Slower and slower Laptop Aspire E15 AMD A10 7360 with 20H2

Good morning, Folks,

I' m using Windows 10 Home, Version 20H2, OS Build 19042.1706, free upgrade from the original Win8.1 that this laptop came with 5 years ago.

I was wondering if other people' s laptops have been slowed down by version 20H2 as badly as it has mine.

Anything I do takes ages to start and load now, and this 1.9 Mhz Quadcore seems slower than the cheapest dual core Celeron!...and this even when it is not trying to download some forced update, when it is totally useless.

It was 18 hours to do the 20H2 upgrades in February, and 6 hours yesterday to finish them for 20H2, and it has messed up the keyboard as well. Perhaps I should uninstall it?

Then there is the new 21H2, and after 2 more hours yesterday it decided the installation had failed, so maybe it will be even slower if it works... terrible...

Should I block it with the Update Blocker Dalchina so kindly recommended to me some time ago?
His help was crucial, also with another AMD laptop we have here where the drivers were ruined by Win10 updates.

Or is it that the Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0 is bloatware, which should better be uninstalled?

Strangely enough, I have a 10 year old AMD A6 2.7 Mhz Quadcore tower, which runs on Win10 Home like a dream, so what could be happening to this Laptop transforming into a Snail?

This laptop has an AMD overclocking option. I've never dared to touch that, but maybe I should? ...say upto2.4 Mhz?

Any suggestions would be lovely, thank you very much in advance.

Cheers,
Van Allen

Hi,

I was wondering if other people' s laptops have been slowed down by version 20H2 as badly as it has mine.

- nope.. not that I've heard. This laptop is older than yours and is on 21H2 19044.1706- it's fine. No clean install in several years.

To consider:
a. How much free space do you have on C: ?
b. Check your disk- 3rd party program, then if ok run chkdsk C: /scan from an admin command prompt

It was 18 hours to do the 20H2

Sometimes upgrades do take a very long time.

Anything I do takes ages to start and load now

When your PC is nominally meant to be idle (e.g. about 3 mins after booting to the desktop, given you have a HDD, what activity does your task manager show?

Should be minimal...

Hi, dalchina,
It´s been 4 years since out last exchanges and your kind assistance!

Thanks very much for your reply. It is indeed a relief what you say about update durations, so that seems to be normal.

About an hour ago things slowly started getting faster. It must have still been installing the last 20H2 updates, probably trying to install 21H2, which failed. After it found no additional updates, I discovered and activated the Pause Updates for 7 Days option. This will probably let me breathe for a while!

I followed your instructions. Task Manager reports mainly Defender Antivirus, and some small, occasional System tasks.

> CPU usage fluctuates from 0% to 3%,
> Memory is at 53%, with 143.6 Mb used by Defender Antivirus.
> Disk Usage is 0.4%, fluctuating from 0% to occasional peaks at 10%.
> Free space on the laptop is 322 Gb, so that´s ample space.
> chkdsk reported no problems.

Incidentally, I saw the CPU clock is variable, between 1.9 Ghz and 3.2 Ghz, so this is a 1.9-3.2 Mhz Laptoop, not limited to 1.9 Ghz, so probably overclocking won´t be necessary or advisable.

Now remains the Keyboard fix after that the last 20H2 update mess-up last night, but I´ve seen that thread on this Forum.

Thanks again, and Cheers,
Van Allen

Remember to do the checks I suggested... and also check the data transfer rate achieved by your disk.

Sometimes disks reach 100% usage at very limited transfer rates, resulting in very restricted performance.

@Van Allen Belt

If I were you, I'd consider an SSD. You have a very slow hard drive in that laptop. (5400 rpm)
You can pick up a 500GB SSD for ~ $50
A 1TB SSD for ~ $75

These are all compatible...
Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | acer | aspire e5 | Aspire E5-551 | Crucial.com

That said, it shouldn't inconvenience you for typical usage, and if performance has got worse, something's amiss.

The greatest difference with a SSD is reduced boot time and backup times (i.e. disk intensive functions) in my experience.

Hi dalchina, Hi Ghot

Sounds like an excellent idea then!

I´d thought about it, but didn´t expect it to be the solution for the laptop, and didn´t know that the HDD was what was so slow.

No wonder my tower is so much faster! I put in a 50-dollar 450 GB SSD last Christmas, next to its 7200 RPM HDD slave.

OK! I´ll get my computer shop friend to put one in, as this Laptop is notoriously difficult for DIY jobs.

Thanks very much dalchina!
Cheers,
Van

Actually when I upgraded my ancient laptop to 21H2, it became much more responsive.
Defender can also drag you down significantly, try temporarily Adaware or WiseVector.

If you are going to install 21H2, run Windows Update Reset first. Then download ISO and run it from disk.

Reset Windows Update in Windows 10

Download Windows 10 ISO File

Thanks TairikuOkami,
So it is a good idea then to install 21H2. Good news that it could be more responsive afterwards.
I suppose a clean Win10 install is better than superimposed onto Win8.1, but it would involve reinstalling things again, and a couple of things I have on it will be difficult to find again.

Hi dalchina,
The laptop is in the computer shop now, to put in a 500 Gb SSD and clone the 500 Gb HDD onto it, and I asked for an extra 8Gb RAM, so the 2 slots in it will add up to 10 Gb RAM. ...unless of course the two present 2Gb Memory sticks are soldered onto the mobo. The extra RAM would boost the VMPlayer virtual Windows XP I have on it, and also some simulators and real time strategy games.

Question: Can I safely uninstall the Features Experience Pack 120.2212.41700.0 ? I find it rather annoying.
Update: Apparently it is not uninstallable because Microsoft is experimenting things for Windows10X, and one should simply ignore it.

Thanks for your ongoing attention and help!
Cheers,
Van

Just see how it is with the SSD. My guess with the HDD would be your disk transfer rate was restricted. There have been a number of such threads over the years.

Maybe you'll get lucky with the SSD.

Personally I see no noticeable difference in responsivness from build to build.