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I have a laptop, with 8GB of RAM and a Samsung 830 SSD with about 2/5th of free space out of its 256GB. Win7 64b. Laptop is a Toshiba T130.

In the other day I noticed that it took a long time to load a program, for example the python interpreter at the time the computer didn't have access to the home network.

In both cases the computer boots quickly. About 40 seconds.

Without internet opening the python interpreter, or notepad2.exe, or any program individually takes around 10 seconds. With internet connection (through WiFi) opening the same programs takes about 2 seconds. In both cases, it becomes SSD-instant-quick to open a program from a cold boot.

  • I don't have any network mapped drives.
  • I've tried with AV off (Avast antivirus) and same effect.
  • I've installed all MS updates.
  • I've run the Samsung SSD magician to "optimise" SSD and that didn't help.

I've googled and have found nothing of help. What could I do to determine & fix this issue?

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  • I would look to see if there's any network traffic when you launch the program. It could even be as simple as the program being signed and the signing key being checked to see if it has been revoked. Jul 2, 2013 at 10:19
  • Good idea David. I'll give that a go next time I cold-boot. Might be a few days. I'm currently sleeping my laptop away. Which method do you suggest to check for network traffic? I was going to user Resource Monitor.
    – Peter pete
    Jul 2, 2013 at 10:34
  • A 40 second boot is not "fast", I have a SATA II hdd traditional 7200 RPM hdd, that boots into Windows 8 in half the time. I would also through a process of elimination eliminate the problem is because of your startup programs.
    – Ramhound
    Jul 2, 2013 at 11:27
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    It's all the viruses trying to check in. Jul 2, 2013 at 12:00
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    Try using TCPView to monitor network traffic. Jul 2, 2013 at 12:47

2 Answers 2

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Seems like some program is trying to connect to Internet. To make sure this is the issue, and see exactly what program makes net requests, Process Monitor can help.

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  • Wow. Process monitor is awesome!
    – Peter pete
    Jul 2, 2013 at 23:28
  • Glad you like it. When i used to work in IT used it alot. Did you found the problem ? Jul 3, 2013 at 7:40
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Thanks to TCP view, I noted that Avast was opening a heaps of ports. Now, I realise I had said that I had tried it with the AV off in my original question. However, killing the AV this time fixed my problem.

So ... I don't know what I did the previous time where I thought AV was off. Maybe it was a different problem. Dunno.

Anyway, turns out that the current version of Avast will "helpfully" check all exes and dlls as they execute and when they load. It then caches a hash of the exe/dll in memory so that it doesn't have to check the exe/dll on second and onward loads of an application.

Grr.

Disabling the exe/dll check on load/execution once again reduced my fast application load times.

Though this doesn't explain why it only seemed slower when under no network connection, that might have inadvertently fixed itself with some win update between when I first noticed the problem and now but was being masked by the new Avast being annoying.

Thanks everyone for your help and for letting me know of those useful tools, Process Monitor and TCPView

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  • Remember to accept this if it solved your problem. I guess that the AV was checking something by connecting to a remote server so when there was no internet connection, it would try for a few seconds before giving up.
    – terdon
    Jul 18, 2013 at 23:31

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