win7 Getting a lot of "X is not responding", serious lagging

[jnelsoninjax]

My windows 7system has started to take in excess of 3 mins to load I've attempted to fix this, but only have AV, ATI stuff, and dropbox loading in startup, and it takes 30 seconds to a minute plus to load anything, ie Explorer, games, etc. Also get tons of application is not responding, often have to wait a couple of minutes for it to start responding, and if I opt to end the task I'm usually met with the same response. My RAM is good, I've checked it out with memtest, I know the HDD's are old, could this be the root of all my issues?

[Max Norris]

It's always possible, I've had some oldies do that.. it'll keep trying for a good long time before it gets it right or eventually gives up. Anything in your event logs? Aside from the killed applications of course. Disk errors will be reported typically, even if not you may find another clue to the problem. Can also keep an eye on IO with various tools.

[Mugwump00]

Use Resource Monitor to help determine any issues, e.g. excess disk I/O (forex)? 

 

I'd concentrate first on the Disk tab, 'Disk Activity', sorting the columns into the order File, Read (B/s), Write (B/s), Image.   What's the story there?

 

Task Manager's Process list, with 'PF Delta' included, can be a revelation.

[+Warwagon MVC]

First thing i would check is the hard drive. I'd scan it for bad sectors. If you want a free check just go to http://www.hdtune.com and grab a free trial and do an error scan on the drive and look for any red dots. Plus it also checks the smart data. I bet you have a bad sector(s) somewhere on the drive.

 

Also check the event viewer under the system logs and hook for any drive errors.

[binaryzero]

Hard drive is probably on the way out. 

 

Why are so many people worried about start up time? My car takes some time to warm up in the mornings, but once it's warm it's good to go...

[whs37]

I think you are a candidate for a SSD. You will be amazed how much faster everything goes.

[The Evil Overlord]

If it's like what's currently happening to my daughter's pc, I'll vote dying hardware, my daughter's motherboard no longer recognises anything plugged up to pci-e and drags it's feet doing anything (having to use the on board graphics just so she can do her homework.... (which reminds me, build her a new computer)