HELP please - X220 slow response

[nickichino]

Hi,

Firstly sorry if this question has already been answered somewhere in this forum but I have not found it even after searching here and via google. I hope you can provide me with some help.

The problem that I'm having is a strange "slowness" when opening any program (ms office, adobe, chrome, etc). Sometimes I will get lag and freezes when browsing less than 5 chrome tabs. I have updated all my drivers and bios and everything else that I can update.

My specs are as follow: i5-2520M, 8gb ram, 128gb msata and 256gb M4 ssd, IPS screen, win 7 64 bit.

I have done some testing - benchmarks and just opening the same programs at the same time from a cold start to see which one opens first - to my previous T410s (i5-520M, 4gb ram, 128gb toshiba ssd, Intel GMA graphics) and late 2011 11" macbook air (128gb model) running bootcamp with Win7 installed.

Benchmark tests indicates that my X220 is much better than both the T410s and 11" MBA (numbers we over 40% better but I cannot remember exact figures).

However, when testing of opening programs and general usage, the X220 is much slower, freezes and lags on very basic stuff like browsing on chrome. I'm at a lost as to what's wrong because spec wise and benchmark wise the X220 is superior. I have changed all settings to maximum performance and did all my testing with the power plugged in.

I've never had any BSOD or problems with it except this nagging slowness and lags so I'm not sure if it's a hardware problem or not.
Software wise, I've tried re-installing win7 on it to test against the T410s (loads of program and os installed almost 2 years) but it still is almost 50% slower than the T410s at opening MS office programs like word and excel.

I'm at a total lost of what to do. Please help.

Thanks
Nick

[czatlantis]

is your HDD healthy? Any bad sectors etc? Check SMART.

[EOMtp]

Welcome to the forum!
Start Windows in "Safe Mode" and see if programs load as expected. If program start times seem normal in Safe Mode, then you have a process/driver which is "misbehaving" ... and then you can isolate that process/driver, terminate it and/or uninstall it, and eliminate the issue.

[nickichino]

Thanks for the welcome =)

My HDD is healthy, I've checked with SMART a few times and didn't have any bad sectors. I've actually tired using the M4 as main drive first, had the problems, checked SMART and all but didn't find any problems so my last guess was that it could be a Sata connection issue which is my I bought the msata ssd to test as a main OS drive but I'm still having the same slowness. Now I'm kind of thinking it's a VGA issue but my old Intel GMA can perform the same tasks much faster.

@ EOMtp thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it later after work and report back. Really hoping that it'll be the solution.

[dxps26]

I have the same specs in a T420 with Optimus (i5-2520/8gb/128+256gb dual SSD)

Try answering these questions>>>

0. did this behavior begin recently, or did it gradually come to this molasses-like state?
1. are you running an antivirus - not the silly Norton nonsense included with the system, but something relatively better, such as ESET? run a scan.
2. check what processes are running by opening task manager - anything out of the ordinary?
3. any unusual drive activity? data being constantly accessed while sitting idle??
4. disconnect from the internet using the hardware switch- i have a sneaking suspicion you may be infected with some malware that is phoning home.
5. is the fan on all the time at high speed??

I hope you burnt a set of recovery disks.