Windows 10 intermittent lag

johnstac · 01 Jul 2018

I recently upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 and overall I'm very happy with it. The upgrade was very seamless and the computer seems to be running faster overall. There is one exception though. I have noticed that after startup and for HOURS afterwards, programs are extremely slow. The biggest problem is Excel which I use throughout the day. It opens fine but when I just try to click from cell to cell, it takes so long to respond! For some reason though, if I take my mouse cursor and quickly move it across the other two monitors and back, it completes the move from the one cell to the other. The same with typing. If I type in a cell, the numbers don't show up but if I move my cursor away and back, it completes. This behavior seems to be limited to programs because Chrome seems to work just fine. Yesterday, in desperation I went through task manager and disabled anything I could to see if it would help. It did not. It doesn't appear to be a resource problem because the CPU is at 1% or less and memory used was at most, 20%. I even tried giving Excel higher priority and that did nothing either. So I got to wondering if maybe because I was using Office 2010 that maybe I needed to upgrade. I went and laid down $150 for the 2016 version, brought it home and went to install it and..........my Excel 2010 version was working fine! I hadn't touched it at all! It doesn't appear to matter which Excel file I have open either. Even a blank document does the same thing. Microsoft Word doesn't seem to be affected though. I can type just fine in a blank document. I open CC Cleaner though and it responds very slow. Some programs run fine, others not. I opened iTunes and it required an update. I agreed to do the update and it would lag while the green bar filled. I had to move my mouse cursor again in order for it to keep updating. So weird. I even tried updating bios on video card, motherboard, etc. No difference.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated here. Thanks.

Edit: Just wanted to add one more description of the behavior. I was in Excel trying to get to options to attempt to disable hardware acceleration (hey, I'm desperate to try anything). When I click on, "Options" the outline of the window would come up but not the contents. I tried grabbing the top of the window and dragging it and it left a trail of windows behind. Kind of like what happens when there is a memory issue. I just wanted to point that out as another example of what we are talking about here.

Other changes I tried:

1. Turning off "Hey Cortana"

johnstac · 01 Jul 2018

I'm going to revise the title and not call it "intermittent". It appears to happen after restarting the computer and I'm not sure how long the slowness stays in place. I thought it was mostly isolated to Excel but in fact it seems to be affecting any program I use including Windows 10 itself. When I try to pull up a resources window or other Windows program feature, it lags badly. Particularly those programs that open in a window. I'm so frustrated right now because I don't see this as a memory or resource issue. I mean, I physically don't see anything tying up resources in the Resource Monitor. The one thing that is really odd is that the Chrome browser is completely unaffected. No slowness at all.

dalchina · 02 Jul 2018

Hi, given that you've upgraded from Win 7, I suggest that you try some elementary steps.

The underlying idea is you may have an incompatible program running or installed, and to simplify what's running.

a. Do a clean boot and retry the above.
b. Make sure any AV or security program you are running is the latest version
c. Use shellexview (free) to disable all shell extensions it reveals (it should hide MS ones by default- don't disable those).
Note that that program probably won't list all extensions - you could also try shellmenuview.
(Yes, these are context menu entries- I just had a strange experience with one with unexpected effects).

Note that there will probably be many other things starting automatically- to disable more, see Autoruns (free).

If none of that helps, try running Resplendence's LatencyMon (free) to check for DPC latency.

You might then consider your drivers- upgrading will have provided a new set of drivers. Some find older systems need an older version of a driver- typically a graphics driver- for compatibility.

johnstac · 06 Jul 2018

I thought I would report back with how I have fixed (worked around) the problem. I accidentally discovered the solution a couple of days ago. As I mentioned before, no matter how many times I reboot the computer, the problem persists and it's not just Excel. It's any standalone program aside from browsers. Here's the thing though. The other day I put the computer to sleep. I came back, woke the computer and amazingly, the lag problem is completely gone. So, whereas I normally shut down the computer every night, I have began treating it more like an IOS device and just put it to sleep more often instead of shutting it down. It has worked perfectly since. Unfortunately, I just spent $3200 on parts for the new rig but hey, it's been about 4-5 years anyway. It's about due.

Thanks for the assistance and I hope this thread helps someone some day.

dalchina · 06 Jul 2018

Mmm, that's not how it's supposed to be... you could try disabling Fast Startup.
Enable or Disable Fast User Switching in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials

and experiment with
Enable or Disable Fast Boot in UEFI Firmware Settings for Windows | Windows 10 Tutorials

Both are specific to restart.

Must be quite some lightning fast monster of a PC now!