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10 common troubleshooting areas you should examine before you consider drastic steps such as reformatting and reimaging or buying new computers. (part-2)
6. Windows services
Many Windows services are enabled by default. A lot of these services, however, are not required for your machine to run properly. You should review the services running on your Windows XP/Vista/7 computer and disable those that you don't need.
One way to see which services are running is to use the Services applet found in the Administrative Tools menu. In Windows 7, click Start and type "Services" in the search box, then select Component Services. In the console's left pane, click Services (Local) to display the list of services, shown
Important information contained in the Services console includes the service Name, Status, and Startup Type. You can get more details on a service by double-clicking on it to bring up the service's Properties, shown
You can stop the service by clicking the Stop button. If you are sure that you don't need the service, click the down arrow in the Startup Type drop-down list box and set the service to Disabled. If you are not sure if you need the service, change the Startup Type to Manual. Then you'll have the option of manually starting the service if you find that you need it.
Another way of controlling which services start is using the msconfig utility. In Windows 7, click Start and in the search box, type msconfig. Click msconfig.exe.
Note that some secure Microsoft services cannot be disabled. These are considered essential for running the computer. For a list of some Windows 7 services you may be able to disable, see Disable unwanted services and speed up Windows 7.
7: Runaway processes
Runaway processes take up all of the processors' cycles. The usual suspects are badly written device drivers and legacy software installed on a newer operating system. You can identify a runaway process by looking at the process list in the Windows Task Manager. Any process that takes almost 100 percent of the processing time is likely a runaway process.
We see an exception to this rule, however, if we click the button to Show Processes From All Users. On a smoothly running system, the System Idle Process should be consuming the majority of the processor cycles most of the time. If any other process were to take up 98 percent of the processor cycles, you might have a runaway process.
If you do find a runaway process, you can right-click it and click the End Process command. You may need to stop some processes, such as runaway system services, from the Services console. If you can't stop the service using the console, you may need to reboot the system. Sometimes a hard reboot is required.
For more detailed information about running processes, check out Process Explorer 12.04, This is a handy little utility written by Mark Russinovich that includes powerful search capabilities.
8: Disk fragmentation
As files are added, deleted, and changed on a disk, the contents of the file can become spread across sectors located in disparate regions of the disk. This is file fragmentation. All Windows operating systems subsequent to Windows NT have built-in disk defragmentation tools, but there are also third -party programs available that give you more options.
If you have traditional hard disks, disk fragmentation can significantly slow down your machine. The disk heads must move back and forth while seeking all the fragments of a file. A common cause of disk fragmentation is a disk that is too full. You should keep 20 percent to 25 percent of your hard disk space free to minimize file fragmentation and to improve the defragmenter's ability to defrag the disk. So if a disk is too full, move some files off the drive and restart the defragmenter.
Note that SSDs work differently and can access any location on the drive in essentially the same amount of time. Thus, they don't need to be defragmented.
9: Background applications
Have you ever visited an end user's desktop and noticed a dozen icons in the system tray? Each icon represents a process running in either the foreground or background. Most of them are running in the background, so the users may not be aware that they are running 20+ applications at the same time.
This is due to applications starting up automatically in the background. You can find these programs in the Startup tab of the System Configuration utility. Uncheck the box to disable the program from starting at bootup.
10: File system issues and display options
Some file systems work better than others for large disk partitions. Windows 7 should always use the NTFS file system for best performance.
Cleaning up the file system will also help speed performance. You can use the Disk Cleanup tool to:
- Remove temporary Internet files.
- Remove downloaded program files (such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets).
- Empty the Recycle Bin.
- Remove Windows temporary files such as error reports.
- Remove optional Windows components that you don't use.
- Remove installed programs that you no longer use.
- Remove unused restore points and shadow copies from System Restore.
To run Disk Cleanup in Windows 7, click Start and type "Disk Cleanup" in the search box. Select the drive you want to clean up.
Another way to increase performance is by turning off some of the visual effects that make Windows 7 look cool, but use valuable system resources. In Control Panel, click the System applet and in the left pane, click Advanced System Settings. Under Performance, click the Settings button and then the Visual Effects tab. Here you can disable selected Aero effects or just click "Adjust for best performance," as shown below, which disables them all.
When troubleshooting a system slowdown, you should always look for potential hardware problems first. Then, investigate the common software problems. If you use a systematic troubleshooting plan, you should be able to improve the performance of most computers suffering from system slowdown.
