Slowness of Computers

Hey,

I've recently been encountering 'issues' of computers running slow around my workplace, while I've never seen this myself others seem to say computers are terribly slow during different times of the day and / or selected days of the week.

Now what I'm trying to do is to either prove them wrong or find out for myself does it really run slower and if so why?

What I basically need is something that would let me monitor the computers behavior other than the Event Viewer and try to locate the problem if it's hardware / software / network or related to any other system.

I find it hard to grasp how a Quad Core machine on around 2.4GHz with 4-8 gigs of memory can run slowly with just Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, Lotus notes 8.5.2, Office 2007 and Adobe Reader X with SCCM agent & McAfee agent running in the background. Computers are connected to a domain and group policies are applied.

The OS itself runs pretty much on 'oobe' settings, while this may not be the best optimization it shouldn't affect performance with just the above mentioned software.

Is there any basic optimization I've missed out on? Is there anything I can run to actually find out what is causing these mystical slowdowns at 2pm on a Friday afternoon?

Whenever I check the performance monitor in Win7 I'm yet to see values high enough to cause issues.

B.R
Wafx

First: a good resource -> Slow Computer/browser? Check Here First; It May Not Be Malware

Based on the cyclical nature of the slowdowns I would say that the sluggishness is likely due to uncontrolled applications and pre-scheduled events. Pre-scheduled events can include things like scheduled antivirus scans and system or application updates. Check running applications for auto-update features and check your scheduled tasks.

Ask your co-workers what they consider slow. In my experience, the word "slow" can mean completely different things depending on who you're talking to. Booting/running slow? Browsing/downloading is slow? Burning is slow?

When I have a client say that their computer is slow I ask them questions as to what aspect they find slow.

I did a job recently where the company complained about all their computers being slow.. turns out they had a guy on the network that was seeding 50+ torrents, slowing everybody's network speed.