Slow Performance in Surface Pro 4 - Core i5 8GB

[Jose_49]

Hi people! I originally posted this topic in tenforums. 

I have a Surface Pro 4 - i5 w/ 8GB of RAM, and it's been painfully slow to do basic tasks after a while. Excel, Web Browsing , Opening the Task Manager takes a lot; mouse lag; and maybe some coding with Visual Studio. I have a laptop with an i7 4700MQ and my laptop feels way snappier. 

I thought that I wouldn't need the two extra cores since I was doing some basic work, but I don't know if I'm right...

So, this is what I've done:
 

1. Checked Startup items. Almost bare bones. No Java Updater, only Dropbox, f.lux, Windows Defender.
2. Ran sfc /scannow and chkdsk - No problems found.
3. Scanned for viruses (Malwarebytes). Everything clean.
4. CPU temp is great at 56°C.
5. CPU, Disk and RAM usage do not top 100% when experiencing these issues.
6. I've refreshed and Clean Install (From USB Drive), and I'm still experiencing issues.

Is there a way for me to track the usage and see which programs may be causing some sort of distortion? Even though it's an ultrabook i5 it should be way more than enough for the type of tasks that I'm doing (I think)

Any suggestions or ideas?

[Jose_49]

This happens especially after some hours of sleep (The PC,  that is).

[T3X4S]

CPU is not a major factor for performance, so just forget about that.
Im assuming it is an SSD, right ?

With the lack of info you are giving, its hard to narrow down - so all I can tell you is the basic shotgun approach:

run malwarebytes, what kind of security (A/V) are you running ?

Just saw your 2nd post...

OK - if it has an SSD do this:
(this should be done if you have an SSD regardless of problems or not)
From a cmd box w/ admin rights, type: 

powercfg.exe -h off
hit enter.
type exit

reboot.

See if that changes anything.
 

[Jose_49]

8 hours ago, T3X4S said:

CPU is not a major factor for performance, so just forget about that.
Im assuming it is an SSD, right ?

With the lack of info you are giving, its hard to narrow down - so all I can tell you is the basic shotgun approach:

run malwarebytes, what kind of security (A/V) are you running ?

Just saw your 2nd post...

OK - if it has an SSD do this:
(this should be done if you have an SSD regardless of problems or not)
From a cmd box w/ admin rights, type: 

powercfg.exe -h off
hit enter.
type exit

reboot.

See if that changes anything.
 

Thanks! I have Hibernation already disabled. 

 

Specs:

Intel Core i5 6200U @ 2.40GHz

8.00GB DDR3 @ 1862MHz

Intel HD Graphics 520.

Samsung NVMe 256GB SDD.

 

I have upgraded the machine to the Creators Update. Task Manager still takes a lot to open, but generally the device feels snappier. Let's see how it goes.

 

 

[Jose_49]

I decided to format the Surface Pro 4. Everything seems to run smooth as butter. I'll be monitoring each program installation to see where could be the problem. 

[Anibal P]

It's running better because the drive was cleared

SSDs should be Optimized, better to let Windows do that on a schedule

You have to do a disk cleanup from time to time, I do mine weekly

I know many hate it but weekly reboots are a good way to kill any hung processes that could cause issues

[xendrome]

4 minutes ago, Anibal P said:

It's running better because the drive was cleared

SSDs should be Optimized, better to let Windows do that on a schedule

Not running an optimize on the SSD (which is done automatically anyway by Windows) wouldn't cause the type of performance issue he was experiencing.

[Anibal P]

2 minutes ago, xendrome said:

Not running an optimize on the SSD (which is done automatically anyway by Windows) wouldn't cause the type of performance issue he was experiencing.

True, but is an important part of basic system maintenance, can't hurt to make sure it is enabled

[Jose_49]

On 4/5/2017 at 8:31 AM, Anibal P said:

True, but is an important part of basic system maintenance, can't hurt to make sure it is enabled

Thanks! I ran all sort of maintenance:  Windows built-in and C-Cleaner. I don't know if there was something inside a process that was unseen to the eye's of Malwarebytes or a bogus driver.