If you are facing performance issues like freezing quite often; or maybe a non responding program, and so on, then you can try a few of these suggested tips, that may help you resolve such issues.
Selective Startup:
Most of the time a Startup service may cause issues which affect the performance of the System. A clean boot can resolve and pin point which Service is causing the problem. To identify this, we can use the System Configuration Utility to find it.
Goes without saying, that its best to always create a system restore point first!
Go to Start and under search type in MSCONFIG and hit enter.
First in General Tab uncheck “Load Startup Items” then go to Services Tab.
Then check on “Hide all Microsoft services” and Click on “Disable all”
Click Apply and Restart the Computer.
Once the Computer restarts, see if you have your issue resolved. If so, go back to MSCONFIG and first go to Startup Tab and enable the first Startup item and reboot the System. You have to do the same procedure until you find which service or startup item is causing the System to crash.
I know it might take a while to find out which one is it but it’s not advisable to run the System in Selective Startup all the time. Because Selective Startup is not a fix; it’s a troubleshooting step to find the culprit that’s causing System inconsistency.
Trust me, most of the Performance related issues can be resolve by this step.
Updating Drivers:
An outdated Driver can cause the System to crash and go to non-responding at times. So it’s a good step to keep the device drivers up to date. You find the exact model of your device drivers and check the version and driver date you could use MSINFO32 file.
Go to Start and under search type in MSINFO32 and Hit enter.
This is how the MSINFO32 looks like then select each non-Microsoft devices and on Right side panel you’ll find the model of your device, driver date version etc. Once you find the driver name, date and version go to manufacture’s website go to appropriate section and download the driver and install it.
Don’t use Windows Update or any third party application to auto update the drivers because most of the time Windows update or any of these third party application won’t find the latest and greatest drivers which might cause the System to crash even cause Blue Screen.
Tip: I have seen lot of cases where a Display driver causing of lagging or performance related issues it’s best to update or reinstall the Display related drivers.
System Maintenance:
System maintenance is a crucial system while troubleshooting performance related problems.
Windows Update: Is critical to update your Operating System on a regular basis there will be lot of updates there would resolve performances issues and increase the system security. Don’t hesitate to run the update. If you have some errors while updating or if the update is failing run the Microsoft “System Update Readiness Tool”
Microsoft released the System Update Readiness Tool to resolve certain conditions that could cause installing updates and other software not to work. You do not have to manually run this tool. This tool is offered automatically through Windows Update to computers that have a condition that the tool could resolve.
Cleaning Junk Files: It may not look like a great step to resolve such issues but trust me there are lots of situations where this step used to do the trick. There is a build-in cleanup tool on Windows 7 that would help you removing the Temp files etc. but I would recommend a freeware called CCleaner.
This will removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.
You may or may not want to use the Registry cleaner portion of it or any registry cleaners. It won’t do any good to your OS rather it might even damage your system. The decision is ofcourse yours to take! Check out one of our posts for more information Do Registry Cleaners & Defragmenters really help? Or are they snake oil?
Virus Scanning: Most of the times Malware of Trojan infection can cause an unstable behavior to your operating System. Run a complete virus scan to make sure your Computer is clean. There are lots of freeware out there. I would recommend Microsoft Security Essentials it has very low foot print and less false positive. Then download the free versions of Malwarebytes or Emsisoft Anti-malware and run a complete scan in Safe Mode. If you find an infection and couldn’t remove it you could use our forum create a thread there our Security Analyst would be more than happy to assist you cleaning it up.
System Integrity Check: SFC /SCANNOW command (System File Checker) scans the integrity of all protected Windows 7 system files and replaces incorrect corrupted, changed, or damaged versions with the correct versions if possible.
- Go to Start and under search type in CMD then Right Click on it and click on Run as administrator.
- Then type in SFC /SCANNOW
- This article will help you analyze the SFC logs.
Hardware Diagnostic:
The next step I would recommend is to run Hardware scans to see if Hardware failure is causing the System to crash. First check your RAM follow our thread that would explain you the process Advanced Memory Diagnostic on Windows 7, with Memtest86+ then run a Hard Drive Diagnostic each manufacture would have their own diagnostic tools check this thread for the list HD Tools.
Last but not least use legit version of Windows. Illegal or torrent copy may look convenient but you’re putting your data security at risk and this may cause lot of issues to your Operating system.
If you have liked this post, you might want to check out some more, on topics like Performance, Troubleshoot.
