Windows 10: System running super slow with Windows 10

I brought up this problem on the McAfee community boards, but it didn't seem to be a common problem. They are the ones who suggested uninstalling and reinstalling McAfee.

 

Thanks!

 

In my last post one week ago, I announced that I uninstalled McAfee AV and now I am only using Windows Defender for my AV. My system was running perfectly once again, and remained that way for a few days. But then once again I noticed that the System file was requiring more and more memory, driving my total memory use up to more than 90% of my 4.0 GB of memory available, resulting in constant swapping of data to the disk and slowing my system down once again to a crawl. Here is a screen shot right after booting up.



As you can see, the System file is killing my system. I no longer have the option of deleting a 3rd party AV. I have run anti-malware/spyware apps and removed all tracking cookies. I don't know what else to do. The Windows 10 System file is like a cancer. It just grows out of control and eats up all my resources. What can I do? Should I reinstall Windows 10 without losing my user-installed apps and my files, using the in-place upgrade? Can I go back to Windows 7, which was working perfectly well before I upgraded? Does anyone else have this issue?

 

Hi McAssey,

Did you ever find an answer, even on another site? I'm having the exact same issue except I am running a custom build PC with 16 GB DDR3 RAM. I've gone through the same procedures of uninstalling programs that may (or may not) be interfering with the performance with the same results. It's frustrating to say the least.

 

I did find what appears to be the solution. It seems I had a driver that had a "memory leak" (whatever that is). It was the driver for the touchpad on my laptop. I disabled that driver, since I don't use the touchpad anyway. Since then I haven't had any more problems.

 

Thanks for the update! I'll start checking my drivers because it sounds like an ideal reason for the slowdown.

 

Hi,

Can you check if you have "System" running in Taskman as well?

It's not running on any of my machines running the same OS as you do which is why I ask.

Cheers, *Wink

 

Hi, two observations:
1. The largest user of RAM listed by the task manager on mine (nominally 4Gb laptop) is "System and compressed memory" at 224Mb.
I don't see that on your screenshot at all. It's new in Win 10.

From one of the articles below, are you using an older version of Win 10? ('System' renamed to "System and compressed memory")
2. Why is Windows Defender working so hard? Look at its disk use.
I gave up on that almost immediately as it was using lots of CPU for no apparent reason - when I was struggling to get my CPU use down to below 10% after upgrading. (No such issue on a clean install, tho').

It's worth understanding a bit more about how RAM is managed in Win 10:
Why Is Windows 10 Process Using So Much RAM?
Memory Compression in Windows 10