How to speed up Windows 8 on Samsung laptop?

I just bought a Samsung Series 5 notebook, with Windows 8, but I found it unreasonably slow to reboot and install updates.
Last night I waited for 1h30 for it to install 1 update and reboot, when I finally gave up and switched it off during reboot. Another thing that I noticed is that HD I/O is too high for a reboot - the HDD light doesn't turn off during the process, and the notebook gets really warm.
I tried to reboot it another day, without any updates to install, and after 4 hours it was still in the reboot screen. I had to do a hard reboot.

I found specially weird that even with a worse machine, Windows 7 would do both things (install updates AND reboot machine) faster.

Does anyone know a way to speed things up? Is there any configuration that I can make? Is this a Windows 8 bug?

Mauren

Posted 2013-01-18T10:18:24.853

Reputation: 549

how much memory does it have? – Keltari – 2013-01-18T10:21:13.680

1It has 8 GB RAM. – Mauren – 2013-01-18T10:25:06.233

3Try sfc /scanNow to see if there is any disk corruption. – Guy Thomas – 2013-01-18T10:25:32.353

Windows 8 on my my laptop with a normal HDD boots within a reasonable time (no slower than Windows 7); on my desktop with an SSD it boots in ~8 seconds. Sounds like a problem specific to your machine, rather than a wider Windows 8 issue. – EngineerBetter_DJ – 2013-01-18T10:27:26.720

Actually, the "normal" boot does occur on a reasonably time, about to 10~15 secs (at least I found it reasonably, since I don't have a SSD). The problem specifically occurs with reboot. – Mauren – 2013-01-18T10:30:07.423

1Is application startup also slow? To me this sounds like a hardware problem. I'd run sfc as suggested above, but also chkdsk and one or more benchmark utilities to see if your disk and computer performs as expected. – EventHorizon – 2013-01-18T10:46:29.703

@GuyThomas I will try this. – Mauren – 2013-01-18T10:46:31.853

@Dag no, application startup seems OK, but I will try sfc/chkdsk. – Mauren – 2013-01-18T10:47:13.380

If this is a new machine, take it back! – Dave – 2013-01-18T11:17:46.757

It's bit out of topic, but you might be interested in this: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=74

– Michał Šrajer – 2013-05-15T13:41:41.713

Answers

One of my friends also has a Samsung Windows 8 laptop, and disabling the Samsung service "IntelliMemory" service solved all of his issues.

Run services.msc
Locate "IntelliMemory"
Right Click -> Properties
Startup Type -> Disabled
Click "Stop"
Click "OK"
Reboot

IntelliMemory is a product which is installed by default on Samsung Windows 8 laptops. Samsung pre-loads IntelliMemory on most of their Windows computers, and it's the first thing to remove from a machine with an SSD drive. It can speed up slower conventional spinning hard disks by caching lots of stuff to RAM (memory), but when you have an SSD this isn't helpful and it tends to hog all the RAM. It can be safely removed from a system using an SSD drive.

LuckySpoon

Posted 2013-01-18T10:18:24.853

Reputation: 672

My machine has no SSD. Anyway, it did not speed up. Instead, just made it more and more slower due to swapping, since my RAM was always full and the operating system had no room to load processes. – Mauren – 2014-12-04T12:11:55.767

-1 Windows does not have such a service. It is installed by some third party software, which I would rather uninstall if it caused such p0rblems. – kinokijuf – 2013-01-19T09:11:32.370

5It's Samsung software, which comes pre-installed on his Samsung laptop. No need to downvote. Have updated my answer to match. – LuckySpoon – 2013-01-19T09:13:39.237

Still, I would rather uninstall it. – kinokijuf – 2013-01-19T09:16:44.557

Agreed, but I haven't tried it to provide it as an answer. I know that disabling the service works. Care to remove the downvote? – LuckySpoon – 2013-01-19T09:18:11.263

1A quick check indicates that it is made by the scientology company Condusiv (formerly known as Executive, of NT5 defrag infame). I would definitely uninstall it. – kinokijuf – 2013-01-19T09:32:33.550

As per my previous comment. I haven't had a chance to try this myself so not suggesting it in case it causes any issues. – LuckySpoon – 2013-01-19T09:33:40.117

Confirmed this was the problem for me as well – Jay Stevens – 2013-03-20T11:59:05.907

As suggested by others, this would seem to be a hardware fault. We are dealing with slow Windows 7 startup/shutdown in an enterprise setting at the moment but even we are only dealing with 8 minutes.

If it were a few minutes delay, I'd suggest a network issue but given the extreme time, I would think that it is a Hard Disk fault.

Julian Knight

Posted 2013-01-18T10:18:24.853

Reputation: 13 389

Run the program RUN.exe and then write MSCONFIG and Enter.
In the program go to the Services and click Hide all Microsoft services, now stop some services that you don't need, like AMD, Google Update, Hamachi, utilities from the manufacturer, Skype Updater.
Go to Task Manager, go to Startup and disable the unnecessary apps, for example: µTorrent, apps from the manufacturer, Skype, Java
Go to CCleaner, click Tools and go to Startup and disable apps from Windows, unnecessary, IE – all, Context menu – all, Scheduled Tasks – all
Restart the PC. This is to boot Windows 8 Faster.

giffy

Posted 2013-01-18T10:18:24.853

Reputation: 21

So, after doing some testing and doing what was suggested by the answers above, I also uninstalled the antivirus that shipped with my notebook (Norton Security), replacing with another software, and the issue seems to be gone. I will need to test what happens when new updates are installed, but for now it is rebooting properly and after disabling IntelliMemory service, it is also faster to shutdown and startup.

Thanks guys!

Mauren

Posted 2013-01-18T10:18:24.853

Reputation: 549

I removed Condusiv IntelliMemory from my new Samsung Notebook with Windows 8, which was very slow. Now it is so fast! Definetely solved my problem. I removed it by Control Panel of old interface.

flavio

Posted 2013-01-18T10:18:24.853

Reputation: 1