Solved! New Ryzen 3-2200U laptop bogging under McAfee. Return it? (or just uninstall McAfee?)

shawnc

Commendable
Jul 29, 2016
5
0
1,510
It had McAffee installed and I removed it, and it's running ok now.

Main Question: if McAffee was enough to make it freeze up, should I return this laptop?

New: HP 15z touch Ryzen 3-2200U 8GB, 1TB/5,400 HDD. Wifi speed 60Mbps measured.
The Ryzen borrows 1GB of the system RAM for graphics processing. I always overuse system resources, and would prefer i5, but it's $150 more. This system cost me $440 which is not bad.

Is there a way to speed test a system without downloading .exe?

You can reply based on the above info. More details below. Thx.

Before removing McAffee it was running decently, but sometimes lagging on youtube and overall not too snappy when there were 15 browser tabs open or so, and no ADBLOCK. It was sometimes showing still screen video frames while the sound continued, showing a new, different frame every 30 secs or so. I've never had another laptop do that.

Then today it started freezing with just a few dynamic browser tabs open, system resources at only 20% to 50% usage max (CPU,RAM,DISK). Browser unresponsive for minutes at a time, text entry and everything bogging. So I uninstalled McAfee.

That seemed to fix it right away, but why was it fine for a week and then suddenly acting up when I did not activate or download any programs, I'm trial running it without modifying.

Now without McAfee it's playing 3 simultaneous 1080p videos, 14 other browser tabs, 3 of them dynamic (changing data). I am still able to check and compose email and use other functions. Resources are fluctuating around 60% to 100%. (All identical video, but I don't think it matters)

Does this sound like decent performance? Should I be concerned about it freezing while playing a single video before, or should I start my assessment all over without McAfee? The odd thing is my 8 year old i5-2410/16GB Win7 laptop can handle a 100 browser tabs, 8 spreadsheets, and run several programs and videos simultaneously, while it's benchmarks are 35% less than the Ryzen 3 2200U (the extra 8GB RAM very significant).

FWIW I do not like the feel of the HP 15z touch. The keys are too soft for my liking, and the frame not substantial enough. I am not a fan of plastic surfaces, but that's what you get for $500.
The IPS screen is good and nice smooth touch surface. The trackpad is also good, not jumpy.
I'm also trying a Dell 15-5000 which I like the feel of better, and better buttons, but the trackpad buttons are a bit jumpy, and the TN screen is sometimes annoying, and flat colors cannot compare to IPS.
Thanks.
 
Solution
The easiest way to go about it is to remove each piece of "bloatware" through either the apps management window, or through the Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs and Features.

You could reinstall Windows and the drivers, and not install anything else, but that's more involved and possibly more time consuming.

g-unit1111

Distinguished
Moderator
The first thing you should do whenever you buy a new laptop is remove the included software - most of it is junkware / bloatware / adware and that can and will slow down your system. The fact that your system is performing better *AFTER* removing the McAffee software says more about the software than it does about the system.

But just because the included software is garbage that doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the system is.
 

shawnc

Commendable
Jul 29, 2016
5
0
1,510

FWIU you create a thumb drive copy of windows and reset computer, do a clean install? Or do you not reset, just manually delete all bloatware using ccleaner?

 

g-unit1111

Distinguished
Moderator


You should always make a backup of your system when you first get it, but delete all the bloatware except for the driver software.
 
The easiest way to go about it is to remove each piece of "bloatware" through either the apps management window, or through the Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs and Features.

You could reinstall Windows and the drivers, and not install anything else, but that's more involved and possibly more time consuming.
 
Solution