Laptop woes

[peetee]

I am posting on here because I want a non-tech answer.
I have a laptop that is about seven years old and runs Windows10. That’s all I can tell you as far as specification goes. It’s not burdened with additional apps and never has been. I have used it occasionally for several years now and each time it becomes slower and slower. Right now I am trying to assess the capacity left. I have run the disc clean up and that process took fifteen minutes to remove not a lot. Now I am in defragment and wish I had never started: it’s only at 2% analysed after 45 minutes.
Where should I be looking for unwanted junk and what’s the quickest way to access it? Also, I only use it to access the internet and transfer photos from my SLR (no, I don’t have loads on the hard drive) so what other office-related programs can I remove to unburden the tired old thing?

[Psamathe]

"Slower and slower" at doing what? e.g. over time web sites get more complex and pages contain more data/images/etc. so if your internet connection speed remains the same it might be slower due to issues outside your laptop. Does the speed vary at different times? e.g. your internet provider might have added more users to same data link which can mean slower downloads at busy times.

You say "no apps" but some consider software like Microsoft Word or Excel or Firefox as not being "apps" and they get more complex, have new features and demand more powerful processors and more memory and faster storage devices.

etc.

Ian

[peetee]

Slower at performing any function. From start up today I tried to open chrome and it was so slow just opening I gave up and I shut it down again, that I then tried to access the clean up which didn’t improve matters a bit.
My son is taking a look and this is what’s on screen with no programs opened by either of us.

[philvantwo]

You need a new laptop!

[Vorpal]

I would disable the 'real-time protection' in the anti-virus, at least temporarily (see the last paragraph). This constantly scans the computer for viruses, which really slows it down, especially if you use the computer infrequently.

Click the 'Start menu'
> Settings
> Update & security
> Windows security
> Virus & threat protection
> Manage settings (about halfway down the page)
Switch the 'Real-time protection' setting to 'Off'

This problem can also be due to a particular Windows error, which has a patch. So, if disabling the real-time protection doesn't fix it, I recommend checking for & installing updates (Windows). If you haven't done this in a while, it's probably a good idea, anyway. You do that by clicking 'Windows Update' under the 'Update & Security' above. Windows updates can take a while, so if you can plan this for a time that you can leave the computer to run it's updates while occasionally checking on it, that is best.

Since you use the computer infrequently, it might be better to run a virus scan after every second use, or something, instead of using real-time protection. If you want constant scanning for viruses (not a bad idea), there are less memory-intensive software packages than the Windows anti-virus, though any sort of constantly running thing will use some memory.

[Stevek76]

Disk defragmentation has been automatic and is an ongoing background process since windows vista or so so there's rarely any benefit from a manual defrag.

You've got plenty of drive space left (about 400GB), the issue more appears to be memory, the real memory is running near full which means it'll be having to over-rely on the disk drive (which I assume really is an actual disk given the age/spec of the laptop and therefore slow). There might be spare slots in the laptop to add in another 2x 1GB sticks of memory which would make a big difference - you'd have to make sure you get the right type though, normally by referencing the stickers on what's already in there or the service manual for your laptop (which should be available from the manufacturer's site). You can sometimes find decent deals on ebay and the like on old components.

Something that may help without spending money is trimming the number of running services down. Windows defaults to quite a few unnecessary background services loading on startup and you may not need all of them, there are guides such as the following you can use to reduce this:

https://www.blackviper.com/service-conf ... gurations/

[peetee]

Thanks for your input folks. Will try all recommendations and update you.
Cheers

[pm9999]

Another possibility is simply a failing disk drive. Happened to me with a 6 or 7 year old laptop. Boot up times got longer and longer and tasks took ages. Seagate have a handy free disk analysis tool here: https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/d ... /seatools/ which I used. (It works on any brand of drive, not just Seagate). The tool indicated the disk was well on the way out, so I bit the bullet and replaced the laptop. In passing, the new laptop has SSD instead of a disk, and start up/task times are superior even compared to a new disk.

[peetee]

Thanks. Will give they a try too.

[IanH]

Earlier this week I couldn't access my TalkTalk account using my laptop, but I logged on easily using my iphone. TalkTalk suggested contacting my Laptop retailer but I solved the problem by "clearing my browser history". I suggest you try it as it's very quick and easy and may save you a lot of expense. Google will tell you how. I'm no techie, so if it doesn't help, I'm sorry. Keywords such as cache and cookies also come to mind!

[simonineaston]

Two strategies that have worked for me in the past are:
A install additional ram
B exchange the hdd for a solid-state device.
A may be easier than B but both should be well within the capability of a typical cyclist, and if not, inexpensive to have done professionally. Hope that helps.

[francovendee]

Had exactly this with a 10 year old Lenovo. I tried all the things you're doing to no effect. The machine was taking an age to start up or open anything. I went on line and tried the various 'fixes' suggested to me.
Finally, mostly as a last effort before giving up, I pressed the factory reset button. I'd backed up everything before doing this.
I can report that this fixed it for me. It was worth the pain to set it back to how I wanted it.

More recently I've had both my laptops die within 3 weeks of each other. Both were not worth repairing so I bought a new machine.
I'm now trying to get used to an AZERTY keyboard as QWERTY isn't an option here.
At least it gives me an excuse for my typing errors!

[squeaker]

Two strategies that have worked for me in the past are:
A install additional ram
B exchange the hdd for a solid-state device.

I have applied option B to three old laptops (all upgraded to Win10), with varying degrees of success, but all were significantly improved. My gut feel is that 2GB of memory might be the problem here, combined with the large chunk that the Antimalware service is taking - just checked on this PC, it's using 117MB, but I'm no expert!

[rmurphy195]

The return to factory spec (after backing up all your data) then re-installing software worked on my W7, 10-year old Asus a while back.

BUT I don't have the windows software updates on that machine. I do on my W10 desktop which occasionally gets frustratingly slow.

Do you have a virus checker? If so you might be able to configure it so it doesn't check everything all the time. i.e. suppress checking of all documents whenever you open them, and all software every time you load it, and also the checks it can do when you first switch on. Plus ensure that if you have scheduled scans set up they aren't kicking-in while you are trying to work!

If you don't have a virus checker, maybe something has installed itself on your machine that hogs its resources, so maybe get hold of Norton or some such. Don't pay full proce every year, just buy it from Currys for 12 or 15 quid!

I guess you've tried googling your specific problems, one by one? If not, its worth a try to see what comes up, esp. from the M'soft support site.

If you are using Firefox it sometimes gets its knickers in a twiest and runs multiple incarnations of itself so you could try closing them all down.

[Vorpal]

Do you have a virus checker? If so you might be able to configure it so it doesn't check everything all the time. i.e. suppress checking of all documents whenever you open them, and all software every time you load it, and also the checks it can do when you first switch on. Plus ensure that if you have scheduled scans set up they aren't kicking-in while you are trying to work!

That's what the antimalware service executable is that's eating the momory in the photo above. That's part of the Windows virus checker. The 'check everything all the time' can be turned off.