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I was working on a company computer, trying to figure out what was wrong with it, why it was running so slow. I started running a chkdsk Friday afternoon, and it took almost an hour just to get to 2% on the first step. So I start thinking, maybe it was a faulty hard drive.
When I came to work this morning to look at the computer, the chkdsk had been finished and I was at the normal logon screen for Windows 7. I clicked on "switch user" and logged on as administrator. It took the PC at least 5 minutes to get from the "Welcome" screen to where I could see the desktop.
The computer is brand new, only a couple months old. On a side note, I did bump up the size for the pagefile and once I restarted the computer, it started running faster.
EDIT: @Mortie -> Here is the screenshot you were looking for on the HDTune
The machine has 2GB of RAM. The person that uses the computer really doesn't do that much on it either. Uses Outlook, Excel, and a couple other 3rd party applications. A lot of printing too, I'm sure. When I searched the computer for the pagefile itself, it didn't even find it. – C-dizzle – 2012-06-11T17:19:31.790
If you want to take a look at the pagefile settings, launch sysdm.cpl from the Start menu search or run box (Win+R) and navigate to Advanced > Settings > Advanced > Change. Make sure it's enabled. I suggest you let Windows determine its size. – Tyler Faile – 2012-06-11T17:22:35.810
It originally was set to let Windows determine, but I manually changed it just to see if it would help any. Was it maybe just coincidence that after I changed it and restarted the computer started running faster? – C-dizzle – 2012-06-11T17:23:44.873
Not a coincidence, but it should not make a huge difference either. I have had old laptops wit old slow 20GB IDE drives which used. I removed swap, defragmented the drive and creates a new now unfragmented swap file. My test task went down from 70 seconds to 65 seconds. several tests gave similar results. Measurable, but not resulting is a huge difference. – Hennes – 2012-06-11T17:27:47.347
2@C-dizzle - 2GB of RAM is a bit small for Windows 7. RAM is cheap these days; load that thing up! – Shinrai – 2012-06-11T17:28:04.773
1@Shinrai - Pointless upgrades are bad. I never have problem with Windows 7 with only 2GB. – Ramhound – 2012-06-11T19:24:25.330