why is my laptop so slow?

carly burn

Got an acer +@##??? and its been fine for nye on 4 years but in the last few months its running slower than Phil Chapple with concrete boots on.
My broadband is fine through my phone. The memory was filling up but in the last week I've got rid of a considerable amount of bits. Ran Defraggler and disc clean up but its still pants. Any ideas? I really don't want to be forking out for a new one at this moment in time. cheers

Wheresmeticket

Ask AFKA, I've always found him to be a helpful and courteous source of information on these sorts of issues.

Wheresmeticket

Some ideas. You've cleared cookies and your cache and have run an anti malware programme like ad aware or malwarebytes?

Wheresmeticket

You can also work through your installed programmes using the programme uninstaller in your control panel - over the years you can acquire a lot of stuff you never meant to download, and the updates and start up power these use can really f*** your system up. Failing that there are downloads you can get that will help, but I'd be loathe to download any further software till you've sorted at least some of the problem out.

Wheresmeticket

Alternatively - is it noisier than it used to be? It could be the fan - if your processor gets too hot that affects performance, and fans attract a lot of dust!

Wheresmeticket

That'll be £150 please.

carly burn

cheers mate. You might be onto something with the fan.

DaveMehmet

Buffering on the vinegar strokes? It's a bugger.

Wheresmeticket

Take the back off and use a vacuum cleaner. But be careful.

Clem_Snide

When you say memory, do you mean hard disc space or RAM?

Just clearing hard disc space won't make much difference.

When you open task manager what sort of percentage is the CPU running at? If it is maxing out and has all of a sudden started doing it you might have downloaded something unpleasant.

As already advised if you haven't already run malware bytes and super anti-spy ware. Either of those should pick up and clear out anything unpleasant.

Always worth booting up in safe mode to see if it runs ok.

If that doesn't help with it being 4 years old it could be a component failing. Mother-in-laws is about the same age and the mother board was on the way out, causing it to run like an absolute dog.

Wheresmeticket

Edited. Too rude even for me. The phrase "mother in law" always brings out the Dawson in me.

cafcfan

I use software called CCleaner to get rid of all the crap. It cleans out temporary files, windows & internet explorer, memory dumps, etc, etc. You get to choose what you want "cleaned" with tick boxes.
And, I know people will say you shouldn't do it but it also has a registry cleaner that I use every now and again to get rid of all the orphan bits left after updates. It provides the facility to back up what is being deleted. I've never had issues with it. I can understand why you might be nervous about it but - if all else fails.....
Oh, it has an "analyse" option so you can see what it's taking out before you actually run it.

Robbo on the wing

Hit it with a hammer. Show it who's boss.

rikofold

To be frank, it's almost impossible to get to the quick pace you want simply by housekeeping. The biggest bottleneck in most computers is the speed of the hard drive, pure and simple.

I transformed the performance of my laptop last year by picking up a 250GB solid state disk (SSD) and reinstalling from scratch. It cost me around £100 for the disk if memory serves and I really have got a ridiculously fast laptop now - Windows loads up in seconds, literally, and saving even large files is like the click of your fingers.

You might find that Acer's system backup is sufficient for this - restoring it to the new disk may be all you need to do. For me I installed Windows 7 from scratch using a bootable USB stick - you can download the installation stuff for free from Microsoft to create that - using the product code on the bottom of my laptop, and then downloaded a heap of software from Acer's support site. There were some Acer-specific apps I didn't get back, but a decent exchange to be honest - I cannot begin to describe the difference, really.

Oh, I also connected the old disk back to the PC with an external USB adapter so I could restore any documents I needed. Still got the disk just in case.

sam3110

Just wait for a friendly call from the Microsoft Helpdesk

orpingtonRED

4 yrs is good going for a laptop, after that they will get slower. That is why I took the advice of my IT geek pal that said don't pay over £300 for a laptop it will last u 4-5 yrs the same as the more expensive ones and then its not so sad when you have to replace

ForeverAddickted

rikofold said:

I transformed the performance of my laptop last year by picking up a 250GB solid state disk (SSD) and reinstalling from scratch. It cost me around £100 for the disk if memory serves and I really have got a ridiculously fast laptop now - Windows loads up in seconds, literally, and saving even large files is like the click of your fingers

Out of curiosity... When you say large files how big are we talking (5.GB+)...?

kings hill addick

rikofold said:

To be frank, it's almost impossible to get to the quick pace you want simply by housekeeping. The biggest bottleneck in most computers is the speed of the hard drive, pure and simple.

I transformed the performance of my laptop last year by picking up a 250GB solid state disk (SSD) and reinstalling from scratch. It cost me around £100 for the disk if memory serves and I really have got a ridiculously fast laptop now - Windows loads up in seconds, literally, and saving even large files is like the click of your fingers.

You might find that Acer's system backup is sufficient for this - restoring it to the new disk may be all you need to do. For me I installed Windows 7 from scratch using a bootable USB stick - you can download the installation stuff for free from Microsoft to create that - using the product code on the bottom of my laptop, and then downloaded a heap of software from Acer's support site. There were some Acer-specific apps I didn't get back, but a decent exchange to be honest - I cannot begin to describe the difference, really.

Oh, I also connected the old disk back to the PC with an external USB adapter so I could restore any documents I needed. Still got the disk just in case.

Rikofold, and chance you would have link for the Win 7 bootable USB stick files. Ive looked for them in the past and MS seem to hide it.

Thanks

tangoflash

rikofold said:

I transformed the performance of my laptop last year by picking up a 250GB solid state disk (SSD) and reinstalling from scratch. It cost me around £100 for the disk if memory serves and I really have got a ridiculously fast laptop now - Windows loads up in seconds, literally, and saving even large files is like the click of your fingers.

Completely agree regarding SSD. Installed one a while back in my PC (not laptop) which I just use as my c drive and the difference was amazing. Best bit of kit I've bought for a computer.......

cafcnick1992

What rikofold said 100%. Most old-ish laptops come with 5400rpm spinning HDDs which are absolute dogs. Get rid of it and put in an SSD

johnny73

I have a laptop which kept on over heating in hot weather. Bought a cooling pad 18 months ago and has worked fine since.

kentaddick

4 years is a decent life for a laptop...

soapy_jones

I started work in IT or "computers" as it was known, in 1982. I happily manually bootstrapped "machines" and inserted punch cards to run programs, mounted magnetic tape reels of varying sizes and loaded many many miles of printer paper, single part, double and even four part (oh those days just flew by...). I noticed it all start to go down hill when I started seeing desktop IBM PC's in the office and I knew that the days of insanity were upon us... bloody toys! We had a Cray 2 super computer installed at BP, don't know how heavy it actually was but they took the whole centre of Brittanic House West out and rebuilt it just so it was strong enough. Now that is a bloody computer! These days of the bloody Cloud, rooms and rooms of pizza boxes and crap software, which they reckon they actually invented, viva the mainframe!

If you require any more boring IT related stories please contact me on boringITtwat@gmail.com...

Oh carly, like others have mentioned 4 years is a good age for a craptop, treat yourself to an early Christmas present and if the spotty 17 year old in PC World insists on Windows 8 kick him in the nuts and tell him "stoopid boy"

Eddie Firmani

johnny73 said:

I have a laptop which kept on over heating in hot weather. Bought a cooling pad 18 months ago and has worked fine since.

Aah! A post that's written in English. Where does one get a cooling pad?

The Red Robin

carly burn said:

Got an acer +@##??? and its been fine for nye on 4 years but in the last few months its running slower than Phil Chapple with concrete boots on.
My broadband is fine through my phone. The memory was filling up but in the last week I've got rid of a considerable amount of bits. Ran Defraggler and disc clean up but its still pants. Any ideas? I really don't want to be forking out for a new one at this moment in time. cheers

Too much porn.

Starinnaddick

Google Windows readyboost.

Worth having a look.

carly burn

The Red Robin said:

carly burn said:

Got an acer +@##??? and its been fine for nye on 4 years but in the last few months its running slower than Phil Chapple with concrete boots on.
My broadband is fine through my phone. The memory was filling up but in the last week I've got rid of a considerable amount of bits. Ran Defraggler and disc clean up but its still pants. Any ideas? I really don't want to be forking out for a new one at this moment in time. cheers

Too much porn.

Could be:-)

So I was hoovering out the fan this morning as wheresmeticket kindly recommended. Missus pipes up with the 'what you up to?' As per norm.
' just emptying the recycling bin dearest' I reply.

Didn't bat an eyelid!

johnny73

Eddie Firmani said:

johnny73 said:

I have a laptop which kept on over heating in hot weather. Bought a cooling pad 18 months ago and has worked fine since.

Aah! A post that's written in English. Where does one get a cooling pad?

Bought mine from amazon. But plenty of places sell them. Just do a google search. 10 to 15 pounds.

Eddie Firmani

johnny73 said:

Eddie Firmani said:

johnny73 said:

I have a laptop which kept on over heating in hot weather. Bought a cooling pad 18 months ago and has worked fine since.

Aah! A post that's written in English. Where does one get a cooling pad?

Bought mine from amazon. But plenty of places sell them. Just do a google search. 10 to 15 pounds.

Will do. Thanks.

rikofold

kings hill addick said:

rikofold said:

To be frank, it's almost impossible to get to the quick pace you want simply by housekeeping. The biggest bottleneck in most computers is the speed of the hard drive, pure and simple.

I transformed the performance of my laptop last year by picking up a 250GB solid state disk (SSD) and reinstalling from scratch. It cost me around £100 for the disk if memory serves and I really have got a ridiculously fast laptop now - Windows loads up in seconds, literally, and saving even large files is like the click of your fingers.

You might find that Acer's system backup is sufficient for this - restoring it to the new disk may be all you need to do. For me I installed Windows 7 from scratch using a bootable USB stick - you can download the installation stuff for free from Microsoft to create that - using the product code on the bottom of my laptop, and then downloaded a heap of software from Acer's support site. There were some Acer-specific apps I didn't get back, but a decent exchange to be honest - I cannot begin to describe the difference, really.

Oh, I also connected the old disk back to the PC with an external USB adapter so I could restore any documents I needed. Still got the disk just in case.

Rikofold, and chance you would have link for the Win 7 bootable USB stick files. Ive looked for them in the past and MS seem to hide it.

Thanks

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

You can find it on a number of sites by googling 'windows 7 USB download tool'

rikofold

For those recommending a new laptop, I'd ask one simple question - why? It's nice to have a shiny new thing, but if the current does all you want it to apart from the speed then why splash out hundreds when you don't need to?

I bought my current laptop several years ago. Admittedly it was a powerful thing back then, cost me around £800. Since then I've had to replace the keyboard and the touchpad for a cost of around £50 - shows how much I've used it - and I had to replace the screen after I stood on it by accident for about £70 I think.

The above all happened within a couple of months, and I was considering a new laptop until someone gave me the SSD tip - it really is like having a brand new laptop. Seriously, the difference is breathtaking. I bought this one, currently going for £85.

If you want to spend a few hundred quid it's up to you, but I reckon an SSD equipped old laptop will be quicker than any with a traditional 5400 or 7200 hard drive.