My W7 PC takes ages - maybe 10 minutes - to boot from cold. It's fairly
quick to display the desktop, but then faffs around for ages starting
background processes, during which time explicitly-started apps such as
Firefox don't display.

So I tend to put it into Sleep mode (Sleep, as opposed to Hibernate, which
isn't even listed as an option) at the end of each day, and then start it
from that state in the morning.

Normally it starts quickly from Sleep and is usable almost immediately. But
other times it takes ages before apps will run - Firefox might take a couple
of minutes to display an empty window, another minute to add the menu bar
and another minute to display the default web page (BBC News). During that
time, there is maybe 50% CPU activity (ie not hitting the end-stop at 100%)
and memory usage is normal, so the PC isn't busy doing some other task or
swapping memory to/from disk. However the disk light is solidly on, as if
something is really hammering the disk.

What could be causing Windows to be slow (only sometimes) to come out of
Sleep mode. As far as I know, the saved memory image isn't corrupted: I've
occasionally had very obvious messages to that effect and Windows then needs
to be started from cold; the times I'm talking about I don't get that, so it
*looks* as if the saved memory is OK.

If I leave the PC long enough, it can be used normally, responding as
expected to opening, closing and interacting with apps.

It's Win 7 Home Premium SP1, with 8 GB RAM and AMD Athlon II X4 630 CPU 2.8
GHz.

On Mon, 6 Feb 2023 10:36:20 -0000, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

>My W7 PC takes ages - maybe 10 minutes - to boot from cold. It's fairly
>quick to display the desktop, but then faffs around for ages starting
>background processes, during which time explicitly-started apps such as
>Firefox don't display.
>
>So I tend to put it into Sleep mode (Sleep, as opposed to Hibernate, which
>isn't even listed as an option) at the end of each day, and then start it
>from that state in the morning.
>
>Normally it starts quickly from Sleep and is usable almost immediately. But
>other times it takes ages before apps will run - Firefox might take a couple
>of minutes to display an empty window, another minute to add the menu bar
>and another minute to display the default web page (BBC News). During that
>time, there is maybe 50% CPU activity (ie not hitting the end-stop at 100%)
>and memory usage is normal, so the PC isn't busy doing some other task or
>swapping memory to/from disk. However the disk light is solidly on, as if
>something is really hammering the disk.
>
>What could be causing Windows to be slow (only sometimes) to come out of
>Sleep mode. As far as I know, the saved memory image isn't corrupted: I've
>occasionally had very obvious messages to that effect and Windows then needs
>to be started from cold; the times I'm talking about I don't get that, so it
>*looks* as if the saved memory is OK.
>
>If I leave the PC long enough, it can be used normally, responding as
>expected to opening, closing and interacting with apps.
>
>It's Win 7 Home Premium SP1, with 8 GB RAM and AMD Athlon II X4 630 CPU 2.8
>GHz.

Interesting. My Win-10-Pro system acts exactly the same. Being an
impatient type person, I power off and reboot (The normal Alt-F4 is
ignored when the delay happens). The machine reboots directly back to
where it was when it went to sleep, with all previously running
programs still running.

-dan z-

--
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On Mon, 6 Feb 2023 10:36:20 -0000, "NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

>My W7 PC takes ages - maybe 10 minutes - to boot from cold. It's fairly
>quick to display the desktop, but then faffs around for ages starting
>background processes, during which time explicitly-started apps such as
>Firefox don't display.

Check the background program that autostart. One of them is probably
causing the problem. Turn each one off and restart until you find the
one responsible.

On 2/6/2023 5:36 AM, NY wrote:
> My W7 PC takes ages - maybe 10 minutes - to boot from cold. It's fairly quick to display the desktop, but then faffs around for ages starting background processes, during which time explicitly-started apps such as Firefox don't display.
>
> So I tend to put it into Sleep mode (Sleep, as opposed to Hibernate, which isn't even listed as an option) at the end of each day, and then start it from that state in the morning.
>
> Normally it starts quickly from Sleep and is usable almost immediately. But other times it takes ages before apps will run - Firefox might take a couple of minutes to display an empty window, another minute to add the menu bar and another minute to display the default web page (BBC News). During that time, there is maybe 50% CPU activity (ie not hitting the end-stop at 100%) and memory usage is normal, so the PC isn't busy doing some other task or swapping memory to/from disk. However the disk light is solidly on, as if something is really hammering the disk.
>
> What could be causing Windows to be slow (only sometimes) to come out of Sleep mode. As far as I know, the saved memory image isn't corrupted: I've occasionally had very obvious messages to that effect and Windows then needs to be started from cold; the times I'm talking about I don't get that, so it *looks* as if the saved memory is OK.
>
> If I leave the PC long enough, it can be used normally, responding as expected to opening, closing and interacting with apps.
>
> It's Win 7 Home Premium SP1, with 8 GB RAM and AMD Athlon II X4 630 CPU 2.8 GHz.

I'm not positive that this has ever worked properly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_I%2FO_technologies#SuperFetch

On a fresh boot of Windows 7, I see applications take longer than
normal to launch, and yet there is no I/O going on at the time
to stop them.

I have used "testlimit64" to put memory pressure on the system.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/testlimit

testlimit64.exe -d 1 -c 8500

The value after the "c" is system-specific. You can request memory
the system can comfortably give. Then, you push the program a little
bit, so it says "waiting 5 seconds" as at that point, it has asked
the system to "squeeze" the applications, to give back memory. That
would include the low-priority superfetch segments. Since this is
launched from a user-level command prompt, you can press control-c
when it is waiting five seconds, and stop it. That ends the run for it.

Right after several testlimit runs, if I then double-click a program
icon on my desktop, it "behaves like a computer again".

The experiment doesn't prove anything, except to note that there
is something funky going on with memory, and Superfetch is the
only thing I can think of that might be involved.

On later systems, I have on occasion switched off Sysmain using
services.msc and got a little more performance while an update
is being applied. Again, nothing hints that this is necessary,
but it has become one more knob to twist (if my other laundry
list of things to try isn't working) while hurrying the
stupid updates along.

I've on more than one occasion, had the system go into a
"snooze-ful" state regarding a windows update. The machine has
plenty of horsepower, yet sometimes it just seems to have
assigned a wrong priority to something. It does not matter
what you give the fricken machine for hardware, the software
guys will screw it up.

Paul

"NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote in
news:trql78$31s7v$1@dont-email.me:

> My W7 PC takes ages - maybe 10 minutes - to boot from cold.

That seems insanely long.

> It's fairly quick to display the desktop, but then faffs
> around for ages starting background processes, during which

<SNIP>

> It's Win 7 Home Premium SP1, with 8 GB RAM and AMD Athlon
> II X4 630 CPU 2.8 GHz.

You may or may not have MS Edge installed on that system...

....but Edge seems to wreak havoc on one of the machines I have here, when it's set to
never close itself. One of it's settings is to keep it running on the background, even when
you close it. You think you X out of 'em all, and low and behold, you look in the processes
and there's 8 or 12 Edge processes still running.

....and it takes _FOREVER_ to wake up. With it set to actually close all processes, this
PC wakes from sleep normally again. I almost always close it out when leaving that PC.

YMMV.