newish laptop very slow with simple tasks

[adamstemper]

I have a Windows 7 Asus laptop that is not quite 2 years old.  About a year ago the HD went out, sent it back and got it replaced with a new one from Asus.

It ran great for a while, but in the last couple weeks has been horribly slow.

When I do an empty start up (given a couple extra minutes for startup to have a break), and open an IE 8 browser window... my CPU jumps to between 40-65%.  Then, still browing around to google news, maybe opening a second tab, nothing rediculous... my CPU jumps to 70-90%, occasionally hitting 100% and occasionally back down the 30%'s.

I see the same performance issues with other apps and gaming, not just browsing the web.

My Steps:
msconfig to disable startup programs and services,
run virus/malaware checks & cleanup with: adaware, avg, windows defender, cccleaner
cleaned up desktop and removed un-needed applications
disk defrag & cleanup

My system information:
Processor (4.9 windows rating): AMD Turion(tm) X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-75
4GB RAM (5.9 windows rating) (512mb dedicated graphics)
Display apadter driver version: 8.634.0.0
DirectX version 10
Graphics (4.1 windows rating): ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570
Graphics (5.9 windows rating): 1919 mb total available
Primary hard disk (6.9 windows rating): OS hard disk: 36g free / 75g
Non-OS files hard disk: 159g free / 209g

Help and suggestions are greatly appreciated.  thank you.

Attached is an image of my system overview


[regaining space - attachment deleted by admin]

[Geek-9pm]

Welcome!
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The forum will help everyone with all computer questions.

Your computer has good specs. Hard to understand why it would be slow. Running 40% is on common task is odd. My old Dell idles at about 5% while I and typing. Jumps to 80% for a short peak while going to  another page.

Are you running more than one band of Anti-Virus software?

[adamstemper]

Hi Geek-9pm. I do have AVG and Ad-Aware installed, and also have Windows Defender.  However i dont run AVG or AdAware unless doing a search for an issue.  I generally let Windows Defender take care of things.

If there is some other tool to check for a virus, bad registry settings, or other possible causes of slowness, i would be willing to give it a shot.  I have had this same issue happen once before after i installed Alcatel PC Suite (and possibly other things).  I then did a system restore to a few weeks prior and everything was great.  However, this time, i do not recall installing any new apps.

[Geek-9pm]

I believe the following is safe.
Run a scan on your PC.
Reboot, discount or disable the network connection.
Stop AVG from running.
Stop Windows defender from running.
do some performance tests on normal apps that you use. Like maybe loading a large picture in photo shop and performing some kind of special filter that takes awhile. Or any kind of intense test you have that does not require internet.



This may help fin d the problem. My guess is the Anti-Virus program is doing too much running in the background. But that is only a guess. It may be Windows is trying ton recover some task that  hung up. You may want to look into your event log to see if there are issues.

It ran great for a while, but in the last couple weeks has been horribly slow.

Well.. hard drives do bite the dust. And two in two years is odd, but not impossible. You could buy a good used drive just to see. I am serious. Somethings a used drive from a reputable vendor is as good as a new drive. At least as a backup.Do you have a desktop computer you can use for doing backup and disk clone work?
BTW: Does you version of Windows have any issues with dual-core AMD CPU. I don't know the answer to that. That was a issue at one time.

AMD Processors Forums - Please update Dual Core Optimizer for ...
 forums.amd.com › ... › General Technology Chat
You +1'd this publicly. Undo
20 posts - 4 authors - Last post: Aug 15, 2009
Please update AMD Dual Core optimizer for Windows 7 as did in Windows Vista ...

http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=117443
I can not tell if that's relevant or not.

[jason2074]

I would suggest to head to the Virus and Spyware Section to start a new topic and post the logs needed. In any case that you are cleared, then you will know that its not any infection. 
Guidelines - http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,46313.0.html
New topic  - http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/board,7.0.html

[Geek-9pm]

jason2074, good idea.
There are some bad things nout thee that get in even with AV running.

[adamstemper]

Thanks for the suggestions! i will try Jason and Geek's requests this afternoon if i get time, and then post with what is found.