[sue.words]

It took me ages to persuade my husband's laptop to do anything the morning. He only uses Chrome and Word and both of these are chronically unresponsive.

 

But after a great deal of persistence I was able to do this routine: Windows key + R, type in <perfmon /report>.

 

It took another age for the window to come up that I am showing in the screenshot attached below.

 

(I should explain that I am reporting this using my MacBook and the screenshot is from the website that suggested I take this action.)

 

The PC is still displaying this screen as I type, and I checked the time when I thought the 60 seconds were taking a long time over half an hour ago.

 

Bearing in mind that this computer DOES seem to have SOME functionality still, is it likely that if I wait and wait and wait, a report will eventually be generated?

 

My son-in-law, who helps me with my Mac when he's here (but he lives a long way away, so is not an everyday practical support), has promised to give us their current MacBook when they upgrade, but he wants to wait till October to buy a new MacBook because a new model is due out about then.

 

So the poor old PC laptop's days are numbered, but if I can keep it limping along for a few more months it will save me either having to DO things for my husband all the time or keep lending him my computer.

 

I'd really value some advice! (I have tried lots of what we used to call "housekeeping routines" ages ago, but none really seemed to make much difference. The laptop is much, MUCH worse now, though, than it was.)

Attached Thumbnails

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See if you are able to do the below for us;

 

Download then run Speccy (free) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s. 

 

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

1. In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.
2. In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.
3. Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.

[phillpower2]

See if you are able to do the below for us;

 

Download then run Speccy (free) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s. 

 

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

1. In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.
2. In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.
3. Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.

[sue.words]

Thank you for responding, Phill.

 

Here is the url:

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/gDiFDWezCrHXeG13tYY0CnW 

[iammykyl]

Gday sue.word.

The url you posted returns "page not found"   Please try again.

Run Speccy again and in the result window,

Click file at top left,

Click "Publish Snapshot" from the drop down menu,

In the dialogue box that opens > click Yes,

In the new window that opens > click "Copy to clipboard"

In your next reply > right click > click Paste.

 

Wait for Phillpower2 to get back too you. 

[sue.words]

That's very odd, iammykyl: when I put it into the browser it brings up just the sort of thing I was expecting it to. Here's a bit of it: 

Summary

 

Operating System

Windows 10 Home 64-bit

 

 

CPU

Intel Pentium 4405U @ 2.10GHz: 

44 °C

Skylake-U/Y 14nm Technology

 

 

RAM

4.00GB Single-Channel Unknown @ 1064MHz (15-15-15-35)

 

 

Motherboard

HP 820B (U3E1)

 

 

Graphics

Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768@60Hz)

 

Intel HD Graphics 510 (HP)

 

 

Storage

931GB Western Digital WDC WD10JPVX-60JC3T0 (SATA ): 

35 °C

 

Optical Drives

hp DVDRW GUE1N

 

 

Audio

Realtek High Definition Audio

 

 

Operating System

 

Windows 10 Home 64-bit

 

Computer type: Notebook

 

Installation Date: 20/09/2020 02:12:46

Windows Security Center

User Account Control (UAC): 

Enabled

Notify level: 

2 - Default

 

Windows Update

AutoUpdate: 

Not configured

 

Windows Defender

Windows Defender: 

Disabled

 

Firewall

Firewall: 

Enabled

Display Name: 

McAfee Firewall

 

Antivirus

 

Windows Defender

Antivirus: 

Disabled

Virus Signature Database: 

Up to date

 

McAfee VirusScan

Antivirus: 

Enabled

Virus Signature Database: 

Up to date

 

.NET Frameworks installed

v4.8 Full

 

v4.8 Client

 

v3.5 SP1

 

v3.0 SP2

 

v2.0 SP2

 

 

Internet Explorer

Version: 

11.789.19041.0

 

PowerShell

 

 

 

 

Version: 

5.1.19041.1

 

 

[sue.words]

I'll see if will let me copy and paste the whole thing. I'll try pasting it into a Word doc and attaching that.

[sue.words]

Oh – I copied it all into a Word doc (75pp) and tried to attach it to a reply here, but got an error message saying I couldn't attach this type of file.

where do I go from here, please?

[phillpower2]

You are welcome Sue and sorry to see that you are having trouble with the link. can you please try copy/pasting the link from your results page again.

 

Thanks iammykyl 

[sue.words]

http://speccy.pirifo...CrHXeG13tYY0CnW

[phillpower2]

Couple of things of note in Speccy;

 

Windows is well out of date which is bad as it puts you at risk of malware attack

 

There is high memory usage for a computer that is not under any load, the RAM only working in single channel will not be helping but not to the extent that 86% of the 4GB is being used;

 

Physical Memory

Memory Usage: 86 %

 

 

It could well be McAfee that is the cause, is this a free or a paid for product, either way it is not needed, see canned info below;

Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 come with an improved Windows Defender, it offers the same real-time anti-virus/anti-malware protection as Microsoft Security Essentials. Windows Defender also shares the same malware signature definitions as Microsoft Security Essentials, and Forefront Endpoint Protection. Technically, Microsoft Security Essentials has not been renamed Windows Defender, or combined with it in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10. 

 

If any AV product that you have is a paid for version you should always make sure that you have a copy of the product key kept somewhere safe just in case you ever wish to reinstall it.

 

Create a new system restore point.

 

McAfee product removal tool  (MCPR) here

 

Once any other AV has been correctly uninstalled, restart and check to see if Windows Defender has auto enabled and allow it to update and carry out a full scan of your computer.  

 

 

Once the above has been done, restart then check for and install any Windows 10 updates, get back to us with an update if you will.

 

Other than a slow HDD (5400rpm) there is nothing wrong with this notebook that having a second stick of RAM will not be a big help with, dual channel would double the speed that you have at present.

[sue.words]

Thank you very much, Phill.

It will take me a while to carry out your instructions (as I have other things on the go apart from with this computer) but I will be sure to let you know how I get on.

[phillpower2]

You are welcome Sue and no worries, get back to us when you are ready, we have something else to do after the above but left it for now rather than land you with too much to do all at once, it will also help us to determine if McAfee is the main cause of the poor performance.

[sue.words]

Back again, Phill, and reporting a dramatic improvement!

 

I'm afraid I may not have been quite as careful as I should have been in following your instructions. Reading what you said, I registered "Update Windows and uninstall McAfee", and then proceeded to do these two things (with difficulty because the computer was hardly functioning at all – I couldn't get the Start menu for ages, for example). But, when it was too late, I realized that you had wanted to do these two things separately so that we could see whether McAfee was causing a lot of the problems.

 

I'm really sorry about this.

 

My husband also said things were very much better and in fact, though neither of us has done a great deal with the computer since I've followed your advice, so far I don't think it has malfunctioned at all!

 

Is there anything else you think I should be doing? And is there anything else I could do that would be useful to you? Run Speccy again, perhaps?

[phillpower2]

Glad to hear that the computer is running better 

 

A new Speccy url would help.

[sue.words]

Here we are

 

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/Dev72tosimD0bL4EcNwiYdK 

 

Speccy took much less time today to generate the snapshot than it did yesterday. Is that what you'd expect? (perhaps because the computer is functioning much better now?)