Computers slow after not being used for a while

1

I've had an observation made over time, both with my PC refurbishing program and in personal experience. I've observed that PCs are slow when they boot up for the first time in months. This slowdown is completely gone after a few boots and an hour or two on. There is no indication of a memory issue.

It seems like every PC needs a "Warm Up" period before operating at full capacity anytime they haven't been used for a few months/years.

Would anyone be familiar with this phenomena? What is the mechanical cause of it?

PC4PBrainerd

Posted 2018-10-25T20:41:49.060

Reputation: 11

5The cause is probably long due updates being downloaded and installed. This is typical for Windows and done in the background. – None – 2018-10-25T21:02:11.873

1Going by this hypothesis, devices booted into an offline environment would not experience this slowdown. I'll look into this and let you know. – PC4PBrainerd – 2018-10-25T21:10:12.120

@PC4PBrainerd: That would mesh with my personal experience - my W8.1 laptop (connected to the Internet) experiences the sort of slowdown you're describing if it hasn't been used in a while, whereas my W7 desktop (completely isolated from everything except the VirtualBox VMs hosted thereon) does not. – Sean – 2018-10-31T21:06:36.397

Answers

4

After a period of inactivity there are several tasks that are likely to all run at once. They would normally run in a staggered fashion on a PC that is booted regularly, but they may have been set to "run on first boot after time/day has passed"

What this means is that you might see various tasks running at the same time rather than somewhat more randomly.

  • Disk scanning and optimisation
  • Windows updates
  • system restore point creation
  • backup software running
  • various other boot optimisation
  • app optimisation & compatibility update checks
  • virus scanner database update download and install
  • virus scanner system scans
  • and many more

They will all conspire to make a computer slow individually, but after a time without running some or more may run at the same time.

Mokubai

Posted 2018-10-25T20:41:49.060

Reputation: 64 434

Asked: 2018-10-25T20:41:49.060

Viewed: 1 379 times

Active: 2018-10-25T21:09:41.020