HELP: Is this thing really such a turd? 2013 Series 7 chronos / Ativ Book 8

I've had a 2013 Ativbook 8 for almost 2 years. Its been a turd since I got it. It always lagging, slow, and freezing. i have to CTRL+ALT+delete, close and restart all my programs 3+ times during the work day, memory usage is always above 60% and disk usage is always near 100%. I've got a $400 'back up' computer that has became my primary computer since it performs better then this Ativ Book 8. Quite frankly this Ativ Book 8 is one of the worst value purchases I have ever made. I wish I would've returned the Ativ Book 8 right after I got it. Is this just the way it is or is there anything that can be done to greatly improve it?

I've disabled intellimemory, done a refresh of windows, and tried a couple other things I found in the owners lounge thread which helped a little but it still doesn't out perform the little $400 back up computer i have.

MY typical usage consists of 5 windows of chrome with a couple tabs open, skype, a voip phone, and excel. Any help is really appreciated.

 

if disk usage is high that is probably your biggest issue. The slow 5400 rpm drive will slow down allot of tasks especially if it is at that high a usage all the time. IOPS of the HDD will stink to begin with, flood it and it will get real bad.

 

Did you enable Silent Mode, which locks the CPU down to the minimum speed? Have you done a thorough virus scan and also an anti-malware scan (use Spybot S&D and also Malwarebytes)? Have you searched Task Manager and Resource Manager to identify the cause of the high disk usage? The SysInternals Process Explorer can provide further info. Have you run any utility to check the HDD's health (check the HDD manufacturer's website for their diagnostic utility). A drive with read errors could slow everything down due to repeat reads.

Finally, reinstalling the Factory Image (press F4 a few times at the BIOS screen after backing up all your user files) would get the Windows and software back to the as-shipped condition. If that runs OK then your computer has developed a software problem. If it still runs slow then you have a hardware problem.

John

 

Thanks for the detailed reply! I just checked the hdd health the with manufacturer tool and it passed. It also found and fixed some errors. I will carry on with your suggested troubleshoots tomorrow!

Should I enable silent mode?

 

Avoid Silent Mode: It locks the CPU down to minimum speed with the consequent performance hit. It's caught out quite a few people who weren't aware of this side-effect of having reduced fan noise. HWiNFO shows actual CPU speed but Task Manager does not.

John

 

Most of us have found that replacing the HDD with an SSD makes a night and day difference in this laptop. When I first bought mine I decided to wait a week or so before to see if the HDD perforamnce was as bad as I had heard, and it was. I ordered the SSD 2 days after unboxing the Chronos. Ever since installing the SSD this laptop has been a real pleasure. This thing runs circles around any other laptop I've ever used, including the ThinkPad W520 that my employer provided me. The SSD was by far the best upgrade that I made, and frankly I'm a bit shocked that Samsung never included one in this model. Most other laptops in this class shipped with either a full 2.5" SSD or the Intel Smart Response solution where there was a typical 1TB 2.5" HDD and a smaller mPCIe SSD (usually 32GB) that was used to cache the most frequently used data. Either one would run circles around the factory Chronos/ATIV 8.

I also replaced the one user-serviceable 4GB memory modules with an 8GB module. Even though it no longer runs in dual channel mode, having 12GB vs 8GB has been helpful for me.

 

I've been using SSDs for the past 6 years and would never want to revert to being dependent on a mechanical drive (except for bulk storage of backups). A lot of the benefit of SSDs comes from the near-zero access time.

Samsung provided some of the previous models with the ExpressCache which, when it worked, added some SSD performance to the HDD. However, it was a soldered chip so any problem meant a new mainboard. I agree that a small format SSD should have been provided on the newer models, even if it was an empty slot in the bottom of range versions.

John