Windows 7 64-bit SLOW After Few Hours...

I hate turning my laptop off as I usually run stuff that takes time to set up. However, the machine gets SLOW after about 15 hours of running. It still has plenty of RAM left and CPU is working at a normal %. Sometimes, if I go to many, MANY webpages, I will even loose my internet connection and releasing and renewing ipconfig or even flashing dns doesn't help.
Any ideas?

 

How did you determine you have "plenty of RAM" ?
How much RAM do you have installed and what is your usage pattern? Are you having many applications opened at once (for example many Browser windows and tab + other programs)?

 

Even a memory leak won't make you lose your net connection, have you done a full virus scan lately?

 

I have 4gbs of RAM and when the computer gets slow, I usually still have 2gbs left.
I do have many apps open at the same time, but isn't that the point of having 4gbs of RAM? I usually have to restart firefox as it uses more than a gig or ram after few hours (they need to fix that).
I always have few firefox tabs open (open and close a lot) and have 1 vmware machine running (this is not the problem as it was getting slow before I started running my Vmware machine). Btw, this virtual machine gets 512mbs of ram and 1/4 cpu threads (2 cores, 4 threads).

Yes, the antivirus program runs every week and I run malwarebytes every so often.

 

Well actually.... what you describe is the point of NOT having 4GB RAM only )) 4GB is only enough for basic usage. I have had some big problems with multitasking (close to what you describe as usage) and feel new-born after upgrading to 6GB! 4GB RAM for Windows 7 is what 1GB RAM was for Windows XP once upon a time - absolutely enough for basic/light usage, but not for serious multitasking!!!

Don't be mislead by the indication that you have 2GB FREE That's why I asked how you determine how much free RAM you have!

You can read my threads regarding my complains about the system slowing down while I was having 4GB only and decide for yourself

Part 1

Part 2

You can read about the effect of adding more RAM in the second thread as well as about how to speed up your system additionally (disabling pagefile, etc.)

 

What are the temps of the CPU and GPU, possibly throttling due to a build up of heat. Use HWinfo to find out the temps.

 

I've never run into a bottleneck with Win 7 X64 and 4GB's. And, yes I game and have a lot of stuff open at once.

I actually normally run JC2 in 800x600 window mode, and keep all my tabs and word docs up at once.

To clarify, 4GB's is still a plenty for most.

 

The OP only mentions in passing that he is using firefox (what version #??). What about any plugins/toolbars that are installed? Might be good info to know.

Try using another browser, Chrome, Opera, etc. Start out with NO plugins or toolbars, see if that smooths things out.

Try NOT keeping a VM running. I think that even EMC warns that VMWare isn't expected to remain stable after multiple hibernation/sleep cycles on the host OS. In any case, make sure that your VMWare tools are fully up to date.

Try using another VM like VirtualBox.

Otherwise, the usual 'my OS is acting weird' troubleshooting steps might help here.

Drivers fully up to date, 64 bit drivers preferred on a 64 bit OS.

Deinstall the bells and whistles, anything that might be grabbing CPU cycles or attach themselves to the IP/networking stack.

Completely patch the OS including SP1.

MSFT licensing/sctivation in order.

Page, sleep, hibernation files defragged (IMHO this is the ONLY defragging that is worth the trouble)

Firmware on the mobo (bios) and any attached devices fully up to date.

No persistent hardware errors (cpu, memory, disk).

 

I have 4GB of RAM. I sincerely doubt this is the issue as 4GB is more than enough for the majority of users. It's almost always more than enough for me and I use some pretty heavy programs.

Can you tell us what you're usually doing on the computer when it slows down?

Is windows 7 up to date?
Are all of your drivers up to date?

I think it's very simple. The topic title is misleading, Windows 7 isn't slow after a few hours... it's slow after apparently 15. If you're running a ton of programs over that time you're going to have problems.

 

@OP

We need a lot more information to help you diagnose the problem. For example, we need your full system specs and brand. This issue could be caused by OEM installed software.

Also, please post a screenshot of all processes listed in task manager (with admin privileges) right after you boot up and again when you notice the slowdown.

 

No problems here... Laptop stays cool all the time!

I upgraded to 6gbs of ram just today and will see if that helped at all. I did a lot more research on this and you are correct, I was actually using a good chunk of swap (though windows left about a gig of RAM)

All drivers are up to date, but you have a good point about the plugins. I have about 20 firefox plugins installed so, that could be a problem. Also, everything IS up to date. I keep this system current and updated all the time as this is my main working machine.

I'm not really your 'average user', I have few intensive apps running as well as VMware (sometime 2 at a time).
Also, why would it be normal for Windows 7 to go slow even after 50 hours?

Its the Sony VPCEB33FM Laptop with i3-370m CPU and 4gbs of ram (just upgraded to 6)
I will check the processes running right after start up and after hours and will report back on what I find.

 

20 firefox plugins?

deinstall all of them

report back after a week.

 

That doesn't sound like fun So, I will just create a new firefox profile and try that.
Btw, I've had 6gbs of ram about 10 hours now and haven't experienced the slow down yet!

 

Well I'd bet it's the thousand intense programs you have running. Maybe your HDD can't multitask well. Did RAM help?

 

Seems like u still had the problem after upgrading to 6gb of ram, and u had to take pagefile off so it wouldnt access your hdd so much. So in all I think the ram maynot be the best choice in the long run but a temp and cheaper solution in the short. Oppose to getting a new HDD with better multitasking skills. I have 4gb ram, core i3 370, 500gb hd at 54000rpm and dont have this problems as you.

 

@richierichdollar

Better hard drive with multitasking skills? You do realize that hard drives do not multitask reading and writing. They are made to appear as though they do through the use of a cache and Native Command Queuing.


@OP

You said before that you run 2 VMs at a time and tend to keep them running all the time. You do realize that VMs tend to leak memory. This kind of a memory leak won't show up in Task Manager because of the way the memory is handled for VMs. In fact, I would not be surprised if your page file amount actually went up over time.

Also, are you using the factory install of the OS or did you reformat and do a clean install with all the required drivers? If you did a clean install, did you install the INTEL INF package first before installing all other drivers?

 

Start > run "msconfig"

Go to the startup programs tab and disable all unnecessary programs when Windows starts up. Don't run programs until you need them, otherwise you are waiting on them to initialize on start up and in the background while you're not even using them.

 

I'm using the factory install. (I know I should have done a clean install as it took me a while to delete most of the crap SONY installs)

Did that long time ago...

 

Here is what pretty much solved the problem:
I bought a 4gb RAM stick, so now I have 6gbs.
I bought an HDD enclosure that goes where the CD-ROM used to be and put my Virtual machines on that.

Now everything seems to run a lot smoother! I still have to restart every couple of day, but thats much better than every few hours I also moved few programs to VMs and now I can just restart the VMs without having to restart the whole PC.