Is your computer SLOW? It could be because of THIS!

[@sdspivey]

Why wouldn't the first thing to check would be to sort the processes by disk usage, that will let you know what is using the most and allow you to end it or remove if necessary.

[@seansretroverse9082]

This right here ^^^

[@rautamiekka]

He did after that one

[@michaelhawthorne8696]

I was thinking the same.....could save hours.......

[@garchamp9844]

I just fixed a colleague’s computer that had turned slow over time.. It sported a 2-core Skylake Celeron, 2 GB of RAM in single channel, and a 100% full SSD. We sat down and made a backup of her pictures (her first backup ever), and then proceeded to reinstall Windows, threw in another stick of RAM, ran a debloating script, and chose lightweight default programs for everything. The PC will now be serviceable until Windows 10 EOL, and she now uses Backblaze to store her photos. It amazes me that schools teach us ancient history, second foreign languages and musical theory, but doesn’t spend a minute to teach taxes, computer literacy and home repairs.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

100% agreed! And well done 👍

[@DomN5TCB]

​@@AskYourComputerGuyOr simple car repair!

[@Herandro_just_Herandro]

I usually check the hard drive/SSD and Windows for errors and delete temporary files or empty the recycle bin, but lately I've been troubleshooting slow computers by checking for CPU100 errors in Task Manager, under Windows 10 (no 100% disk usage problem). I've had 3 machines with this error in a row. Great video BTW.

[@brighterhoopes]

How do you check for CPU100 errors?

[@Herandro_just_Herandro]

@brighterhoopes Restart Windows 10, on the desktop screen press Ctrl+Alt+Del and Select "Task Manager". If you have 100% CPU usage and Windows is showing only the desktop screen and icons, you probably have a CPU100 error. Again, you just restarted Windows and entered the Task Manager.

[@brighterhoopes]

@@Herandro_just_Herandro Thanks

[@davinp]

One thing that can make your computer slow is if the C: drive is nearly full. If your c: drive is nearly full, then try cleaning up and removing unnecessary programs. However, this is not the reason disk usage would go to 100%

[@JeanLeite-d1e]

Cleaning up or removing programs won't have much if any impact. More times than not it's other things such as photos, backups, thumbnails etc.

[@zorka4098]

Wanted to thank you for this. My wife's laptop was really running slow and it turns out a simple chkdsk /f resolved the 100% disk usage problem. Now running the way it should. Sometimes one forgets about the old dos style commands.

[@gordon3178]

I'm a it technician and learnt from before windows when we had to use dos since 1979 and I have a Toshiba laptop as well and noticed there's other possibilities for the computer to run at 100% I use a software called piriform speccy which checks the devices installed on or in the pc/laptop I look at what's running and what could be causing it like hdd space,how much memory, the age of the laptop,clogged fan,hdd failure you could also click the start menu and in the search type msconfig run that click startup hide windows files and untick all the files from running during the start up,do a forced shutdown by holding the power button and press the power button to turn the pc on while holding f8 and restart windows with last known good configurations also I found out how recover windows without doing a full reinstall sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Speccy is good, agreed 👍

[@lucianminea]

Nice video, overall, but completely useless. First of, you've never clicked the HDD tab to see the process at the top, the one that kept using the drive. This is the first thing to check. Next you check the Details tab, to see the other usages of the same process. No need to run a lot of programs and scripts, there is something running, obviously. And you can alway check the Resource Monitor to see exactly yhe processes that use the resources. Simple, no ??

[@gcnggcng9373]

good technique.

[@cruisepix]

I find that Windows updates usually cause 100% disk usage especially when it can't install a certain update like when there isn't enough room for it in the partition for when those updates.

[@jwiricktoo]

One of the first things I do tho is ruling msconfig, hide all Microsoft products and uncheck anything that isn't necessary and reboot, most of the time that fixes the main issue, THEN Transcript (but that's me)

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Not a bad idea for sure. Most people don't know what's legitimate "Microsoft" or not. May be too advanced for novice users. But excellent idea for mid-level or knowledgeable folks 👍

[@seansretroverse9082]

I really am wondering why you never sorted by disk usage in task manager, by clicking on the column header. Sorting by clicking on the column header is very handy for finding processes that are hogging, CPU, GPU, RAM, or Disk usage. High drive usage can be things like an anti virus scan that has run amok, an online file backup process scanning for newer files to archive (such as Backblaze), a drive encrypter/ransomware process running (so don't fart around!), or page thrashing from high memory usage. The memory usage that can be seen here seems a bit high to me, for a fresh boot with nothing else running (well over 70% at several places in the video, so there could possibly be some page thrashing). Anyway, I just found the title "Is your computer SLOW? It could be because of THIS!" a little misleading because it is never figured out in this video what THIS is. Still, there's a lot of good repair utilities covered in this video, and I learned of a couple that I didn't know of before, such as Tron. Thanks for the video!

[@pfitz4881]

Kind of disappointed.. The root cause of the problem was never determined. A bit surprised you didn't check Tron for errors/logs.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Fair. At that point, I was just glad *it* was fixed. I'm sure I'll see it back in the shop....most people don't listen to advice and repeat the same issue-causing activities 🤷‍♂️

[@petertech210]

I think it's that windows installer 01:48

[@georgesackinger2002]

I usually follow your disk checking steps also. I never install utilities like you did because it actually could exasperate the problem more and they never... tell you what was causing the issue. I find customers just keep installing programs. In fact, I find more often than not they have installed programs such as multiple antivirus utilities (just to be safe). These directly conflict with each other as each action is passed to both Antivirus program to check greatly reducing the performance and you already had Avast installed. Second, as more and more programs are loaded, the swap file usage grow can grow. The default swap file size is dynamic but as it grows, everything slows down and disk usage increases. That is why uninstalling unnecessary programs often works for me. Lastly, malware is not my first concern. The customer had an antivirus installed and a great deal of your time was spent trying to find it. Of course it can happen but using utilities can also break important program links. I have broken programs by letting these utilities "fix" the problems. I cannot recommend inexperienced users using "fix" programs on important machines.

[@DouglasHeyen]

I’m noticing the task manager is becoming more and more broken. In win 11 I’m noticing high network bandwidth and disk usage is no longer being monitored correctly. I have to click performance tab to see actual usage. Too bad that tab doesn’t show which process is using the resources. I can only infer from the top usage in process tab what is the resource hog.

[@JasonWestaway]

Hey Scott, Thanks for the informative video. Always enjoy your channel. Take care

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

You bet! 👍

[@keithmonahan3788]

Excellent video as always, Scott. Well done !!! Thanks for the knowledge that you’ve explained here . And I believe based on the subject matter, that you were to the point, all things considering.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

I appreciate that!!! Thanks :)

[@keithmonahan3788]

@@AskYourComputerGuy You’re welcome. I worked as an on-air Radio personality my whole life. However I worked for NASA/GSFC for 20 years in the IT department, so I really realize about the subject matter that you were going over. Enjoy your weekend. Keith 👍🏻

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@keithmonahan3788 you too, Keith! 👍

[@ThomasLeo-o2m]

I did the /r , and my disk went down from 100% to 8%. Thanks this helps a lot.

[@jwiricktoo]

I ALWAYS run chkdsk /f /x /r /b yes I know some of those are redundant but oh well, it doesn't hurt and it's a whole 2-3 keystrokes so I don't have to run it again and again

[@RUAGoodNurse]

You are my favorite computer guy. I have learned so much from you. However please please please do a piece on how to buy a chromebook as my nephew has two kids 9 and 10 yrs and now we have to buy chromebooks but don't know what to look for?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Don't have a lot of demand for that on. Windows PC channel..but let me see what I can do 👍

[@RUAGoodNurse]

@@AskYourComputerGuy Awesome, since finding you I was able to take parts of broken notebooks in my house and build a computer for my 9 year old niece. However, Schools are pushing for chromebooks and the entire platform is so much improved: it's amazing. We need someone like you to take a deep dive especially since the hardware and understanding the specs is very unique to this type of product. Yes yes please do your deep dive: the new switch over to Chromebook Plus standard and google's move to combine android/chrome platform though both are linux there is a need demand for these and would love your input: especially since parents need these for their kids in schools

[@melpeshlakai8598]

instead of installing all kinds of different programs cluttering up your system, clear your temporary folders. then run msconfig. on the startup tab select open task manager. click the offending program. click disable in the lower right of the screen. restart your computer.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Fair. But as a novice user...what is "an offending program"? Most novice users won't know svchost.exe from acrobat.exe

[@RL.777]

Great video + many thanks!!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Glad you found it useful!

[@NGT_C7]

Many thanks, keep well always.

[@alice1374]

That disk usage, is very clearly because of windows updates in the background (no?) Windows updating in the background is known to do that. If there isn't any updates in the background in process, then it's something else but seeing the windows update service, brings me to believe it was windows updating in the background. There's also known services in services.msc via win key + r (or just search for services, it's the same thing) that can add to increased disk usage, for no benefit. But obviously, do your research beforehand before turning services off, best case scenario just set to manual for the ones you aren't sure of, that way when they're needed they will still activate.

[@horseathalt7308]

THIS! If you have constant issues with high or even 100% disk usage slowing and freezing your PC there are many services that can and should be turned off (unchecked) once I did that my PC was right back to the quick and speedy unit it was before.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@horseathalt7308 👍

[@alice1374]

@@horseathalt7308 The added benefit is, some of the services that cause the issues in the first place, also give a lot of data to microsoft. Data that they then sell off, to make a profit. Supposedly, even though with privacy laws, they're not supposed to. It's all "to improve our services" etc. Not only that, but on laptops for example, it can make battery life last longer with unnecessary services not running. I should also mention, some services that run are actually a security threat (but most of them Microsoft with recent versions of windows has disabled anyways, that wasn't the case some time back)

[@cmaples]

What did TRON actually find and or fix? Just curious.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

No clue. Didn't pay that close attention honestly, considering it was last resort before wiping. I could have watched the screen and found out, but TronScript can take 2 days to complete LOL

[@cmaples]

@@AskYourComputerGuy Thank you sir. I was just curious. :) Love the channel, keep up the good work and keep 'em coming.

[@mrjazzhandsgo4740]

What should you use for your computer and electrical devices, surge protectors or UPS?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Definitely UPS. I prefer APC

[@steveurbach3093]

@@AskYourComputerGuy👍 And models AVR if your voltage varies more than a few volts during the day.

[@wrbrower]

I'm surprised how many newer laptops come with 5400 RPM hard disk drives. SSDs make all the difference with these competes.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

True

[@zetectic7968]

Had a problem on a 3TB HDD ran chkdsk /r /f & it took 12 hours to scan drive & fix errors. Far too many icons on that desktop! They would have been slowing down the graphics & the load time. Task manager could have given more info to suggest process thrashing the disk.

[@jameswray2756]

Thanks for the info.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

You bet!

[@r3tr0n17]

Rule1: Uninstall Avast, McAffee & get ESET instead & Get SSD (preferably NvMe)

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Agreed.

[@gcnggcng9373]

this is good advice

[@2005Guyver02]

14:10 it also has a ton of useless cr4p running in the background!

[@gort5583]

There is actually a third reason and that is human perception of speed which can also have an effect.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Very true! Everything gets "slower" the more you use it. 100%

[@rhondae8222]

Great video. Thanks!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Thank you! Much appreciated! 👍

[@AbdiTheNarrator]

Oh my God, this windows crap (even on an SSD) is the reason why I ditched windows completely! Nothing was resolving the issue and Even reinstalling didn't help. Linux worked out for me after all.

[@ComputerGuyAndy]

Use ESET in place of Avast. Great basic malware rundown 😉

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Agreed. I was not aware that Eset had a free scanning tool back then

[@ComputerGuyAndy]

@@AskYourComputerGuy still do

[@crazysquirrel9425]

Every update bloats your computer more and more. Of course downloading a bunch of stuff slows it down too. Running a bunch of apps slows it down. If you reformatted and reinstalled, your computer's slowness should be fixed. If you did not have your computer physically cleaned, heat will build up and CPU will start slowing down to reduce heat. Slow CPU = slow computer. Antivirus and such can REALLY slow things down (Yeah Norton, I am referring to you). Switch to Linux and many of those problems go away (except for the dirt issue and too full of a hard drive).

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@dimitrismaster]

Sometimes its a hardware issue,especially if its on an ssd.Swapping the drive and cloning old to new fixes it.

[@yerachmielb1]

May I ask a silly question: is there any article form of this video? Basically a checklist?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Sorry, no. I only make videos. Haven't translate my content into blog form. Maybe one day!

[@robinpettit7827]

What is a good alternative to Avast for a boot scanner?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Eset is my AV of choice: www.jdoqocy.com/gi104wktqks79899C8DFH799EFEBDA

[@cyberwasp461]

I could kick myself as I forgot about Tron scirpt last week. My pc of 7 years was booting slow. It came with a boot flash drive the erases the partition s and installs windows, drivers and my account. However, upon boot I kept getting the BSOD recover which didn't work. Finally had a chance to boot into safe mode. After that, it started right up and has been fine ever since. Still trying to understand what happened.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Sometimes Windows surprises us and rights itself..just wish it would tell us what happened

[@hosermandeusl2468]

90% of my customer issues involve asking the them, "How often do you use this XYZ program?", and even then they don't really understand.

[@MrBubbagump58]

I just started going through the steps in this video. I looked at Task Manager, my disk activity is very low 0 - 10%, but my power usage blinks very high. Any idea what would cause this? I'm thinking more hardware issues.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Possibly! I'd run chkdsk /r or download Crystal Disk info to test the hard drive

[@brighterhoopes]

Thanks for the video. I ran it on two laptops with two very different results. The first was my main laptop and it corrected the 100% disc usage program after the chkdsk /r method. The second laptop was an old one running Windows 8.1. The chkdsk /r method fixed the 100%disc issue with no problem. Then I decided to upgrade to Windows 10. After that very long installation process the computer is super slow. In the task manager, there is no problem with Memory or disc usage but my CPU is running at 97-98%. I ran both chkdsk /f and chkdsk /r again after the Windows upgrade but that didn't help the CPU usage. Any suggestions?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

On the thumbnail issue, I'd start here: www.windowscentral.com/how-reset-thumbnail-cache-windows-10

[@guerillarage8461]

Run dism to repair the image directly before sfc.

[@stephenwilliams926]

Why do hackers always look like Guy Fawkes ?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

🤷‍♂️

[@arthurockwell3024]

It comes from the British graphic novel 'V for Vendetta' (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta)

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@arthurockwell3024 also an amazing movie adaptation as well!

[@DomN5TCB]

@@stephenwilliams926 Also, GF was involved in a plot to blow up Parliament to Kingdom Come!

[@hiker7-m4g]

2 ?s - doesn't chkdsk /r imply /f? And would Defender Offline do as well as Avast bootscan? Thanks!

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Yes and *probably* 👍

[@StumpysTravel]

Love watching your videos, if i cannot fix any cpu following your instructtions its time to hit it with a hammer, that does not work too. I going to Bali taking a all in one HP I5 running windows 7 10 years old i think. I want to donate the computer to a school over there for the kids, you tube, internet that type of thing. After wiping the computer hard drive clean would you have a sugestion on what operating system I should put on it or just bin it. The school would use window but im sure it won't be windows 11 compadible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Thanks for the support, and awesome of you to want to donate that pc! I would wipe it clean and reinstall the Windows version it originally came with. Here's how: How to WIPE your hard drive and DELETE viruses from your PC! kzbin.info/www/bejne/oH-Zq5yoYrKSjbs

[@2005Guyver02]

Job Seeker Pro Tip: DO NOT add your personal info (last name, phone number, address) on your CV/Resume when using indeed; they sell your data to spammers!

[@rojoroj9777]

100% cpu usage only you will find when running windows in HDD. background windows antimalware process creating this usage. U must have checked DISK usgae by sorting in taskmanager. Disable all startup apps except defender. That's solved. Main culprit of 100% disk usage is HDD - replace with SSD

[@ralphtaylor5328]

On my machine the very sluggish behaviour was down to Windows telemetry. Modified Windows hosts file to divert the telemetry calls. All different - now I could use it as normal

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Nice!

[@gumtree3050]

Does the TRON actually give any kind of report detailing the cause of the problem? I know after spending so many hours on it, I wouls want to know what it was.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

possibly? I’m sure there is a log file, probably in the instructions or FAQ👍

[@Reflect744]

Yes there are several log files Tron automatically creates once processes complete.

[@Reflect744]

Also depending on the situation you don't have to run the entire script you can choose which steps you want to run individually, there is a detailed text doc in the extracted folder that outlines each 7 steps of the entire script

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

@Reflect744 agreed. Thought that might be too advanced for novice users. Will do a step by step user-friendly walk-through at some point 👍

[@Reflect744]

@@AskYourComputerGuy Honestly mate I'm as novice as they come lol I was unaware Tron was a last resort I was jumping to that straight off the bat, realistically though I didn't and still don't really know even those basic Command prompts hence why I would jump straight into running Tron as that was the only thing I knew actually worked. I was so unsure of who to listen to on here as some contradict eachother. Thanks for another awesome video mate 👍

[@DomN5TCB]

Typewriter sounds? Many people today have never heard one!

[@sidon1979]

it was very distracting, I was unable to see what was going on with all the racket.

[@elitepctech]

1st thing I would check if the HDD was thrashing is to make sure the HDD is full.

[@kreelamoore5247]

I would never run a chkdsk before first checking the S.M.A.R.T. stats!!

[@DomN5TCB]

I saw the computer pirate wearing the Guy Fawkes mask. Was that you?

[@istvantorok4819]

And what about checking the event log?

[@pfitz4881]

This should be number 1

[@rascalwind]

Are you looking at small files on the drive? MFT table filling up would cause something similar. They don't end up using raw space on the drive so it may not appear that the space is used but it's got a bunch of small files that fill up the MFT as they are written directly.

[@D.von.N]

The biggest culprit: Microsoft and then some robust third party antivirus software. Had Norton previously, and had frequently 100% disk issue. Reinstalled Microsoft and never touched the third party antivirus ever since. Not having that issue now, or not noticing much of it, except on start up when the wm something launches, virtualisation. That sends fan crazy every effing time. Also upgraded RAM from 8 to 16GB. Now considering doubling that or going to the full limit of 64GB, to start using Linux as the main OS and Microsoft only in the virtual machine for some rare needs, so they both will have pleeeeenty of RAM each. Also will replace the 1TB HDD (just about 65% full) with Windows10 on for 4TB sata SSD as a storage and will use Linux on nvme, which this machine also has in itself already. My machine can take Win11, but I am showing a big fat middle finger to Microsoft, going fully Linux soon. And Microsoft can only thank themselves for my departure. Had enough of it.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Not an uncommon sentiment among a lot of my viewers 👍

[@OllyO-gt8pg]

i usually find the antimalware service hogs my memory nearly all the time.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@markvincenzo4672]

I certainly wouldn't have this guy work on my computer. And in the end he never states what the problem actually was.

[@MrTubeuser12]

Any update on the Linux front ?

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Working on it 👍

[@MrPDawes]

They get slower because Microsoft can't write software, or they're deliberately slowing their own software down to force you to upgrade. I can remember when Windows XP came out and I had an early P120. MS Word opened in less than a second. Word hasn't improved in those 24 years. Still got the same bugs and defects but takes several seconds to load on a PC with 50x the speed. There is no excuse. Word should not take up so much disk space for this shit and certainly not take more than 20mS to load, not 20seconds.

[@mjs28s]

Even if nothing bad is going on just Windows bloat over time destroys machines. I have had a number of machines (right before I turn them into Chrome or linux machines) that ran like an Indy car dragging a parachute and a boat anchor. So, I wipe them out and reinstall Windows and they run awesome! And then I let them update and then they run like that Indy car with the parachute and boat anchor action going on. Microsoft is also part of the problem. Virgin machines with Windows, great. Let them update and you might have made a mistake. Of course, I am talking about older machines here that should be fine but the MS bloat kills them. Turn them into Chromebooks or Linux laptops, and they are great again. Microsoft gets a minus 1.

[@pt8614]

can't run this because it notifies me the volume is in use by another process. also, it states that the file system is NTFS and cannot lock the current drive. Don't know what any of this means.

[@missingmajestery]

Mine said the same thing all (it should’ve asked if you want it to scan after the computer restarts Y/N I typed Y for yes) so all I did was restart my computer and while it reboots it asks if want to skip the scan or not - hope that helps!

[@PeterEdin]

My 10 year old laptop isn't really that slow except every single web browser is really slow to start, Edge, Chrome, Firefox.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

If high disk usage isn't your problem, I've made many other videos that can help you figure out why it's slow 👍

[@PeterEdin]

@AskYourComputerGuy Thank you 😃

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

You bet 👍

[@MrSiP777]

After running SFC /SCANNOW, disk % is now normal again...

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Excellent! Sometimes that's all it takes, which is why I outlined all the preliminary things one should check first 👍

[@Action-Editing-Pro]

Avast Collect data

[@buzzz241]

This did nothing! I have a Windows 10 machine with exactly the same problem. After couple of hours disk usage goes to normal automatically. 😊 Sorry, problem still not solved! 😢

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Did you run TronScript also?

[@buzzz241]

@ No. After couple hours my Win10 computer’s disk usage goes back to normal. Read somewhere on Internet from someone knowledgeable about Microsoft Windows that the problem could be bug in registry? Search MS support pages, I think that’s where I found it. I didn’t perform the fix it was fairly extensive!

[@glendekoker3682]

So much garbage maybe if we have a virtual folder that directs all files and runs them before install.

[@NealHartsChannel]

Ok did i miss something? You never said what the problem turned out to be.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Didn't really matter. When all the other tools didn't fix it, it was obviously something buried in Windows. Could have been a process, stuck port or 1000 other things. The focus of the video was that the last resort option, TronScript, fixed it. That's all most people care about. I equate it to not needing to know exactly what popped your tire. Fix the tire and move on 👍

[@AI.Musixia]

NOPE my pc is everytime fast because i use linux arch 😂😂😂

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

👍

[@stephen5224]

In the time you spent on the troubleshooting software, you could have installed Linux 5 times over for a 100% fix.

[@saganandroid4175]

Real computers, real OSes don't slow down over times.

[@OceanusHelios]

Or, you could just go to Linux and your computer will never slow down because you won't have a blue whale of an operating system crushing it and spending too much of your computer resources for the sake Microsoft's business model.

[@captmulch1]

It's probably getting slow because you're using Microsoft software ....

[@mikaelolle5703]

why so long video? Get to the point!

[@davidkay1386]

Why so crabby?

[@ComputerGuyAndy]

He's making many VALID points. Pay attention and learn something.

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

Because not everyone is an expert. Novice users sometimes enjoy learning the process, so they don't have to constantly ask others for help - that's what I do on my channel. Not to mention a 4 min video showing the solution doesn't benefit anyone really. This is an educational channel 👍

[@AskYourComputerGuy]

😂

[@ionamygdalon2263]

That was the rudest comment I have seen for a LONG TIME

[@FraterSorax]

I normally just use o.o shutup disable temeletry get rid off built in apps not needed run a chedisk do a selective startup defrag ifs machinal drive run dism and then see if it's faster.