I have an old laptop from man years ago. Its an i3 processor but during that time when i bought it, it was mainly i3s and i5s. I believe there were i7s but ppl said most ppl dont need it. I dont want to get another laptop because this laptop i have i like it a lot. Its 14.1 which is the perfect size… 15.6 laptops are way too bulky and 13.3 laptops are bit too small. Also the design of my laptop, its an asus is very nice and sleek looking. The laptop was pretty good speed when i bought it many years ago but as time goes on, obviously laptop slows down. I had formatted my laptop numerous times already due to either virus or b/c laptop got so slow, i just formatted it and saved all the stuff i need in my usb drive then copy it later on. Also i had thought a 256gb ssd drive last year which i thought was going to make my laptop much faster. It did seem to make it bit faster but that by so much. However my laptop always lags a lot especially when i check websites. im someone who likes to open like 10+ websites at once and dont wait for each to load, and just load them all at once by opening new windows.
Well my laptop now is much much slower and i do not have any intention of formatting my laptop. I also dont want another new laptop b/c i like this one a lot and if i do get one, i want an i7 laptop… issue with this is most of these laptops are 15.6 which is again way too bulky for me. I had searched for viruses and scan my computer many times. I also had tried to stop certain programs from starting up in the beginning but it doesnt seem to help that much. I had many years googled how to make my laptop faster etc and usually i do the stuff the recommend but it doesn’t seem to make it better.
Does anyone know how much it would cost to have someone examine my computer and make any adjustments/changes to my computer whether startup processes etc or whatever there is in my laptop to make it go faster and without them having to format my computer? Another question is if someone does format my computer… if they do this and then make all the adjustments to my computer in the beginning, shouldn’t that mean when i put my stuff back in or download stuff… computer wouldn’t be that slow? Reaosn why i ask this is when i format my computer each time throughout the years, i dont believe i formatted it correctly. By that i mean i didn’t wipe my hard drive fully. I basically just follow the instructions on how to format where it cleans my hard drive but doesnt really wipe it fully if you know what i mean? How much would this cost and how long would it take? I want my laptop to be where it doesn’t lag anymore. Again my laptop isn’t that old… its an i3 processor which isn’t like a pentium or anything like that where i would obviously need a new laptop.
Disclaimer: I am using a desktop with Opensuse Linux, and haven’t used Windows for years. I also have 355 tabs open at the moment.
However… outside of using more RAM there is very little one can do to increase speed. One can turn off some services, but it won’t address any underlying problem that much. Since you have a new hard disk, when you say ‘format’ do you mean a quick format or a low-level format ? And did you reinstall whatever operating system each time ? Plus all those dinky little service packs Windows likes so much ?
Frequent formatting, defragging and scanning for malware in itself adds an overload.
Your hard disk may be overfull. See if you can move stuff off into storage.
If you’re mainly using it for the web and writing, try out a linux live disk to see if linux works for you: for Windows and it’s services, look at Black Viper’s site.
Another possible cause of slowdown is overheating. CPUs will slow down to prevent damage from overheating. Your laptop has a fan, but it can get partially plugged with dust or animal fur if you have a pet. You can find instructions for opening your laptop case to where you can get to the fan to vacuum out any dust that may be there. On some models the fan is easier to get to than on others.
It could also be the fan itself which isn’t spinning fast enough. Verify that the fan sounds like it is running correctly.
It’s also important to have good airflow to the laptop, which having it directly on your lap can prevent. They sell inexpensive lap stands with fans that help as well. I have this “chill mat” they call it. It has USB powered fans, but even without the laptop mat plugged in, it allows air to get to the laptop. If you don’t want to buy a stand, even a thin flat piece of wood or something can keep your leg from blocking the airflow to the fan.
Back up the computer. Look for a faster/larger capacity hard drive and replace the existing one. MAX out the RAM the box can hold. Restore the backup and be on your way.
I did this to an old creaky Lenovo Thinkpad T400 running Windows XP. I replaced Windows XP with Ubuntu Linux. It’s like a new box. Zoom Zoom. Total cost was $160.00 US. Even if I re-installed Windows XP/7/8.X I’m sure performance would have been improved. More RAM, faster drive (based upon personal experience) generally improves performance, sometimes exceeding original performance.
clean up your hard drive.
Download Super antispyware (free) and run it, clearing out 10 jillion cookies with make you’re system run a lot faster.
Then consider a registry editor like Win ASO registry optimizer. The free version will let you clean 10 problems at a time. Might take you a couple of hours, but it does the same job as the paid version.
After you have all of that clean, defrag your hard drive.
You will be amazed at how much faster your system runs.
Why don’t you just take it into a shop and ask for a quote? This is the sort of thing that computer repair people do every day of the week. A couple of hours work at most I would have thought.
There are many factors determining how “fast” your computer is.
What do you mean by fast?
Low boot times?
Good responsiveness?
Programs load fast?
Websites load fast?
Animations are fast and smooth?
There are 6 mayor buttons to tweak:
1 RAM: if you want to switch between tasks fast, want to have 237 tabs open in your browser you need lots of RAM: get as much as your motherboard supports, or as much as your OS can handle.
– this will improve multitasking and how well your system copes with large files or larger applications
2 get a well organised (defragmented), fast (7200 rpm or better) disk or rather a SSD.
– this will improve your boot time and applications will load faster.
3 CPU: faster is better, more cores, for most applications, won’t show much improvement.
– this will shorten any calculations like (de)compressing video
4 GPU; a good (fast) GPU will make movement on your desktop more smooth and improve how video games look.
– especially important if you like to play games
5 internet connection: faster is better, videos on YouTube run smoother, webpages load faster.
– how “fast” web browsing is is largely dependant on this.
— a good wireless router can also improve your experience.
6 software: the more crap you load on your machine, the slower it gets. Boot time is largely dependent on how many services windows has to load.
– do some research and switch some of those services to “manual”.
Have 4gb ram. When i bought laptop many years ago, i was told anything more than that is useless.
I got a ssd mainly b/c i read its faster than a 7200 rpm hard drive so im confused why you say this?
Got i3 processor and from what i read, you cant reallly upgrade a processor on a laptop, u can on desktop i know.
My internet is cable internet and wireless router is very good. If i go on wifi on phone, its very fast. So this issue has nothing to do with my internet connection
Yes its the software that is either preinstalled when i reinstall windows 7 and the programs i download which adds those programs and apps into my laptop which i dont like that makes it much slower. Again everytime i reinstall windows, its much faster but after some time, when i have lot of programs and stuff installed, it will slow down eventually.
When i mean format… i mean i do a reinstall. Such as i insert my asus cd and then do the reinstallation. I know u are suppose to delete everything on laptop first to wipe everything away before you put the cd in to do the reinstall but the thing is i dont know how to do this. I went on forums where i look at the instructions and many times i couldnt do it b/c there were some steps that i looked at, i could not do it… didnt have the option and ppl on those forums were confused since i said i can’t do so and so and when i type cmd or something… it doesn’t do what its suppose to do.
So basically every time i reinstall windows 7 with the cd, it would wipe everything but you could still find the old programs i downloaded such as itunes etc in some folder. Does anyone know what i mean here? This was a while back when i check through files after reinstall and i found a folder and wondered… how come i have old files still here? So thats another reason why the laptop is slow b/c i dont know how to wipe everything off.
Ok if you phone is running fast on your wireless and the computer is slow on the wireless two things come to mind
You have a boat load of adware and tracking cookies that are following you internet browsing and each one of them phones home every time you try to go to a new website. This takes TIME. As I said before download superantispyware (free) and run it.
If things are still slow the wireless portion of your motherboard might be taking a dump. I had this happen to my laptop. Wireless was slow as hell, wired was zippy. Don’t freak out just go to someplace like newegg.com and order a wireless USB adaptor probably about $10. This fixed my wireless issues.
I luv it when people dismiss answers with a figurative reason.
You said it lags when you open 10 web tabs at once.
THAT IS an internet connection speed issue. VERY little to do with your computer.
Your phone doesn’t open the same websites; it gets routed to mobile versions of websites. They are smaller and cleaner so they do load faster.
Cable internet is notorious for not giving users the speed they advertise. The speed on cable internet is DIRECTLY related to how many of your neighbors are using the cable internet at the same time.
Google Internet Speed Test. Run a couple of them.
Then connect to your cable internet via network cable instead of WiFi. Re-do the tests.
A SSD HD boots up faster, but that’s about all it does for you.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. By the time I get 10 tabs open in FireFox (from actual use and not just opening 10 as a test), FireFox is generally consuming 600-700 MB of my RAM all by itself.
I’m on a laptop with very similar specs to the OP’s. In fact, the main difference is that my processor is one step back, I think. Anyway, with only 4 GB of RAM total, having one app hog nearly 20% of it will affect overall performance, especially if you also ask it to run Flash, etc. I’ve been told that moving to 8 GB really will help, provided that you have a 64-bit OS.
I’m not sure of the best fix, myself, but I certainly wouldn’t write this off as an Internet connection issue.
Just as a quick side note if you have 10+ tabs open, depending on what those tabs are, you can easily swamp the machine no matter what your internet speed.
Part of what happens at times is you end up with a bunch of heavy pages like FB games and or other script heavy pages that end up as the browser being one 2+GB file that is too much work for one core and many of those tasks being buried in things like java and flash are less efficient than running a stand alone task. Especially on a laptop as the laptop versions of processors are not as powerful as their desktop bretheren.
At times when you look at the task manager and see a computer sitting at 50% and thinking “no problem” its one core maxing out and cant run any faster. Not all such applications are multi-core aware and thus unable to use all of the available computer power. to smooth out your experience.
It has zero issue with my internet connection. If i reinstall my laptop right now, of course doing it the way i always do and not wipe my computer fully as i dont know how… the computer won’t be that slow if i open 20 plus tabs. Its once i build up files and have programs, it does that.
Yes i have bloatware and tracking cookies. That is 100 percent. I want to know the easiest way to fix this issue. I have microsoft office essentials as i read thats all you need. Also downloaded spybot recently.
If just browsing, what browser do you use? As mentioned upthread, Firefox is a resource hog, not to mention its javascript engine is not as fast as Chrome’s. Chrome with AdBlock Plus extension is generally much faster in my experience.
Its mostly just browsing. The other things are slower as well such as when clicking certain things in windows but it isn’t that bad.
I use chrome. I havent used firefox in a while but i tried firefox again b/c chrome got so slow and lagging but its still just like chrome.
You could probably pay drachillix to connect remotely to your computer and do some cleaning up and set you up with some free programs or steps to do it yourself in the future.
Apparently I’ve been talking to myself here.
Twice I have suggested you download superantispyware and clean out your tracking cookies and other crap that is slowing your machine.
Here is the link http://www.superantispyware.com
If you aren’t going to listen to the answers why did you ask the question?
Or just go to the computer shop spend $50-100 bucks and they will do the same thing. I don’t care which.