Why is Win10 update 1803 so frickin slow? (Acer E5-553)

[ads295]

Hey all

I have an Acer E5-553-T4PT laptop into which I've put in a Toshiba Q300 Pro SSD. The laptop had lots of driver issues where I thought the AMD-provided drivers would gel with WIndows 10, but actually only the OE drivers worked. I used to get screen blackout issues and random program crashes, especially in memory intensive programs. The most irritating part was the lag: every button I press on Windows caused a split second lag that drives me nuts, especially when considering that the hardware is more than enough to support the OS. Even loading webpages with only Chrome open is a lot slower.

So I did what anyone would do and formatted my system. I'd use a system image that was created long ago, with the older display drivers and an older version of Windows. It ran flawlessly, and this time around even the updated OE drivers didn't cause issues. I looked around and my Windows Update was stuck; I re-ran the service and it updated to 1803, taking its time to do so. Now that damned lag is back and I don't know what to do. Any advice?

P. S. Go for Acer if you can, they were smart enough to put in dual 2GB DDR4 modules for Bristol Ridge rather than single channel as HP did when AT covered AMD hardware some time back.

 

[mikeymikec]

Your experience with Win10 is not ordinary. So are you seeing constantly high CPU usage after getting Windows Update to work, or what?

 

[ads295]

It's normal, I'd say. Spikes only when it's installing updates, running a scan, etc. Otherwise no issues with CPU usage.

 

[mikeymikec]

How's the memory usage (near 75%?), GPU usage and disk I/O? The lag you mention has to show up in some way.

 

[ads295]

Memory usage is currently at 66%. Disk and GPU usage are minimal. The issues did not occur before the 1803 update.
Earlier my CPU usage used to spike when loading pages or opening Task Manager. Battery life used to be worse when I used my PC. Now the CPU usage spikes are gone, replaced by doddery performance and better battery life. This is despite no changes in power profile settings.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ok, can you give an example of what runs slowly on your computer, what it was like before the update and then after?

 

[ads295]

Everything in general was much faster. Startup, opening Explorer, scrolling through web pages in Chrome, loading websites... Even opening the calculator used to be quicker. All of that slowed down after the update.

 

[mikeymikec]

Do you have any third party security software installed?

 

[ads295]

Yes - Avira Free and Spybot: Search and Destroy.

 

[mikeymikec]

Lose them both (use the removal tool on the Avira website to make sure it's completely gone), see if that helps. A malfunctioning security product could easily cause the kind of problems you're having.

 

[RLGL]

Only use windows defender multiple security products running at the same time can slow you down

 

[Ketchup]

Have you checked the space on your SSD? You may need to run Disk Cleanup, as Windows saves the old OS whenever you complete a major update.

Also, I have not been extremely happy with some of the drivers Windows 10 finds on its own. Check and see if there are newer drivers available, especially AMD.

 

[ads295]

Lose them both (use the removal tool on the Avira website to make sure it's completely gone), see if that helps. A malfunctioning security product could easily cause the kind of problems you're having.

But then why would these issues crop up only after installing the 1803 update? Both tools were installed before 1803 too.
Anyway, I uninstalled both and there is no change in system behaviour.

Only use windows defender multiple security products running at the same time can slow you down

When Avira was under use, Windows Defender stepped down and let Avira do its thing. Right now after uninstalling I'm seeing "Your virus and threat protection is managed by your organisation", even though this is my personal PC. I'm assuming even Defender is down right now but still the issues persist.

Have you checked the space on your SSD? You may need to run Disk Cleanup, as Windows saves the old OS whenever you complete a major update.

Also, I have not been extremely happy with some of the drivers Windows 10 finds on its own. Check and see if there are newer drivers available, especially AMD.

Earlier my disk usage was 54GB out of 118GB. I ran Disk Cleanup and it claimed to be able to remove 28GB as part of a previous Windows installation, and 293MB as part of installation logs. Right now usage is 37GB out of 118GB post-run, however the issue still persists.

I've had bad experiences with AMD drivers as I tried to put across in my previous posts - they always caused screen blackout issues and app crashes, so I stuck to 2017 drivers for over a year before getting a newer version from Acer's website (had to choose "Local driver" during installation because Acer's driver is inevitably older than AMD's own drivers). That is the one currently under use, and I had installed it before updating to W10 1803 - no issues.

 

[Tirthankar Bose]

You may give a read to this article:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-feature-updates-painfully-slow-relief-is-in-sight/
it can help you out

 

[mikeymikec]

But then why would these issues crop up only after installing the 1803 update? Both tools were installed before 1803 too.
Anyway, I uninstalled both and there is no change in system behaviour.

Because updates change things? I'm seeing a customer soon because 1803 allegedly won't install because they have ZoneAlarm installed.

Earlier my disk usage was 54GB out of 118GB. I ran Disk Cleanup and it claimed to be able to remove 28GB as part of a previous Windows installation, and 293MB as part of installation logs. Right now usage is 37GB out of 118GB post-run, however the issue still persists.

I've had bad experiences with AMD drivers as I tried to put across in my previous posts - they always caused screen blackout issues and app crashes, so I stuck to 2017 drivers for over a year before getting a newer version from Acer's website (had to choose "Local driver" during installation because Acer's driver is inevitably older than AMD's own drivers). That is the one currently under use, and I had installed it before updating to W10 1803 - no issues.

One customer's laptop (very low end AMD netbook CPU and graphics) went really slow on two occasions after Windows feature updates, as the feature update switched the graphics driver for one that performed badly. Check which driver you're using? Uninstalling it completely and disabling the Internet connection to see how the laptop performs using the basic driver would be an interesting check. Of course it's doing to perform worse than a properly performing driver, but is it performing better than the problem situation you're currently experiencing? If so, we're getting somewhere.

Another thing I'd check is whether the disk is having problems. Download a zip of CrystalDiskInfo:
https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/
If any of the readings are not OK or it says 'caution' that's worth knowing.

Also check the event viewer (eventvwr, comes with Windows), Windows logs > system log. Any warnings for disk/ntfs?

 

[ads295]

How does one completely uninstall their drivers? I remember following some instructions from Steam support when my games kept crashing but it didn't work - my driver kept getting installed automatically after uninstalling from Device Manager.

CrystalDiskInfo has no NOK or caution warnings...

Event viewer too is clean. No events for Disk, some events for NTFS, but no errors for either.

I'm attaching a screenshot of the DxDiag window, display adaptor properties and the filename of the Acer driver archive - just to confirm if it's what you're looking for.

 

[mikeymikec]

How does one completely uninstall their drivers? I remember following some instructions from Steam support when my games kept crashing but it didn't work - my driver kept getting installed automatically after uninstalling from Device Manager.

CrystalDiskInfo has no NOK or caution warnings...

Event viewer too is clean. No events for Disk, some events for NTFS, but no errors for either.

I'm attaching a screenshot of the DxDiag window, display adaptor properties and the filename of the Acer driver archive - just to confirm if it's what you're looking for.

If I wanted to completely remove a display driver (provided it's not built into that version of Windows) on Win10, I would start by disabling the Internet connection on that computer, look for the drive in Programs & Features and remove it. If the driver isn't listed in Programs & Features, or you've already uninstalled it from there then rebooted as required, I'd then go into Device Manager, go into the 'Display adapters' category, right-click on the driver, Properties, 'Uninstall device', tick the box that says something like 'completely remove it', reboot when it's finished.

After that reboot, I'd expect that either the system is operating on the basic display driver (verifiable as something like 'Microsoft Basic Display Adapter' in Device Manager), or one that's built in to that version of Windows 10. Test with that configuration. If it still works very slowly, I'd then install a new display driver while keeping the Internet connection disabled the entire time. Re-enable it when testing has reached a conclusion or you feel it's absolutely necessary to test with a working Internet connection.

If there is a built-in driver for your hardware then you won't be able to remove it, but you should be able to 'update driver', manually pick a driver, go into the Microsoft section (or 'built in adapter types' IIRC or something similar), and pick the Microsoft basic display driver.

No disk/ntfs entries: The only ntfs entries I'd expect on a healthy system is that Windows will occasionally report that a quick check of the drive signifies it's healthy, but I wouldn't look for that as proof or take its absence as evidence to the contrary.

 

[RLGL]

Remove display drivers, Google DDU

 

[ads295]

It worked rather well... Laptop response has improved a lot. Temps have also gone up.
I wish I could run it without the AMD drivers but my touchpad isn't working... And the screen keeps blacking out sometimes.
So what do I do now? Re-install the drivers from Acer?

 

[mikeymikec]

So right now are you working on the basic driver? If so, then the next step is for you to find a driver for your AMD graphics that works properly. Goto www.amd.com, drivers + support, and what graphics hardware have you got (or APU)?

Touchpad: I've never heard of a touchpad being affected by graphics drivers or lack thereof. That's unrelated, I feel I can say with a fair bit of confidence

 

[ads295]

yes I was on the basic driver then.
I've been trying to explain since the first post that the stock AMD driver seems to be incomplete and causes crashes. Anyway, I installed the AMD driver and the lag was back. And my touchpad was still dead. Below is a screenshot of the components that come with AMD's driver:

Then I installed the Acer driver and my touchpad is still dead and I don't know what to do... Below are the components that come with Acer's driver:

As far as I can understand, the "I2C driver" has to do with the touchpad because there was something called "Elan I2C filter driver" under "Mice and pointing devices" in Device Manager. This is not included in the stock AMD driver.

I uninstalled this Elan I2C filter driver in the hopes of getting my touchpad working again, and installed just the I2C driver by running the Acer AMD setup again, but "Elan I2C" does not show up under Device Manager now and I have to use a mouse.

Damn I miss WinXP...

 

[mikeymikec]

I stand corrected about the graphics drivers having anything to do with the touchpad problem My guess is that the laptop is an entirely AMD rig and when you went into Programs & Features, doing a full uninstall also took out other chipset bits and not just the graphics driver / software.

Try the ASUS site for the Elan driver and maybe anything vaguely I2C-ish? Better still, removing the AMD stuff you've just installed then downloading whatever ASUS recommends for Win10 on your laptop, mostly in the realm of touchpad/graphics/chipset.

 

[ads295]

I found a hybrid solution...
1. Installed older Acer OEM drivers
2. Clean installed newer AMD drivers
3. Installed touchpad drivers.

So now the touchpad is back online but that damned lag is still tempting me to throw this notebook away...

 

[mikeymikec]

Argh, I knew I was confusing this thread with another. ASUS/Acer.

Was the lag there with the older Acer graphics driver?

 

[ads295]

Lag was there after 1803, not before, with the older Acer driver.