Vista System Restore plus slowdown

Hi folks,

I'm running Home Premium n an HP laptop and up until yesterday
everything was just fine. I also have SP1 and that went well.

Yesterday, the system kept freezing or operating extremely slow and for
the life of me I had no clue of what was going on. I had to press and
hold the power button to shut down so I could reboot. I could not open
Control Panel at all - the hour glass just kept swirling but nothing
else would happen.

After the reboot the system displayed the same behavior and at this
point I noticed that it wasn't really locked up but in fact operating so
slow that it appeared that way.

After no luck with the obvious I checked the startup group - nothing
there, I cleared out the temp folders and files which seemed to help.

I decided to simply use a system restore to a previous state of a few
days ago. The first time I did this, I got a message that Windows was
NOT successful with the restore.

I tried an earlier restore point and got the same notification that the
restore was NOT successful but it appeared that it was. A program I
installed after that particular restore point was gone and the system
seemed to be better - that is my email and browser loaded quickly and
ran as if all was OK.

1 - Has anyone run into this problem with such a gross slowdown
(hourglass going on and on)

2 - What is going on with System Restore? I've used it in the past a few
times on my XP machine but this was the first time using the Vista laptop.

Any advice or comments are appreciated.

Thanks, Fred

PS - I haven't had access to the laptop yet today but will soon turn it
on and hope for the best - I will update if the slowdown continues.

Frank
Thu May 08 15:47:23 PDT 2008

"Fred S *****" <"Fred S"@anonymous.com> wrote in message
news:eE4EAfUsIHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm running Home Premium n an HP laptop and up until yesterday everything
> was just fine. I also have SP1 and that went well.
>
> Yesterday, the system kept freezing or operating extremely slow and for
> the life of me I had no clue of what was going on. I had to press and hold
> the power button to shut down so I could reboot. I could not open Control
> Panel at all - the hour glass just kept swirling but nothing else would
> happen.
>
> After the reboot the system displayed the same behavior and at this point
> I noticed that it wasn't really locked up but in fact operating so slow
> that it appeared that way.
>
> After no luck with the obvious I checked the startup group - nothing
> there, I cleared out the temp folders and files which seemed to help.
>
> I decided to simply use a system restore to a previous state of a few days
> ago. The first time I did this, I got a message that Windows was NOT
> successful with the restore.
>
> I tried an earlier restore point and got the same notification that the
> restore was NOT successful but it appeared that it was. A program I
> installed after that particular restore point was gone and the system
> seemed to be better - that is my email and browser loaded quickly and ran
> as if all was OK.
>
> 1 - Has anyone run into this problem with such a gross slowdown (hourglass
> going on and on)
>
> 2 - What is going on with System Restore? I've used it in the past a few
> times on my XP machine but this was the first time using the Vista laptop.
>
> Any advice or comments are appreciated.
>
> Thanks, Fred
>
> PS - I haven't had access to the laptop yet today but will soon turn it on
> and hope for the best - I will update if the slowdown continues.

Any Norton products on the machine?

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
Reply in Newsgroup, not by email.

Fred
Thu May 08 17:22:09 PDT 2008



Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM wrote:
> "Fred S *****" <"Fred S"@anonymous.com> wrote in message
> news:eE4EAfUsIHA.4492@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I'm running Home Premium n an HP laptop and up until yesterday everything
>> was just fine. I also have SP1 and that went well.
>>
>> Yesterday, the system kept freezing or operating extremely slow and for
>> the life of me I had no clue of what was going on. I had to press and hold
>> the power button to shut down so I could reboot. I could not open Control
>> Panel at all - the hour glass just kept swirling but nothing else would
>> happen.
>>
>> After the reboot the system displayed the same behavior and at this point
>> I noticed that it wasn't really locked up but in fact operating so slow
>> that it appeared that way.
>>
>> After no luck with the obvious I checked the startup group - nothing
>> there, I cleared out the temp folders and files which seemed to help.
>>
>> I decided to simply use a system restore to a previous state of a few days
>> ago. The first time I did this, I got a message that Windows was NOT
>> successful with the restore.
>>
>> I tried an earlier restore point and got the same notification that the
>> restore was NOT successful but it appeared that it was. A program I
>> installed after that particular restore point was gone and the system
>> seemed to be better - that is my email and browser loaded quickly and ran
>> as if all was OK.
>>
>> 1 - Has anyone run into this problem with such a gross slowdown (hourglass
>> going on and on)
>>
>> 2 - What is going on with System Restore? I've used it in the past a few
>> times on my XP machine but this was the first time using the Vista laptop.
>>
>> Any advice or comments are appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks, Fred
>>
>> PS - I haven't had access to the laptop yet today but will soon turn it on
>> and hope for the best - I will update if the slowdown continues.
>
> Any Norton products on the machine?
>
Hi Frank,

No, I learned a long time ago to keep Norton as far away from a computer.

As an update, I ran into another episode of slow or freeze behavior and
decided to try System Restore from Safe Mode. This time is worked.

My problems started yesterday, May 7th, so I went to a Restore Point set
by the system on 5/6 - as I said the SR DID complete successfully this time.

Something is still going on as I ran Irfanview to look at some pics of
my grandson and after about five or six pics, the damn thing just sat
there with the hourglass spinning.

This is driving me nuts - I don't know of any reason for this to happen,
I attempted a windows update for a Windows Defender update which did
not install. I'm afraid to even try that again at this point.

Right now, after another reboot, it appears to be OK but I'll bet that
this thing will lock up very soon. I have had this laptop since March
20th and it has worked flawlessly until last night.

I did make a couple of Image files and if this continues I'll restore my
system to my last image although I might have to install some software
all over again. Hopefully that will take care of this problem.

I really need to know what the heck is causing this so as to avoid it in
the future.

Fred

Frank
Fri May 09 02:35:10 PDT 2008

"Fred S *****" <"Fred S"@anonymous.com> wrote in message
news:u9lb5qWsIHA.5268@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>
> Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM wrote:
>
>> Any Norton products on the machine?
>
> No, I learned a long time ago to keep Norton as far away from a computer.
>
> As an update, I ran into another episode of slow or freeze behavior and
> decided to try System Restore from Safe Mode. This time is worked.
>
> My problems started yesterday, May 7th, so I went to a Restore Point set
> by the system on 5/6 - as I said the SR DID complete successfully this
> time.
>
> Something is still going on as I ran Irfanview to look at some pics of my
> grandson and after about five or six pics, the damn thing just sat there
> with the hourglass spinning.
>
> This is driving me nuts - I don't know of any reason for this to happen, I
> attempted a windows update for a Windows Defender update which did not
> install. I'm afraid to even try that again at this point.
>
> Right now, after another reboot, it appears to be OK but I'll bet that
> this thing will lock up very soon. I have had this laptop since March 20th
> and it has worked flawlessly until last night.
>
> I did make a couple of Image files and if this continues I'll restore my
> system to my last image although I might have to install some software all
> over again. Hopefully that will take care of this problem.
>
> I really need to know what the heck is causing this so as to avoid it in
> the future.


Empty your Temporary Internet Files and Temp folders. Set TIF down to 50 MB.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
Reply in Newsgroup, not by email.

Malke
Fri May 09 04:43:37 PDT 2008

Fred S ***** wrote:

> No, I learned a long time ago to keep Norton as far away from a computer.
>
> As an update, I ran into another episode of slow or freeze behavior and
> decided to try System Restore from Safe Mode. This time is worked.
>
> My problems started yesterday, May 7th, so I went to a Restore Point set
> by the system on 5/6 - as I said the SR DID complete successfully this
> time.
>
> Something is still going on as I ran Irfanview to look at some pics of
> my grandson and after about five or six pics, the damn thing just sat
> there with the hourglass spinning.
>
> This is driving me nuts - I don't know of any reason for this to happen,
> I attempted a windows update for a Windows Defender update which did
> not install. I'm afraid to even try that again at this point.
>
> Right now, after another reboot, it appears to be OK but I'll bet that
> this thing will lock up very soon. I have had this laptop since March
> 20th and it has worked flawlessly until last night.
>
> I did make a couple of Image files and if this continues I'll restore my
> system to my last image although I might have to install some software
> all over again. Hopefully that will take care of this problem.

Frank Saunders is helping you admirably and I hope he won't mind me popping
in with some additional advice. It's always important to Never Forget The
Hardware. People so often spend hours on software solutions (Windows) when
their hard drive is really dying or the like. Now, I'm not saying this is
your situation because I can't see your computer but from your description
of the symptoms a failing hard drive or other hardware component (or
overheating, common on a laptop) could be the culprit. Start by seeing if
your drive is in PIO mode. MVP Hans-Georg Michna has an explanation here:
http://winhlp.com/?q=node/10

I don't know if his automated registry fix will work on Vista, but you can
follow his instructions and do this manually.

General hardware troubleshooting:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

Since you have a recent image, you could apply it and see if the same
behavior persists, which would point to faulty hardware. Or boot with a
Linux Live CD (Knoppix or Ubuntu) to see if the behavior is the same under
a different operating system.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

Azif
Fri May 09 05:39:03 PDT 2008



I'd just like to say that my Toshiba with Vista Home Premium did exactly the
same thing, it started running extremely slowly, yesterday. Rebooting didn't
help in fact twice in rebooting it said it couldn't reboot because other
programs were still running. I tried doing an update and it failed because it
said it was already updating. This seems to me like the system is running so
slowly it's bumping into itself.

Doing a virus check seemed to help temporarily and doing a defrag also
helped but in between the two and since then the system slowed down again.
I'll be interested to se what other solutions are proposed. Does the update
that I haven't managed to do yet offer a solution....
>

Rich
Fri May 09 09:08:21 PDT 2008

On Fri, 9 May 2008 05:39:03 -0700, Azif Loud <Azif
Loud@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>
>
>I'd just like to say that my Toshiba with Vista Home Premium did exactly the
>same thing, it started running extremely slowly, yesterday. Rebooting didn't
>help in fact twice in rebooting it said it couldn't reboot because other
>programs were still running. I tried doing an update and it failed because it
>said it was already updating. This seems to me like the system is running so
>slowly it's bumping into itself.
>
>Doing a virus check seemed to help temporarily and doing a defrag also
>helped but in between the two and since then the system slowed down again.
>I'll be interested to se what other solutions are proposed. Does the update
>that I haven't managed to do yet offer a solution....

I experienced a similar slowdown running Vista Home Premium on a
Toshiba Satellite A205-S4777 laptop after installing a Windows
Defender Definitions update which was automatically downloaded. To
recover, I had to power the system down and power back up in Safe Mode
and do a System Restore. This worked fine, but the damn update
notification for bew Windows Defender Definitions was still there.
After attempting to install this update several times, I experienced
the same slowdown.

I have since disabled Automatic Updates and Windows Defender and am
looking for a solution to this problem in this newsgroup.

AzifLoud
Mon May 12 03:11:01 PDT 2008



"Rich Bunevitch" wrote:

> I experienced a similar slowdown running Vista Home Premium on a
> Toshiba Satellite A205-S4777 laptop after installing a Windows
> Defender Definitions update which was automatically downloaded. To
> recover, I had to power the system down and power back up in Safe Mode
> and do a System Restore. This worked fine, but the damn update
> notification for bew Windows Defender Definitions was still there.
> After attempting to install this update several times, I experienced
> the same slowdown.
>
> I have since disabled Automatic Updates and Windows Defender and am
> looking for a solution to this problem in this newsgroup.
>
I did a System restore and everything worked fine for a day and then one of
the automatic updates happened and I'm back where I was. I think it might
have been a E-Trust Antivirus update. I think I'll try to disable the
automatic update on that and see if that helps.

>