New laptop or re-install

[davide445]

I have my Lenovo X380 Yoga i5 8GB RAM since five years. I have upgraded the disk to a 1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus more than 1 year ago (the switch was not a re-install but a clone of the old ssd on the new one). Upgraded to Win 11 Pro when became available.

Since 1y I'm unable to use Ms Teams due is crashing/not recognizing the videocamera. Substituted with Zoom works fine.

Since a couple of months PowerPoint is more and more often becoming unresponsive, and in last couple of weeks have problems in showing up some of the images. I have tried deleting all the content of the Temp folder as suggested from Ms know base, resulting in the same slowingness, and no image snown. This is the real problem, even if I was wondering if it's a symptoms of something starting to break down.

In these years I have installed and removed hundreds of applications, even on external disks, also installed and uninstalled AMD and Nvidia GPU drivers due the usage of an eGPU.

Using Samsung support sw to check, the SSD is working fine.

I'm not a sysadmin and the external company supporting our hw is not able to find a solution. Wanted to ask if it's time looking for something new, or investing time in reinstalling Win and all the needed applications might solve the problem.

 

[Shmee]

Yeah, if you are able to, I would start with a fresh install, and go from there to see if the issue with the camera is resolved.

 

[In2Photos]

I'd say that 8GB of RAM is probably not helping things. But if you're willing to spend the time I'd try a fresh install. Don't load anything else until you see Teams working correctly.

 

[davide445]

Teams it's not a problem, I have substituted with Zoom that is working fine.

Real problem is PowerPoint, I'm using regularly and there is no real substitute for (tried Canva, I have no time learning it).

8GB RAM are not filled, normally I'm at 70%, even if I'm not sure how Win count this.

 

[Tech Junky]

8GB RAM

Min for Window should be 16GB just to give your system room to breathe and 32GB if you don't want stuff to crash.

As for performance though it's more of a concern how much space is free on the SSD.

The bigger question is what happened 1 year or so ago besides swapping the SSD?

 

[lantis3]

Searched the internet it seems X380's memory is not upgradable.

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/lenovo-thinkpad-x380-yoga

Agree that better do a fresh reinstall first. Or see if debloater helps. https://github.com/topics/windows-11-debloat

 

[crashtech]

It's too bad these kinds of machines don't include a RAM slot for upgradability. It's not like machines in this class are designed to be disposable. Other than that, the rig in the OP should still be very capable. I suppose a fresh install would certainly help, as well as being disciplined about how many apps are allowed to run concurrently.

 

[manly]

It's too bad these kinds of machines don't include a RAM slot for upgradability. It's not like machines in this class are designed to be disposable. Other than that, the rig in the OP should still be very capable. I suppose a fresh install would certainly help, as well as being disciplined about how many apps are allowed to run concurrently.

Apple is why we can't have nice things.

/s

 

[davide445]

The SSD is less than half full (just deleting all the content of Temp folder I saved a whopping 40GB more)

Yes no RAM upgrade is possible, for next laptop was looking at Framework 13 (but also the Minisforum V3 or the HP EliteBook 845 G10) or just getting one with 32GB.

The i5-8350U CPU it's a 4c/8t that's still capable in my opinion, the iGPU is the weakest part.

I will try looking using other programs like Canva or Zoho Show if there might be a problem specific for PowerPoint or that presentations (are not very big like 4-5 MB, maybe a problem is I'm regularly editing since years the same template, deleting and copying parts and slides from other presentations).

Sure registries in this laptop need to be a mess, need to find a way cleaning them. Before investing time in re-install everything I will try all the other options.

Getting a new shiny laptop is the fastest option, but I will still need to reinstall all the programs I'm using, and it's really not necessary so far performance wise, except for PPT.

 

[mikeymikec]

When PowerPoint becomes unresponsive, if given some time does it start responding again?

 

[davide445]

I didn't found a rule.

At the beginning I was thinking about some background update process happening, due after a reboot *sometimes* (not always) become snappy again, but seems the situation is worsening and remains almost always very slow.

But can happen the same presentation become snappy after a day. The fact didn't show up the images in the slides (but they appear fine in the miniatures) it's a new add to the problems.

Was thinking also at some virus, but didn't understand why only PowerPoint. I'm also using NOD32 antivirus since many years and is very good, also not opening strange websites.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ah sorry, I thought you meant that PowerPoint was intemittently having problems with freezing up (ie. PPT window becomes pale and the window title changes to 'not responding), as opposed to at times being more sluggish than other times.

Is there anything worthy of note in the Windows Event Viewer? Custom logs > administrative events is the easiest way to trawl for errors/warnings. Win10/11 like to whine a lot so even the healthiest install will have a lot of useless information in there. If you're not sure how to interpret the output then if you mention what event sources you're seeing in there and I'll ask about particular events you can double-click on for more information.

With regard to the PowerPoint problem, do you still have this sluggishness issue without any other programs/windows open? When you notice the sluggishness, what's the memory usage like at that point?

 

[davide445]

Very slow is meaning I click on a slide miniature on the left panel and the slide didn't show up (or did it maybe after minutes, if ever). Lately as written the few initial slide Im able to see are displayed without images.

With no other programs opened the situation is not different. Memory and CPU are not maxed (at least using Task Manager to monitor), like RAM at 70% and CPU below 50%

 

[mikeymikec]

I'd be really surprised if what appears to be a quad-core i5-8250U was max'd out by PowerPoint

Memory doesn't have to be saturated for you to start experiencing a performance drop-off. With a boot SSD it has to be higher than with a hard drive before it becomes obviously noticeable to all in my experience. I've diagnosed plenty of low memory + SSD situations for customers with only ~4GB RAM and for that amount of memory I expect the performance drop-off to become universally noticeable by say 95% memory usage. It would be useful to know what the figure is when PowerPoint becomes sluggish.

You mentioned an external graphics processor. If it is disconnected and the drivers for it are removed, does the PowerPoint problem still happen just the same?

 

[davide445]

Just to remember I have 8GB RAM. Novadays is becoming about below min, but still so far seems not tapped out in my case.

Will check better the usage profile with PPT open.

Regarding the eGPU, I used it rarely to perform 3D demos, but it's a while I didn't connect it anymore (unfortunately), so that I uninstalled also the drivers and SteamVR (was demoing VR applications also).

So sure eGPU has nothing to do with my PPT usage, I have signaled only to stress the point this laptop was used with many diffent uses cases and software (the reason why I carefully selected at the time a convertible with a good amount of RAM, good CPU and a Thunderbolt port, so to have max flexibility), probably each leaving a dent in Windows OS clean working status.

Just as example I booted it also with Linux installed in an external SSD attached on Thunderbolt port (in fact the SSD is stored inside the eGPU case, a Cooler Master EG200), again probably adding another layer of messing up with Grub in the startup process.

 

[mikeymikec]

A lot of people here have hang-ups about 8GB RAM but in my experience it highly depends on usage; most of my customers in fact are (or could) work perfectly well within 8GB RAM.

Some customers are even getting away with 4GB RAM on Win10/11 but I don't recommend that to anyone because to my knowledge there's no predicting when Windows's memory usage is suddenly going to bloat from say 1.7/2.5 to >3.8.

eGPU - so just confirming, not connected and drivers uninstalled at the time of these problems?

Teams and webcam - is it the webcam that's integrated into the laptop? My bet with Teams is that uninstalling it and then going after any metadata left behind by it would likely get rid of the problem. Another potential easy test which would be less destructive would be to create another user profile and test Teams with it.

 

[In2Photos]

My work laptop came with 16GB of RAM. I had no issues with performing any tasks with multiple programs open (I have 3 monitors connected), multiple video files playing, AutoCAD open, Outlook open, etc. most times I would see 11GB of RAM used at most. But Adobe Acrobat would freeze, get sluggish when trying to add a text box, or highlight something. It drove me nuts. I upgraded to 32GB and it has gone away. So only seeing 70% doesn't mean it's not a RAM issue. I also keep the i7 boost down because the fan noise is terrible when they start spinning up. But I never see more than 50% CPU either.

 

[davide445]

Tried now checking the Task Manager before opening the presentation and noticed there is a PowerPoint vebview using resources.

Killed the process and opened the presentation using the native app and seems back to snappy and showing all the images. CPU at 6% and RAM at 59% so not a problem.

Crossing fingers if continue working I'm saving a lot of time, and if this was the problem also other times I have discovered something useful.

New laptop choice maybe pushed back some time.

 

[Steltek]

Have you run a CHKDSK session to check for file system corruption in Windows and SFC /SCANNOW to check for system file corruption?

Either one can result in the types of problems that you are describing.

 

[davide445]

Not so far but is a good idea. Anyway seems the problem was confined to Ppt, now solved killing that strange Ppt web process.

 

[Torn Mind]

Virus
Corruption due to RAM, "subclinical" failure of storage drive(most likely case), or mobo part failing.

 

[igor_kavinski]

You can continue with your current "killing PPT web process" workaround or you could try installing the latest service pack for the version of Powerpoint you have.

I use Excel 2013 at work on a Core i5-2400. Works great except for hanging sometimes (with 16GB RAM so that's not the issue). Problem is that files created in newer versions may not be fully backwards compatible. I faced significant embarrassment when that stupid version gave errors on a sheet so had a Teams meeting with the person responsible for that sheet to show him the errors but the dang errors didn't pop up on my personal laptop with Libre Calc installed. Since then, I double check files in Libre Calc to be sure that it isn't an issue with the Excel version I have.