happens. And, completely dismantle Defender. Thoughts?

  8. #8
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    It would have been good to see how much resources the Avast processes were taking. You'd normally disable WinDefender if you are running another AV product. I would expect Avast to do that automatically. I'm not an Avast user, so I'm not sure if there is an option in it to disable WinDefender.

  9. #9
    Senior Member Woodcycl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Midknyte View Post
    It would have been good to see how much resources the Avast processes were taking. You'd normally disable WinDefender if you are running another AV product. I would expect Avast to do that automatically. I'm not an Avast user, so I'm not sure if there is an option in it to disable WinDefender.
    I only took note of memory usage ... which was very low for both of AVAST's processes before uninstalling. But, not sure about CPU usage. And, yes, AVAST is supposed to disable Defender. But, who knows if it was completely disabled. I don't recall seeing any Defender services running. But, not sure if MBAM was also coming into play. Hard to say.

    I found several articles on how to disable Defender, but haven't looked at the steps yet.

  10. #10
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    That's pretty simple in Win7. It's harder in Win10.

    Turn Off/On Windows Defender in Windows 7 and 8/8.1
    Open the Control Panel > Windows Defender
    Click on the Settings tab
    Click on Administrators in left pane
    For Win7, uncheck "Use this program"
    For Win8/8.1, uncheck "Turn on Windows Defender"
    Click Save Changes
    If prompted by UAC, click Yes
    Click Close

  11. #11
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by deege View Post
    It's great to see BipolarBill back here again!

    I had to re-register under Deege. I was Druggas originally.
    Nice to "see" you again too, Druggas Frankly. I'm surprised that I can still access my account
    MS MCP, MCSE

  12. #12
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    Avast's big claim to fame is having boot-time features built in, where you can simply select scanning before Windows boots up.

    https://support.avast.com/en-in/article/132/
    MS MCP, MCSE

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