Windows 10 - windows open slow, GUI draw slows down with heavy multitasking - but why?

3

Reproduction: The title is a bit mysterious, so to see what my issue looks like, run "Furmark", or "BOINC" (gpu accelerated) and then start opening Windows. Everything becomes slower, windows parts get drawn slowly, and so on.

  • Opening a new Explorer takes a lot longer.
  • You almost see the window get drawn slowly.

The question is: What can cause slow window/elements draw speed, and how can one track and solve this issue?

When does it happen: When I heavily multitask. When I boot the PC, it's snappy. Even if I put load on it, it does not slow. Only if I start to work on a project with 3-4 kind of loads open.

  • RAM usage is normal, around ~15GB used out of 24GB.
  • CPU is mostly idle / ramping up and down; i7 4770HQ with HT enabled.
  • Temperatures are fine, no throttling.
  • GPU1 and GPU2 are both idle, both receive very low load.
  • The integrated GPU has 128MB dedicated VRAM, 2GB shared, but it's ~10% filled.

Hardware:

  • Storage: 2x240GB SSD; 1x1TB 7200rpm 2,5 in bay; 1x2TB 7200rpm external USB3 dock; 1x1TB 7200rpm 2,5 in enclosure; (take that, mac users)
  • CPU: i7-4770HQ - stock values - HT enabled.
  • RAM: 2x4GB + 2x8GB DDR3.
  • Motherboard/model: ASUS G750JZ
  • GPUs: Intel HD 4600 (512MB ASUS TurboMaster) + Nvidia GTX880M (4GB vram)

OS: Windows 10 - 10.0.16299 Build 16299

Thought maybe it's Chrome and Vivaldi (and the other Chrome/Blink engine apps) that fill up the VRAM and then cause slowdown, but as I said Task Manager comes back without any proof. Games also run just fine while this happens, so there is no noticeable 3D performance loss coming out of the situation.

Apache

Posted 2017-12-03T21:28:28.623

Reputation: 14 755

Are you sure your GPUs are idle? This sounds entirely consistent with a GPU bottleneck. What are you using to measure GPU usage? – JMY1000 – 2017-12-04T03:03:27.803

@JMY1000 It's possible that it's the GPU, but what's a good way to test it? I tried GPU-Z and the new "Fall Creators Update Task Manager", but I cannot find anything in these programs. Like vram, load, everything looks normal. – Apache – 2017-12-05T09:26:35.787

Try using CAM or Open Hardware Monitor, they've done well in reporting GPU usage, and it's a good check to make sure it's not one funky app. GPU-Z should work though, if you're not seeing anything there, I'm not really sure. Perhaps it has something to do with your odd memory config? Are the sticks identical except for size?

– JMY1000 – 2017-12-05T09:31:12.060

look if disabling CFG fixes it

– magicandre1981 – 2017-12-05T17:07:56.067

@magicandre1981 Please post this as an answer as I think this indeed solves the problem. I don't think Microsoft has done enough testing of this feature with heavily enough multitasking. :/ – Apache – 2017-12-08T13:30:18.200

@Shiki ok, I posted it as answer. – magicandre1981 – 2017-12-08T15:36:33.147

Answers

4

Windows 10 Fall Creators updates enabled by default Control Flow Guard (CFG) to all applications. Disabling this CFG force can also improve performance. To do this open the Windows Defender Security Center, now select App and browser control and click on Exploit Protection settings

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and now set the value for CFG to Off by Default

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Now reboot and Windows 10 should be faster.

magicandre1981

Posted 2017-12-03T21:28:28.623

Reputation: 86 560

Asked: 2017-12-03T21:28:28.623

Viewed: 3 402 times

Active: 2017-12-08T15:36:11.037