7 ms·

A bit off topic, but how does one use Windows 10 now without sacrificing on speed / resources? Recently purchased Lenovo E480 and E585, they all come with stock

by zenlot 7y ago

A bit off topic, but how does one use Windows 10 now without sacrificing on speed / resources? Recently purchased Lenovo E480 and E585, they all come with stock Windows 10, so before getting Linux in, I've tested it and it is basically unusable: disk/cpu usage is constantly jumping between 80-95%, fans are always turned on producing a lot of noise. Is this common to all laptops with Windows or just Lenovo?

dessant 7y ago
This is one of the best configuration scripts to make your Windows snappy, it's fully customizable and easy to use: https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script
- eltoozero 7y ago
  Also BlackViper: http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/ http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-viper...
koonsolo 7y ago
I switched back to Linux for this very reason. I have an Asus with Windows 10, and after a day of use, it becomes unbearably slow. It seems there is a lot of activity on the HD. I tried to diagnose this, but was never able to pinpoint a specific process that was slowing it down. The only solution was to restart it. Web browsing always had a huge delay. Linux on the other hand: startup is fast, use is fast, runs for months without any restart.
- majkinetor 7y ago
  You can fix windows. My media centar runs on 10 for months. Just disable updates (not easily done nowdays tho) and store service which is resource hog. Use some debloater to remove other stupid stuff. Then it will fly.
chipperyman573 7y ago
It might have just been doing windows updates. I've never had problems with it but I've read online that it can spike disk/cpu usage on some hardware configurations. If you just bought it, it might have been doing a major version upgrade (1809->1903 for example)
Frenchgeek 7y ago
My Acer aspire 7 is pretty useable... once you remember that Windows 10 is not truly done booting until it has checked for updates. (I also disabled everything I could too, including the bundled software)
- jhallenworld 7y ago
  Yeah, at one point they put in a lot of work to get the power on to Windows screen up time fast. But it's a scam.. Windows is not done booting until the hard drive drops below being pegged at 100%, which takes another 4 minutes.
  - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
    They also greatly increased boot speed with their hybrid shutdown method. Since Windows 8, when you tell the system to shut down, it actually just closes all your programs and then hibernates the kernel. Learned this the hard way when I was interning as a tester for an audio driver. Sometimes the driver would get into a bad state, and you could power cycle the system and the driver would still be a bad state. I created a batch file that would run the shutdown command with a flag to initiate a complete shutdown rather than a kernel hibernation, which was necessary to reset the state of the driver.
discreditable 7y ago
Download the drivers you need then do a clean install of Windows from Microsoft (not Lenovo) media. OEMs are bad about loading systems with garbage.
mceachen 7y ago
It's Windows, but Lenovo bloatware doesn't help. I've never really used Windows as a daily driver until I had to do cross-platform development for PhotoStructure[1]. My windows box is a recent XPS 15 with an m.2 SSD and core i7. My Mac is a 10 year old 17" MBP. My linux box is the cheapest core i5 I could get 2 years ago with an mSATA SSD (not m.2). Here's this morning's CI job timings (running the same 2K tests that exercise a reasonable mixture of CPU, process management, and disk I/O): Windows 10 (XPS 15): 2384 passing (2m) Done in 134.95s. Mac (10 year old MBP on 10.11): 2365 passing (2m) Done in 108.12s. Ubuntu (i5, LTS 18.04): 2365 passing (1m) Done in 74.16s. I'd suggest backing up your HD, making a USB stick with OEM Windows 10, and reinstalling just Windows (with no Lenovo bloatware): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000735/windows-10-reinstall https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000735/windows-10-... [1] https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/ https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  FYI reinstalling windows, even with a fresh OEM USB, does not guarantee it will be a fresh copy of windows if there is bloatware living on the BIOS https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenovo-busted-stealthily-installing-crapware-via-bios-fresh-windows-installs.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenov...
  - josteink 7y ago
    All vendors caught doing this has been shamed into rolling out a BIOS-update without the embedded crap ware. That said, this is really a Windows-feature being misused by OEMs and as a user I would be interested in having a way to disable it.
- Goz3rr 7y ago
  Just saying i5 or i7 is kind of meaningless, because it can be anything between a laptop dual core to a desktop octa core these days. What's in the 19 additional tests Windows is running? Is the Linux box a laptop as well? I'm personally having trouble believing the Core 2 Duo in your MBP outperforms a modern i7, even after potential Windows overhead.
romwell 7y ago
I have a Core 2 Duo desktop from 2008 with 3GB RAM which I almost never reboot manually running Windows 10, and I can't replicate your experience (the fans are always on, but it's a desktop). Granted, it has an SSD, so disk access is not slowing the machine down as much, but so do all the computers today.
24gttghh 7y ago
https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-10-decrapifier-1803-1809 https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-1... Bloatware, begone!
leeter 7y ago
Depends on a lot of things including bloatware and anti-virus in particular which can slow a machine to an absolute crawl. In theory windows can be faster than Linux in some cases; but usually isn't because most developers don't actually take advantage of those APIs and just do everything synchronously which is stupid slow on Windows. That said Linux is catching up super quick in terms of those sorts of things. EDIT: grammar
mrmuagi 7y ago
You basically need to de-bloat your computer from Lenovo's software and also window services (compatibility telemetry was a prime example of an offender). To help with the fan, try undervolting the CPU, my T470p got around -10 to -15mv iirc that helped with throttling and fan/heat a ton.
alkonaut 7y ago
Windows 10 will take a long time to update and initialize everything. If I power down my machine for a few weeks it will take a few hours for it to calm down when powered on again (I’m on the insider release cycle so there is almost always a major upgrade of some kind). Lenovo stuff doesn’t help, but I suspect things like store app upgrades (whoever needs those?), Windows updates, search indexing, AV scans.
Schlaefer 7y ago
E480 here. I didn't see unusual CPU/IO. Did you let it settle for a day? Noise: Lenovo doesn't enable Speed Shift and the firmware provided fan control is shit. If you want to fix it: Get a tool like tpfan and tweak the fans. Get ThrottleStop to enable Speed Shift and undervolt a bit. - Noise was pretty much fine on Linux out of the box. I just undervolted because why not.
DanBC 7y ago
Check disk indexing.
majkinetor 7y ago
https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10 https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10
BinaryIdiot 7y ago
I'm guessing bloatware? I haven't purchased a non-genuine Windows machine in at least a decade at this point so I've never run into this type of issue. The best way to get a Windows computer is either building it or buying it directly from Microsoft so you can get the genuine versions that have little to no bloatware.
int_19h 7y ago
For starters, do this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10startfresh https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10s...

by zenlot 7y ago

dessant 7y ago

This is one of the best configuration scripts to make your Windows snappy, it's fully customizable and easy to use: https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script

eltoozero 7y ago
Also BlackViper: http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/ http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-viper...

koonsolo 7y ago

I switched back to Linux for this very reason. I have an Asus with Windows 10, and after a day of use, it becomes unbearably slow. It seems there is a lot of activity on the HD. I tried to diagnose this, but was never able to pinpoint a specific process that was slowing it down. The only solution was to restart it. Web browsing always had a huge delay. Linux on the other hand: startup is fast, use is fast, runs for months without any restart.

majkinetor 7y ago
You can fix windows. My media centar runs on 10 for months. Just disable updates (not easily done nowdays tho) and store service which is resource hog. Use some debloater to remove other stupid stuff. Then it will fly.

chipperyman573 7y ago

It might have just been doing windows updates. I've never had problems with it but I've read online that it can spike disk/cpu usage on some hardware configurations. If you just bought it, it might have been doing a major version upgrade (1809->1903 for example)

Frenchgeek 7y ago

My Acer aspire 7 is pretty useable... once you remember that Windows 10 is not truly done booting until it has checked for updates. (I also disabled everything I could too, including the bundled software)

jhallenworld 7y ago
Yeah, at one point they put in a lot of work to get the power on to Windows screen up time fast. But it's a scam.. Windows is not done booting until the hard drive drops below being pegged at 100%, which takes another 4 minutes.
- Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
  They also greatly increased boot speed with their hybrid shutdown method. Since Windows 8, when you tell the system to shut down, it actually just closes all your programs and then hibernates the kernel. Learned this the hard way when I was interning as a tester for an audio driver. Sometimes the driver would get into a bad state, and you could power cycle the system and the driver would still be a bad state. I created a batch file that would run the shutdown command with a flag to initiate a complete shutdown rather than a kernel hibernation, which was necessary to reset the state of the driver.

discreditable 7y ago

Download the drivers you need then do a clean install of Windows from Microsoft (not Lenovo) media. OEMs are bad about loading systems with garbage.

mceachen 7y ago

It's Windows, but Lenovo bloatware doesn't help. I've never really used Windows as a daily driver until I had to do cross-platform development for PhotoStructure[1]. My windows box is a recent XPS 15 with an m.2 SSD and core i7. My Mac is a 10 year old 17" MBP. My linux box is the cheapest core i5 I could get 2 years ago with an mSATA SSD (not m.2). Here's this morning's CI job timings (running the same 2K tests that exercise a reasonable mixture of CPU, process management, and disk I/O): Windows 10 (XPS 15): 2384 passing (2m) Done in 134.95s. Mac (10 year old MBP on 10.11): 2365 passing (2m) Done in 108.12s. Ubuntu (i5, LTS 18.04): 2365 passing (1m) Done in 74.16s. I'd suggest backing up your HD, making a USB stick with OEM Windows 10, and reinstalling just Windows (with no Lenovo bloatware): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000735/windows-10-reinstall https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000735/windows-10-... [1] https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/ https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/

chipperyman573 7y ago
FYI reinstalling windows, even with a fresh OEM USB, does not guarantee it will be a fresh copy of windows if there is bloatware living on the BIOS https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenovo-busted-stealthily-installing-crapware-via-bios-fresh-windows-installs.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenov...
- josteink 7y ago
  All vendors caught doing this has been shamed into rolling out a BIOS-update without the embedded crap ware. That said, this is really a Windows-feature being misused by OEMs and as a user I would be interested in having a way to disable it.
Goz3rr 7y ago
Just saying i5 or i7 is kind of meaningless, because it can be anything between a laptop dual core to a desktop octa core these days. What's in the 19 additional tests Windows is running? Is the Linux box a laptop as well? I'm personally having trouble believing the Core 2 Duo in your MBP outperforms a modern i7, even after potential Windows overhead.

romwell 7y ago

I have a Core 2 Duo desktop from 2008 with 3GB RAM which I almost never reboot manually running Windows 10, and I can't replicate your experience (the fans are always on, but it's a desktop). Granted, it has an SSD, so disk access is not slowing the machine down as much, but so do all the computers today.

24gttghh 7y ago

https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-10-decrapifier-1803-1809 https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-1... Bloatware, begone!

leeter 7y ago

Depends on a lot of things including bloatware and anti-virus in particular which can slow a machine to an absolute crawl. In theory windows can be faster than Linux in some cases; but usually isn't because most developers don't actually take advantage of those APIs and just do everything synchronously which is stupid slow on Windows. That said Linux is catching up super quick in terms of those sorts of things. EDIT: grammar

mrmuagi 7y ago

You basically need to de-bloat your computer from Lenovo's software and also window services (compatibility telemetry was a prime example of an offender). To help with the fan, try undervolting the CPU, my T470p got around -10 to -15mv iirc that helped with throttling and fan/heat a ton.

alkonaut 7y ago

Windows 10 will take a long time to update and initialize everything. If I power down my machine for a few weeks it will take a few hours for it to calm down when powered on again (I’m on the insider release cycle so there is almost always a major upgrade of some kind). Lenovo stuff doesn’t help, but I suspect things like store app upgrades (whoever needs those?), Windows updates, search indexing, AV scans.

Schlaefer 7y ago

E480 here. I didn't see unusual CPU/IO. Did you let it settle for a day? Noise: Lenovo doesn't enable Speed Shift and the firmware provided fan control is shit. If you want to fix it: Get a tool like tpfan and tweak the fans. Get ThrottleStop to enable Speed Shift and undervolt a bit. - Noise was pretty much fine on Linux out of the box. I just undervolted because why not.

DanBC 7y ago

Check disk indexing.

majkinetor 7y ago

https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10 https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10

BinaryIdiot 7y ago

I'm guessing bloatware? I haven't purchased a non-genuine Windows machine in at least a decade at this point so I've never run into this type of issue. The best way to get a Windows computer is either building it or buying it directly from Microsoft so you can get the genuine versions that have little to no bloatware.

int_19h 7y ago

For starters, do this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10startfresh https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10s...