For the past 2 months or so, my computer has all of a sudden just completely slowed down. Games I could previously run pretty well will now barely even run, even with everything dumbed down as much as possible, and it takes an incredibly long time to open applications such as web browsers, word, etc. I'm not sure why; I've used both paid antivirus and malwarebytes, and both came up clean. Additionally, I've noticed that my memory and CPU usage will occasionally spike for absolutely no reason and then return to normal 1-2 seconds later. When running games, I've also noticed that many times it will begin running very poorly, yet my CPU usage will generally be between 50 and 60 percent usage. I'm not very technical; I don't know a ton. I don't want to use a restore point like I've seen other people suggest. Any suggestions as to what I can do without knowing a hell of a lot about computers?
Insane_mad_maniak2013-10-13T14:31:34Z
Favorite Answer
dont use windows restore, it wont solve your issue.
first thing i would do is reinstall your graphics drivers to the latest ones.
if you do not know which graphics card/chip you have, google 'speccy' and install it, open the graphics section and it will tell you the make/model of graphics card. download the latest drivers from the manufacturers website.
Then do a defrag:
Ashampoo disk defrag http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download/
if the issue is still there, open task manager, Performance tab, see how much memory you are using, if you are using more than the RAM you have, you need to buy and add more ram to the system, or stop useless programs from starting up.
if you want to stop programs, in the start menu search box type
msconfig
and go through the startup and services (check the hide mocrosoft services tab) and google the processes/services you don't know and see if you need them or not. uncheck the box's on programs you dont want to startup.
I would suggest checking the SMART status of the hard drive. It's possible it's starting to fail. A program that I feel is real easy to use is Crystal Disk Info.
If it's telling you the computer has bad sectors, then you'll know it's time to start backing up the data and getting a new hard drive. If that looks good then try reducing the amount of programs that run at startup from the System Configuration Utility in Windows. If you search System Config in the search bar in the Start Menu in Windows 7, you'll see System Configuration. Then, once the Uitlity opens, just click on the Startup tab and uncheck the programs you don't want running at startup. I unclick everything execpt the antivirus. You can always change it back as long as it's in the Startup tab and you won't hurt the operating system. Hope this helps.